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Attendees more optimistic after a week at the AIC
After a week spent listening to policymakers, economists, corporates and Credit Suisse analysts, investors hold a more positive view of Asian equity markets than they did a week earlier.
Credit Suisse took the opportunity to learn more about its clients at the 13th Asian Investment Conference, using audience response technology to understand more about the institutions represented by attendees and their views on economics and markets. The results show that, on balance, conference participants were more bullish about Asian markets on Friday than they had been on Tuesday, when the first voting session was held.
Voting on Friday morning ahead of a keynote speech by Freakonomics author Stephen Dubner, 32% of the audience said they were more bullish about the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index than a week earlier, while 6% said they were much more bullish. Those who were more positive comfortably outnumbered those taking a more negative view after a week at the AIC. Only 14% said they were more bearish, while 4% said they were much more bearish. At the same time, 44%, said their view had not changed.
Hedge funds in particular were revealed to have taken a noticeably more positive view of the market than the audience as a whole or investors as a whole: 14% of hedge fund investors said they were much more bullish, while only 6% of investors overall held that view. The number of hedge fund respondents feeling more bearish was also 10% versus 14% of all investors while 5% of hedge funds were much more bearish, versus 7% of all investors.
Attendees also took a distinctly more positive view of Indonesian stocks – for which Credit Suisse has an ‘Overweight’ recommendation – at the end of the AIC. On Friday, 29% said they thought it would be the best performing market in Asia Pacific in 2010, versus 17% on Tuesday. But their opinion of Japan had become more polarized over the week: the proportion of respondents who believe it would be the best performing market in the region was up to 15% from 12%, but the proportion who believe it will be the worst performing also increased, to 20% from 11%. Investors’ view of Chinese stocks held fairly steady over the week.
Having heard from two members of the U.S. President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board – Laura D’Andrea Tyson, Professor of Economics at Haas Business School, and Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard – attendees’ level of concern about the risk of a “double-dip” recession increased over the week. Before the Keynote Economics session, 15% of respondents said their biggest concern for 2010 was the U.S. slipping back into recession. By Friday, this had grown to 22%.
Friday’s audience comprised 33% long only funds, 10% hedge funds, 20% other kinds of investors, 13% corporates and 24% others. Monday’s audience was similarly constituted, with 31% long only funds, 15% hedge funds, 22% other investors, 12% corporates, 1% governments and regulators and 19% from others.
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Day 5: Photo Album
