Executive Panel: Asia Growth Outlook and Asset Allocation

Moderated by: Saurabh Mukherjea, CFA, is CEO at Ambit Capital

Contributed by: Vikas Agrawal, CFA, Member, IAIP

A pool of globally diversified knowledge and experience becomes essential when it comes to unveiling the secret of global asset allocation and diversification. Thanks to the CFA Society India and CFA Institute India, participants at the Seventh India Investment Conference (IIC17) 2017 had access to such a compelling panel.

It had a distinct set of speakers. Andy Xie – Independent Economist, Aaron Low, CFA – Principal, Lumen Advisors, Charles J Yang, CFA – MD, Tokio Marine Asset Management and Sunil Singhania, CFA- CIO, Equity Investments, Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management Ltd. The moderator, Saurabh Mukherjea made an excellent use of the opportunity in bringing the best out of the panelists.

The Eminent market voices discussed challenges & opportunities of Asia growth. With eye-opening insights and clever one-liners on China’s Economic Challenge, Andy Xie made the audience rethink many assumptions. While speaking about India, he stressed on the need for more infrastructure for achieving its potential.

Charles J Yang shared his views on green shoots of the Japanese economy. Aaron Low expected the prospect of ASEAN countries to remain bright and explained why it is important to work back expected returns from the current prices rather than forecasting the unseen. Sunil Singhania cleared a lot of demonetization dust that surrounds Indian equities. When asked about prospects for Indian IT sector, he highlighted that the US is already running skill shortage and any revival of manufacturing volume from here on will further add to brighter prospects of Indian IT and other outsourcing industries.

Finally, it was the time of a much-awaited question. Saurabh asked panel regarding their favorite asset class to invest for next three years. Aaron wanted to go for global equities, while Charles emphasized on the potential of Japanese Small cap stocks. In a contrarian call, Andy chosen to go with gold and Sunil selected Indian equities and commercial real estate.

• VA