Strategy views on the US-Iran interim deal

Research evidence excerpt

Strategy views on the US-Iran interim deal

dia (YonhapInfomax, 15 June) reported that an

FX market official criticised shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean’s low FX-hedged ratio, which

prompted Hanwha to say it would increase its hedge ratio to the 70%-75% range; 3) local

retail purchases of US equities remain anaemic. Korean retail investors net bought

only USD527mn of US portfolio assets between 8 and 12 June. In MTD June, Korea’s

retail investors net sold USD283mn of US portfolio assets, following UDS568mn of net

selling in May 2026. That said, we remain concerned that rising Korean equities could

create a “paradoxicalphenomenon”ofFXdemand by local and foreign investors,

which is why we only have the position with a conviction level of 1/5.

Long SGD/IDR: We further lower the conviction level to 3/5 (from 4; the conviction level

was raisedto5/5 on 29 May and then lowered to 4/5 on 12June), as near confirmation of

the US-Iran MOU puts near-term pressure on our position. Our target remains at 14,600

(~12% total gains) by end-August, and spot is already trading close to our trailing stop-

loss of 2%. Nonetheless, there is good reasoning for continuing to hold on to the trade

through this week: 1) BI may not hike at its regular policy meeting on 18 June (our

economics team’s view) versus consensus expectations that BI will hike again. Arguably,

the signing of the MOU reduces the need for BI to continue hiking. An on-hold decision by

BI may lead to further IDR weakness; 2) mixed BI signaling. On 10 June, Bloomberg

reported BI Governor Warjiyo signalled that the central bank will refrain from buying bonds

with tenors that are 10 years or longer. However, data on BI’s holdings of IDR tradable

government securities showed that they rose by IDR73.8trn (USD4.0bn) between 10

and 11 June.