Total appearances: 3
Analyst debut: 2012
UBS’s Li Chen advances one position to reclaim second place, which he most recently held in 2012. Working from Shanghai, he impresses clients as “the most reliable China strategist, with the most solid and well-structured analyses,” in the words of one adherent. Chen is particularly bullish about recent accords between the China Securities Regulatory Commission and Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission known as a mutual market access scheme. Announced in April and launched last month, the pilot Shanghai–Hong Kong Stock Connect program is designed to enable investors on the mainland and those in the special administrative region to gain direct entry to certain of each other’s stock markets, within specified daily trading and investment quota guidelines. The researcher believes that this arrangement “will allow global investors to access these stocks in an easier way.” Likely beneficiaries going forward, he adds, are companies that are: exposed to rising consumer spending; well positioned for market-share growth; subject to state-owned enterprise reforms, which should make quasi-state-run businesses more competitive; or supported by government initiatives, such as those intended to drive expansion of the renewable energy industry and the use of electric vehicles. Chen “gives us both macro thinking and specific market points that are helpful in our investment approach,” observes another fund manager.