EM Polls and Awards

Karen Chan of BoA-Merrill Lynch reflects on a volatile year but favours China and India firms on expectations that regulators will introduce reforms. She wins the inaugural award for best insurance analyst in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll 2009.

Xiaopo Wei, the CLSA analyst voted top for consumer discretionary research in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll 2009, says his job is to convince investors of fundamental value in difficult times, even if they do not want to listen.

Yi Wang of Goldman Sachs, who was voted best real estate analyst for the first time in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll 2009, says the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta regions will outperform the rest of the country in terms of price and transaction value.

Citi energy analyst Graham Cunningham, who regains top spot in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll, notes that Chinese oil companies are trading at a premium to global peers but says they ought to be viewed as China index stocks.

Evelyn Moore, CLSA’s Dallas-based salesperson, says fund flows to Asia are set to rise after years of US-based investors being underweight on the region. It comes after she was voted best salesperson once again in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll 2009.

Christie Ju is optimistic about Chinese growth but says the high fixed asset growth is not sustainable. She picks up the award for best conglomerates analyst for the second year running in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll 2009.

Goldman Sachs analyst Henry King cites research saying that as macro momentum resumes, hardware benefits most in the tech universe. The winner of best technology hardware and equipment analyst in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll 2009 is particularly bullish on the computer segment.

Helen Zhu of Goldman Sachs, who wins best telecoms analyst for the third year in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll, says Thai firms should benefit from regulatory changes, while China Unicom and Taiwan Mobile offer upside.

Citi’s Pierre Lau, voted best utilities analyst for the third year in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll, notes that while power demand in 2009 should equate to stronger year-on-year growth for utilities firms next year, there are concerns about inflation, which could bring about higher fuel costs.

The man voted top regional strategist for the sixth time in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll believes Asia is decoupling from the west but that regional economies could overheat unless governments tighten monetary policy.

From the seizure of capital markets to the re-emergence of liquidity, Asia’s banking sector has been on a round-trip. J.P. Morgan’s Sunil Garg, voted best bank analyst for the fourth year running in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll, believes corporate cap-ex will be the next big trend.

Citi’s Andrew Lu has been encouraged to cover a small cap company in Taiwan that manufactures touch panels as he believes they could feature in 50% of the computers made in the next three-to-five years.