< The 2015 All-Asia Research Team

Total appearances: 11

Team debut: 1997Michele Barlow and her Hong Kong–based crew at Bank of America Merrill Lynch repeat at No. 2, thanks in part to their comprehensive coverage. “She often does fascinating work, including historical risk-reward analyses of Asian public credits versus U.S. credits,” observes one backer. Another supporter praises the researchers for providing “actual strategies that can be used to manage portfolios.” Broadly, Barlow and her teammates advocate that clients overweight China, Hong Kong, India and Indonesia and underweight other countries in the region. Through the balance of 2015, she says, “we expect higher volatility as the Federal Reserve withdraws dollar-market liquidity, but we are not expecting yields to rise dramatically given the deflationary backdrop in Europe and Japan, as well as falling oil prices.” To capture yield investors are well advised to position themselves “down the credit curve,” she adds, opting for triple-Bs and such capital-structure credits as tier-2 bonds while maintaining a focus on quality risk. “We recommend staying in quality — double-Bs — and being very selective in lower-rated bonds given the propensity for headline risk in China property and the expectation that industrials will continue to see credit deterioration this year,” Barlow concludes.