Herald van der Linde, HSBC’s chief Asia equity strategist, can’t seem to shake off his moniker “The Flying Dutchman”, so he has decided to milk it for what it’s worth. The label is now emblazoned on his equity research reports and even his friends teasingly call him by that name. The Hong Kong-based strategist spends a lot of time on planes and airports every year strutting his stuff. It helps, too, that he is a fan of German musician Richard Wagner, who composed the famous opera The Flying Dutchman.

With markets still wobbly in the wake of the recent selloff in global stocks, van der Linde concedes that the stars are not properly aligned for the region’s markets. “There are a lot of things going against Asia, like slowing economies and weaker currencies, in addition to external factors like the US Fed’s expected interest rate hike next month, higher US bond yields, a stronger dollar and lower commodity prices,” he told The Edge Singapore in a recent interview.

But internal factors are almost as significant. The most important among them is the “reform momentum” in Asia, he says. “China is continuing to reform,” he notes. One could argue about the pace of reforms, but clearly, the Chinese economy is undergoing reforms. In Japan, reforms may not be proceeding as planned, and while India is striving to make changes, it looks like it may take a lot longer to get some key reforms, such as the Land Bill, through Parliament, he notes. “Indonesia has been disappointing so far, but at least [President] Jokowi has just reshuffled his cabinet and, in the Philippines, with what we have heard from the three contenders for the presidential elections next year, we are confident there will be continuity” in reforms, he argues.

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