Simon Flint & team Nomura
Shooting straight in to the No. 3 spot in this new sector is the Nomura trio under Simon Flint, who also captains the top team in Fixed-Income Strategy. One buy-side backer credits the Singapore-based crew with “providing the most grounded research in the space and being the most insightful — many times I put them ahead of some of the region’s most prominent economists.” Flint cites policy credibility as a critical issue in Indonesia and notes the team is happy to be contrarian and be long the Indonesian rupiah, “provided we are comfortable that Bank Indonesia is prepared to act to combat any rise in inflation expectations or deterioration in foreign investor confidence.” The analysts also prefer the Singapore dollar to the Malaysian ringgit, “confident that the Monetary Authority of Singapore will sustain a strong Singapore dollar stance, while progress on reform in Malaysia is likely to be somewhat limited.” — Carolyn Koo
