Chief Economist & Political Strategist, CrossASEAN Research

Prasenjit K. Basu

Chief Economist & Political Strategist

CrossASEAN Research

At CrossASEAN Research we strive to produce unbiased and differentiated on the ground insights on companies across South East Asia. Our Research is produced for the most part after face to face meetings and conversations with company management to dig deep into the long term vision and strategy of the companies we cover. We seek to deliver investable and actionable themes on sectors and markets across SE Asia, often in collaboration with other Insight Providers across the region, pooling the vast experience of the analysts within the Smartkarma Ecosystem. We also offer bespoke work and tailor made trips for our clients. 

Insights across South East Asia

Macroeconomics

<ul>
<li>US tariff agreements have contained tariffs at 10% for the UK, 15% for Japan and the EU, 19% for Indonesia and 20% for Vietnam. Lower tariffs will dampen inflation. </li>
<li>FOMC ought to cut rates now, but may stand on ceremony. The tariffs are nonetheless likely to steadily bolster US manufacturing in H2/2025, with Jun'25 steel output already up 4.6%YoY. </li>
<li>With growth higher than expected, and new revenues of over US$300bn from tariffs, the fiscal deficit should fall below 6% of GDP, allowing bond yields to moderate below 4%. </li>
</ul>


US tariff agreements have contained tariffs at 10% for the UK, 15% for Japan and the EU, 19% for Indonesia and 20% for Vietnam. Lower tariffs will dampen inflation. 
FOMC ought to cut rates now, but may stand on ceremony. The tariffs are nonetheless likely to steadily bolster US manufacturing in H2/2025, with Jun'25 steel output already up 4.6%YoY. 
With growth higher than expected, and new revenues of over US$300bn from tariffs, the fiscal deficit should fall below 6% of GDP, allowing bond yields to moderate below 4%. 


US: Tariff Deals with Japan, EU, Indonesia, Philippines Sharply Reduce Stagflation Risk

Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning, Copley Fund Research

Steven Holden

Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning

Copley Fund Research

Copley Fund Research provide research and data on asset allocation among Global and Emerging Market equity funds.  The analysis details absolute and relative positioning across countries, sectors and industries together with highly granular data on single stock and single fund allocations.  The data is updated monthly with time series going back to January 2011.

Global Research - Analysis of 165 prominent Global equity funds, combined AUM $335bn
GEM Research - Analysis of 127 prominent global EM equity funds, combined AUM $250bn

Asset Allocation - Global and GEM Equity

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul>
<li>Global fund positioning in the Motor Vehicles sector has entered a fresh decline following a revival between 2020 and 2023.</li>
<li>A record-low 10% of active Global funds are now overweight, with the sector holding an average underweight of -1.41%, making it the 4th largest industry-level underweight among active managers.</li>
<li>Long-Term declines in Japanese autos have hit new lows, while German and US autos have drifted lower since 2023.</li>
</ul>


Global fund positioning in the Motor Vehicles sector has entered a fresh decline following a revival between 2020 and 2023.
A record-low 10% of active Global funds are now overweight, with the sector holding an average underweight of -1.41%, making it the 4th largest industry-level underweight among active managers.
Long-Term declines in Japanese autos have hit new lows, while German and US autos have drifted lower since 2023.


Global Autos:  Falling Investor Confidence

Equity Long-Short Analyst

Pyari Menon

<ul>
<li>For this report we datamined autonomous driving technology (ADT) innovations.</li>
<li>Worldwide over the last decade the ADT sector has seen nearly 25% CAGR growth in patent filings, with over 40,000 patent family filings.</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/delphi-automotive-plc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:20870:1" rel="noopener"><strong>Aptiv PLC (APTV US)</strong></a>, with a leadership position in several areas of ADT, strong financials, reasonable valuations and strategic partnerships stands out.  </li>
</ul>


For this report we datamined autonomous driving technology (ADT) innovations.
Worldwide over the last decade the ADT sector has seen nearly 25% CAGR growth in patent filings, with over 40,000 patent family filings.

Aptiv PLC (APTV US), with a leadership position in several areas of ADT, strong financials, reasonable valuations and strategic partnerships stands out.  


Asia and Global Semiconductor and Tech Research

Andrew Lu

<ul>
<li>Both TSMC and UMC saw about 20% cut in automotive industry wafer sales in 3Q23, which was 20% worse than customers' guidance.</li>
<li>Reasons for discrepancies: 1. IDMs cut foundry orders but keep in house utilization higher; 2. Worse than expected US auto factories strike; 3. Rate hike results in worse car sales.</li>
<li>We suggest clients to be cautious on the investment of automotive supply chain for the next 3-6 months</li>
</ul>


Both TSMC and UMC saw about 20% cut in automotive industry wafer sales in 3Q23, which was 20% worse than customers' guidance.
Reasons for discrepancies: 1. IDMs cut foundry orders but keep in house utilization higher; 2. Worse than expected US auto factories strike; 3. Rate hike results in worse car sales.
We suggest clients to be cautious on the investment of automotive supply chain for the next 3-6 months


Top Foundries See Cut in Automotive Industry Wafer Sales, Implications

Private Markets, Angel and Secondary Investing, Sacra

Sacra

Private Markets, Angel and Secondary Investing

Bringing transparency to private markets so investors, founders, and employees can build on conviction. Sacra delivers deeply researched insights on the private companies shaping tomorrow's markets. By surfacing the data, context, and operator perspective that are missing from private markets today, we help secondary buyers and sellers price equity accurately and unlock liquidity for the people building these businesses.

Private Capital Markets

<ul>
<li>Two companies emerged from the first wave with the balance sheets and data to lead: Waymo, backed by $27B+ in cumulative Alphabet funding and generating a Sacra-estimated $355M in annualized revenue as of February 2026 across ~500,000 weekly paid rides in 11 U.S. cities, and Tesla, which is building its robotaxi on top of a consumer self-driving fleet of 7M+ vehicles generating ~1 billion miles of driving data per month.</li>
<li>The market is sorting into four layers: 1) vertically integrated robotaxi operators like Waymo, Tesla and Zoox that own the vehicle, the autonomy stack, the fleet and the customer relationship, 2) B2B software companies that license the AI driving brain to OEMs like Wayve, Applied Intuition, Mobileye and Nuro, 3) demand aggregators like Uber that route riders to whichever autonomous vehicle is nearest, and 4) fleet infrastructure providers like Moove ($400M ARR in June 2025, up from $275M in 2024), Vay and Avis that finance, maintain and operate the physical cars.</li>
<li>While Uber is profitable with a demand-aggregation model that can plug in any autonomous vehicle, Waymo has the most advanced full-stack robotaxi operation but burns ~$5B+ a year, a gap that explains their frenemy partnership dynamics where Waymo trades a cut of every Uber-routed fare for the demand density it needs while it races to drive vehicle costs down from ~$175K per Jaguar I-PACE toward a target of sub-$50K with a prospective Hyundai deal while pushing utilization from 35% toward 55%+.</li>
</ul>


Two companies emerged from the first wave with the balance sheets and data to lead: Waymo, backed by $27B+ in cumulative Alphabet funding and generating a Sacra-estimated $355M in annualized revenue as of February 2026 across ~500,000 weekly paid rides in 11 U.S. cities, and Tesla, which is building its robotaxi on top of a consumer self-driving fleet of 7M+ vehicles generating ~1 billion miles of driving data per month.
The market is sorting into four layers: 1) vertically integrated robotaxi operators like Waymo, Tesla and Zoox that own the vehicle, the autonomy stack, the fleet and the customer relationship, 2) B2B software companies that license the AI driving brain to OEMs like Wayve, Applied Intuition, Mobileye and Nuro, 3) demand aggregators like Uber that route riders to whichever autonomous vehicle is nearest, and 4) fleet infrastructure providers like Moove ($400M ARR in June 2025, up from $275M in 2024), Vay and Avis that finance, maintain and operate the physical cars.
While Uber is profitable with a demand-aggregation model that can plug in any autonomous vehicle, Waymo has the most advanced full-stack robotaxi operation but burns ~$5B+ a year, a gap that explains their frenemy partnership dynamics where Waymo trades a cut of every Uber-routed fare for the demand density it needs while it races to drive vehicle costs down from ~$175K per Jaguar I-PACE toward a target of sub-$50K with a prospective Hyundai deal while pushing utilization from 35% toward 55%+.


United States

General Motors Co. manufactures and markets new cars and trucks. The Company offers features for special needs drivers, OnStar vehicle protection, service, parts, accessories, maintenance, XM satellite radio, features for commercial owners, and more. General Motors offers its vehicles and services worldwide.

Price Gauge
52-week Range	0.00 - 0.00
Market Cap (USDm)	0.00
P/E	0.00
Dividend (Yield)	0.00

General Motors (GM US)

US: Tariff Deals with Japan, EU, Indonesia, Philippines Sharply Reduce Stagflation Risk

US tariff deals lowering them will help dampen inflation, and should trigger rate cuts. Tariffs are already boosting US manufacturing, thus will...

Prasenjit K. Basu

Global Autos: Falling Investor Confidence

Tesla overtakes Stellantis as the most widely held Auto company. General Motors is ahead of the almost uninvestable Ford Motor Co.

Steven Holden

Autonomous Driving Leadership Landscape

Autonomous driving tech seeing surge in innovations to make journeys safer, more efficient, and intelligent. Welcome to the future of mobility.

Pyari Menon

Top Foundries See Cut in Automotive Industry Wafer Sales, Implications

Top foundries see worse than expected automotive wafer sales, implying more automotive supply chain members are going to miss earnings expectation...

Andrew Lu

Booking.Com Of Robotaxi

TL;DR: After $30B+ burned in the first AV wave, end-to-end neural networks have made autonomous driving viable again with vertically integrated...

Sacra

Price Gauge

52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

P/E

Dividend (Yield)

US: Tariff Deals with Japan, EU, Indonesia, Philippines Sharply Reduce Stagflation Risk

​US tariff deals lowering them will help dampen inflation, and should trigger rate cuts. Tariffs are already boosting US manufacturing, thus will...

Prasenjit K. Basu

Global Autos: Falling Investor Confidence

Tesla overtakes Stellantis as the most widely held Auto company. General Motors is ahead of the almost uninvestable Ford Motor Co.

Steven Holden

Autonomous Driving Leadership Landscape

Autonomous driving tech seeing surge in innovations to make journeys safer, more efficient, and intelligent. Welcome to the future of mobility.

Pyari Menon

Top Foundries See Cut in Automotive Industry Wafer Sales, Implications

Top foundries see worse than expected automotive wafer sales, implying more automotive supply chain members are going to miss earnings expectation...

Andrew Lu

Booking.Com Of Robotaxi

TL;DR: After $30B+ burned in the first AV wave, end-to-end neural networks have made autonomous driving viable again with vertically integrated...

Sacra

US tariff deals lowering them will help dampen inflation, and should trigger rate cuts. Tariffs are already boosting US manufacturing, thus will...