EM Polls and Awards
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Find out who the region's investors and analysts believe to be the best companies in India and the best executive. In the brokers poll there was a record response making it the biggest brokers poll ever. Asiamoney publishes the names of the best brokers and analysts in the country. Page 29
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Over the past year, interest-rate structured products have gone from being an investor favourite to an also-ran. Their decline is undoubtedly down to the US interest-rate curve morphing from a steep slope to virtually flat over the past 12 months as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, and the market began dithering about the future of rate movements. The US interest-rate swaps curve has also flattened, placing more pressure on the US Treasury curve. The dip in the yield curve means that structured notes that take any view on markets rates have ceased to offer value. They rely on a steep interest-rate curve and there is uncertainty where interest rates will actually move to.
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In the 3rd annual Structured Products Poll Asiamoney invited participation from senior finance and treasury executives who are actively involved in structured product transactions in Asia-Pacific. A total of 503 individual responses from 436 different institutions were received. After auditing 16 questionnaires were made void due to their failure to fulfill the requirements. The geographical breakdown of institutions is as follows:
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Find out who the region's investors and analysts believe to be the best executive and the best companies in the Philippines.
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With commodity prices soaring for the fourth consecutive year, commodity derivatives are enjoying their highest level of popularity among investors in more than a generation. The Goldman Sachs Commodities Index, the most venerable index tracking the futures prices of commodities, rose 25.6% year on year by the end of 2005, while the London Metal Exchange is already up 44% year to date. Goldman Sachs estimates that US$80 billion was invested in various commodities indices globally in 2005 and expects this to double by 2010.
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Given the global speculation surrounding the potential appreciation of the Chinese renminbi, and with it other Asian currencies, over the past two years, it's no surprise that interest has swelled among regional investors towards investing in currency structured products. The demand from private bank investors who mainly invest in medium-term notes, has been strong. The top 20 investment banks issued US$9 billion of Asian currency-linked medium-term notes (excluding Japanese yen) in 2004, rising to US$13 billion in 2005 with US$6 billion issues so far this year.
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Credit-linked products have benefited from the global rally in bond spreads despite a couple of high-level downgrades last year that affected the broader market. The market has continued to grow robustly - one banker estimates that it has doubled in size every year since 1999. And many of Asia's institutional investors have been extremely active. The most popular underlying instruments have tended to be collateralized bond obligations (CDOs)—both cash and synthetic, credit default swaps (CDS) and constant portfolio protection insurance (CPPI) products, which have an actively managed portion that is generally linked to credit default swaps or a tradeable CDS index such as Dow Jones' CDX and iTraxx indices. Products linked to CDSs and indices are typically bespoke and tailored to take advantage of the correlation in default patterns among borrowers.
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Over the past year, equity-linked products have enjoyed a bonanza on the back of burgeoning regional stock exchanges. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index offers one example, rocketing from 13,481 in January 2005 to 16,661 now.
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