< The 2015 All-Asia Research Team
Total appearances: 12
Team debut: 1997Chia Ao (Bill) Lu ushers his Morgan Stanley troupe to second place, after two years at No. 3. The Hong Kong–based leader, 43, covers the region’s semiconductor names together with one colleague each in Seoul and Taipei, winning high marks for his “insight, great customer service and timely earnings information,” in the words of one admirer. For this year, Lu explains, “we are more selective on Asian semiconductors stocks than we were a year ago. In 2014 the iPhone 6 and the global macro recovery were drivers for semiconductors companies. In 2015 we don’t see a product cycle as big as the iPhone 6, and the macro environment is more uncertain.” He and his colleagues are pursuing several investing themes, including smartphone penetration in emerging markets, even as overall smartphone uptake may slow; the trend toward using high-resolution displays for screens both large and small; and the robust long-term growth of solid-state drive storage. Looking ahead, the researchers are also following competition in the foundry space, as U.S.-based Intel Corp. and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. “are potentially getting more aggressive,” says Lu. Finally, they are monitoring whether “new applications such as smart watches or the ‘Internet of Things’ spur additional growth” and watching China’s heavy investment in the industry, which “will have global implications.”