KraneShares’ Brendan Ahern on the health of Chinese consumers: They have money
2025-12-30_18-48 • 2m 12s
Contessa Brewer (Anchor)
00:00.000
Let's
drill
down
on
China.
The
potential
changes
to
the
investment
landscape
next
year.
Joining
me
now
is
Brendan
Ahern,
who's
the
chief
investment
officer
of
Crane
Shares,
the
Crane
Shares
China
Internet
ETFs.
K-Web
climbing
nearly
18%
this
year
despite
challenges
from
tariffs
Contessa Brewer (Anchor)
00:16.280
and
that
trade
uncertainty.
Both
of
those,
Brendan,
I
just
was
talking
about
with
CIMA,
first
of
all,
are
you
surprised
at
the
resilience
of
China
trade
given
the
ratcheting
up
of
tariff
pressure?
Brendan Ahern (Chief Investment Officer)
00:29.720
No.
No,
because
I
think
China's
really
moved
away
from
the
US
as
its
primary
export
destination.
It's
largest
trade
partner
today
is
ASEAN.
It's
not
not
the
EU,
it's
not
the
US.
So
So
China's
a
big,
big
part
of
the
Asian
economic
GDP,
of
the
growth
of
trade.
So
So
it's
really
a
Brendan Ahern (Chief Investment Officer)
00:49.080
lot
of
these
tariffs
have
really
To
Sima's
point,
it's
really
pushed
a
lot
of
those
goods
into
other
parts
of
the
world,
particularly
in
Asia.
Contessa Brewer (Anchor)
00:58.760
When
you're
looking
at
the
health
of
the
Chinese
consumer.
How
much
of
that
is
linked
to
stimulus
by
the
Chinese
government?
And
how
much
of
it
is
because
there
are
new
opportunities
for
the
Chinese
middle
class?
Brendan Ahern (Chief Investment Officer)
01:14.480
Yeah,
I
mean
certainly
having
been
in
Macau
myself
last
year
or
this
this
year
earlier
this
year,
you
just
overwhelmed
by
the
number
of
Chinese
tourists
in
Macau
and
how
crowded
those
casinos
were.
So
the
Chinese
consumer
has
money.
It's
just
getting
it
out
of
their
proverbial
Brendan Ahern (Chief Investment Officer)
01:34.360
wallet
or
purse
uh
that
the
housing
crisis
were
upwards
of
two-thirds
of
Chinese
urban
household
wealth
is
invested
in.
You've
seen
these
big
declines.
So
So
the
issue
is
how
does
the
government
stimulate
uh
incentivize
those
consumers
to
actually
spend
money.
And
that's
where
Brendan Ahern (Chief Investment Officer)
01:52.480
we've
seen
consumer
subsidies.
You're
seeing
a
lot
of
the
Chinese
EV
stocks,
the
ADRs
rallying
today
because
they
uh
announced
that
they're
actually
going
to
extend
those
auto
and
EV
consumption
incentives
and
we
expect
very
similar
around
electronics
and
home
appliances
as
we
Brendan Ahern (Chief Investment Officer)
02:10.840
saw
in
2025.
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