< The 2016 All-Asia Research Team

Total appearances: 6

Team debut: 2001

Paul Winter leads UBS’s quantitative research team to its first appearance on this roster since 2005. Working out of Sydney, the six-person group claims second place, in large part owing to its “good, timely and very understandable models — especially when so many people are often academic, complicated and opaque,” one backer in Hong Kong observes. For their part, Winter reports, he and his colleagues are deeply interested in the power of demographics. The cohort of baby boomers who are retiring en masse “are driving us into a world of structurally lower growth, lower bond yields, rising equity risk premiums and higher volatility,” he says. “This has significant implications for investor preferences both across asset classes as well as within equities.” Against this backdrop, the strategists believe that “investors should stay long on high-quality names and brace for market volatility,” the 42-year-old crew chief notes. Moreover, because companies are reacting to a lower-growth environment by “embracing technology in an effort to disrupt competition,” they advise caution on basic materials, hotels and restaurants, and transport names. Finally, he adds, UBS is warning clients to “avoid crowded trades.” An evaluation of mutual funds holdings and sell-side sentiment shows that crowds are long on health care stocks and short on energy trades. Winter, a newcomer to the All-Asia Research Team, has 20 years of experience across the worlds of business and finance. He signed on with UBS as head of Asia-Pacific quants research in October 2010, after two years spent working as an equity strategist at Australian fund manager Investors Mutual. Previously, he was a quant strategist at Bear, Stearns International in London and spent time as an analyst at both Salomon Smith Barney and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. Winter holds an MBA in economics and finance from Brisbane Graduate School of Business at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology, and his first job after earning a bachelor’s degree from the same institution was as area manager for Coca-Cola Corp.