AXA’s Ecaterina Bigos on Trump’s Asia posture and another year of AI
The Asia-focused chief investment officer on Trump’s tariffs, AI’s dominance through 2025, and her contrarian bet against the market on China late last year.
In the weeks leading up to US President Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House, Ecaterina Bigos, AXA Investment Managers’ chief investment officer for Asia excluding Japan, was bracing for the torrent of policy changes likely to impact Asian markets.
In an interview with Capital Brief for Past Performance — a Q&A series spotlighting top investors, their contrarian strategies, and future outlooks — Bigos discussed how she prepared for Trump’s tariff commitments ahead of his inauguration. She also shared her insights on why artificial intelligence is set to remain a dominant force through 2025, as well as her decision to bet against the market on China late last year.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Where are you seeing value in Asia at the moment, and how do you think the Trump White House will impact your view on value in the region?
I think, ultimately, as we move to 2025, the biggest driver is the political or the policy uncertainty. So we moved away from that political uncertainty of who is going to win the elections, and then we shifted very quickly into this policy uncertainty. We all know the intentions for Trump. What we don’t know — and I think this is ultimately where the forecasts vary in terms of the expectations of growth, inflation, and liberal returns for 2025 — is the timing of those policies, the scale of these policies, and the scope of those policies, right? Because those are going to be quite different. We don’t know.
