Asking the interesting questions
Investors get plenty of bank research and know to take it with a pinch of salt. AsianInvestor is organising a day for money managers to listen and quiz people with a view that isn’t tied to a bank’s business model – although many of them learned their discipline either as bank or buy-side analysts.
This is one of my favourite events of the year because it is always intellectually engaging. I’ll be involved in two discussions on the day (October 8).
First, I will be joined by Simon Ogus, Gillem Tulloch and Velisarios Kattoulas to analyse the impact of politics and geopolitics on your portfolio. Being based in Asia, none of us is a stranger to this topic. But I see a dichotomy: even as geopolitical tensions are rising everywhere, worsening tail risks, many Asian governments are purportedly deregulating and liberalising. Another factor is Western financial re-regulation that is creating liquidity risk and rising costs. Plenty to untangle.
Second, how is technology changing your landscape? Alibaba’s successful IPO in New York serves as a useful backdrop to what else lies in store. With me to consider ideas from ‘the internet of things’ to the next industry awaiting disruption will be Sean Maher, Paul Schulte, Cyrus Mewawalla and Salavatore Ferraro.
The day, which we call Asia’s Independent Research Summit, or AIRS, will include thought sessions on the big questions of our region, the China Dream and Shinzo Abe’s various arrows. On China, an old friend of AsianInvestor, Stuart Leckie of Stirling Finance, will press analysts Benjamin Schmittzehe, Tim Summers, Bill Stacey and Peter Perkins to boil this down to portfolio decisions. And our own head of conferences, Alastair Hills, will dig for investing tips on Japan and the yen from Jamie Miyazaki, Robert Medd, Freya Beamish and Takuji Okubo.
Josh Noble, Asia markets correspondent at the Financial Times, is joining us to lead a discussion on whether the global economy is broken and where it is headed. He’ll be joined by Jim Walker, Chen Zhao, Arnab Das and Diana Choyleva, to give investors a sense of the macro state of affairs.
We’ll conclude the day with tips on how to make money given these trends, with Hills quizzing Arnab Das, Peter Perkins, John Schofield, Sean Maher, Jeffrey Zhang and Salvatore Ferraro for their top investment calls.
There will also be small break-out talks on technology, media and telecoms; on property; on banks; on commodities; on regulation; and on the state of independent research, which will include views from BTIG’s Asia Pacific CEO, Jesse Lentchner.
It’s a packed day of intellectual challenges for analysts, portfolio managers and chief investment officers from all types of firms. If you haven’t registered already, or if you want some more information, please send an email to Alastair Hills.