< The 2015 All-Asia Research Team
Total appearances: 2
Team debut: 2014Capturing its first top finish on this roster is Morgan Stanley, whose crew under the guidance of Geoffrey Kendrick and Kewei Yang rockets all the way from runner-up, where the firm debuted last year. The four researchers in Hong Kong reliably deliver “the kind of analysis I need to understand the risk appetite of the market, which is my No. 1 concern,” reports one fund manager. Currently, they are forecasting that the Indian rupee will outperform its regional peers going forward, owing to attractive currency carry trade. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has been advancing its economic reform agenda, the strategists note, and the nation’s current-account deficit has narrowed significantly, contracting from $31.9 billion, or 6.7 percent of gross domestic product, in the quarter through December 2012 to $8.2 billion, or 1.6 percent of GDP, two years later. In China, they report, the government is focusing on an orderly liberalization of the country’s capital account, with an eye toward gaining reserve status for the renminbi by earning inclusion in the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights currency basket, which now encompasses the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen. As a result, spot trading in the renminbi, both on- and offshore, should appeal to investors on a risk-adjusted carry basis, the analysts contend. Kendrick, 38, and Yang, 35, both jumped to Morgan Stanley in September 2013 from Nomura, where the former had served as head of European forex strategy in London and the latter had been the Singapore-based director of Asian interest rates strategy. Kendrick previously led UBS’s forex efforts and served as a staff economist at the Australian Commonwealth Treasury. He earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales. Yang holds a Ph.D. in financial economics and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in statistics, all from China’s Fudan University. His prior experience includes working as an interest rate and forex researcher at Lehman Brothers, whose Asian operations Nomura acquired in October 2008.
