< The 2016 All-Asia Research Team

Kewei Yang & team
Morgan Stanley
First-Place Appearances: 2

Total Appearances: 3

Team Debut: 2014

For a second consecutive year, Morgan Stanley’s Hong Kong–based Asian currency and rates team secures top honors. Guided solely by 36-year-old Kewei Yang since the departure of former co-captain Geoffrey Kendrick, the strategists deliver “solid quantitative work,” one fund manager remarks. “They substantiate and back up their models — you can take their numbers, change the assumptions and apply them to your own analysis. Their work is completely transparent and very useful.” While acknowledging that emerging-markets currencies, in general, have enjoyed a rally this year, thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate increase and signs of stabilization in China, the researchers remain skeptical. Already-elevated debt levels in Asia ex-Japan are still rising, they point out, while growth remains sluggish. As a result, Yang and his crew believe, governments in the region are likely to pursue policies that bolster inflation and exert downward pressure on rates and currencies, which in turn could spark capital outflows. Accordingly, they predict weakness in these foreign exchange markets over the medium term, particularly in China and South Korea, where structural challenges to expansion persist. Further, given the countries’ trade-related exposure to China, the strategists are likewise bearish on the currencies of Singapore and Taiwan.