A long-term trend shows that the Asia-Pacific equities markets will continue to improve, according to the United States-based technical analysis team headed by Louise Yamada of Citigroup Global Markets.
Of nine Asian equity markets the team have following, five of them - Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and India - were rated 'buy' while the others - China, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan - were rated 'avoid', Ms Yamanda wrote in a report.
'Even though these markets are rated 'avoid', in each case, the trend of those markets is improving,' she said, adding the four markets were put on a 'technical upgrade alert'.
Japan and emerging Asian markets were taken off the 'technical downgrade alert' list.
'Emerging Asia has improved steadily on both an absolute price and relative basis over the past three months. Intermediate-term models for emerging Asia are rated 'buy' and moving toward overbought levels, which is a sign of strength,' Ms Yamada said.
Japan, which has underperformed over the past three months, had started to turn around, she said, while cautioning that she needed to see more follow-through to the trend of outperformance before it could be considered for an upgrade.
The chartist read the technicals for Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index as positive on both an intermediate and long-term basis. While the weakness in the market in the past two years was dramatic, the pullback has held above a long-term trend line drawn off the 1989-98 lows.