J.P. Morgan ASEAN FTM 13 Jul 26 Asean data watch, EM money trail, Thai retailers, Philippines: Crude relief, SMID view

Research evidence excerpt

J.P. Morgan ASEAN FTM 13 Jul 26 Asean data watch, EM money trail, Thai retailers, Philippines: Crude relief, SMID view

Aditya Srinath AC Asia Pacific Equity Research

(65) 6882-7138 13 July 2026 J P M O R G A N

aditya.srinath@jpmorgan.com

The recent downshift in oil prices, if sustained, would provide significant relief to the energy import bill

Core trade deficits have stayed sticky despite the overall capex slowdown in recent years…

The SMid View (Eduardo Lecubarri), Global

The crazier the world around us gets, the more fundamental we become.

2026 is being a very tough year for active managers with 2/3rds of PMs now underperforming their benchmarks over the last 12

mths both within SMid dedicated funds as well as in Large/All-Cap ones (see our PM Sentiment Meter report published last

week). In our view, this is completely understandable as PMs have had to face a fundamentally irrational environment. On one

end, we have all spent mths being told that oil prices would remain high as inventories had been depleted and the reopening of

Hormuz (if and when it happened) would not resolve the shortage in short order. Well, as it turns out, Hormuz has not even fully

reopened yet and Oil is already within a stone’s throw of where it started the yr while the world talks about a potential

oversupply! Not less impressive is the shifts we are seeing in terms of sector preferences with Tech (a growth story immune to

Hormuz) being moved to the back burner in favor of sectors like Cons. Disc. which outperformed within SMid-Caps pretty much

around the world in June despite 2026 being a yr in which purchasing power should hurt from headline inflation being above