This Chinese tech fund is a contrarian play after year’s solid start, Josh Brown says

The rebound in Chinese tech stocks still has plenty of doubters, but shares could continue to climb, according to Ritholtz Wealth Management CEO Josh Brown. The CNBC ” Halftime Report ” investment committee picked contrarian ideas at the beginning of the year. Brown chose the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB) , though he didn’t buy any shares. The fund has rallied in 2024 so far following three straight years of losses, and Brown said Thursday that the sentiment had gotten way too negative on Chinese stocks. He credited Jim Grant, editor of the Interest Rate Observer, for teaching him the phrase “good things happen to cheap assets.” “When nobody can even fabricate, in their wildest imagination, why you would buy an entire asset class, those are the types of situations where you don’t even really need much to turn in the way of news to get a huge turn in the prices of the stocks,” Brown said Thursday on “Halftime Report.” KWEB 5Y mountain The KWEB fund is up in 2024 after several years of losses. KWEB was up more than 8% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date gains to roughly 12%. As the full fund name implies, KWEB is not a broad index fund of the Chinese market. Instead, it focuses on growth-oriented tech stocks. Its top holdings include Tencent Holdings and Alibaba . “These are the best of the Chinese equities. These are the technology and internet companies, many of which also trade here in the United States,” Brown said. Part of the reason investors soured on China is because of friction between business and political leaders. But there has been a “softening of regulation and rhetoric” from Chinese officials toward technology and business that could help sustain the rally, Brown said. “Maybe a few people like [the stocks] now, but I still think it is a contrarian play, and what China has figured out is that they actually need their stock market to work,” Brown said.