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Robert Subbaraman
& team
Nomura
"Their strong, well-thought-out data analysis is impressive."
Newcomer Robert Subbaraman’s 18-strong Nomura squad vaults from third place to land in the winner’s circle for the first time in this sector, whose name is changed from Currency & Foreign Exchange. The strategists work out of Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore and are valued for their “long-term, mostly out-of-consensus outlooks,” as one portfolio manager puts it. A key issue is the impact of Japan’s weakening currency. For instance, in February the analysts noted that yen depreciation was adversely affecting South Korean companies. “South Korea has the highest export similarity with Japan in Asia,” explains Subbaraman, who also leads a runner-up team in Economics. “Yen depreciation is likely to negatively impact Korea’s exports and hurt overall corporate earnings. This raises the risk of South Korean authorities shifting to a more progrowth policy bias, which could imply greater foreign exchange intervention.” The crew recommended a three-month long dollar–won position, when the spot rate for the latter currency was 1,092.30; by late April it had weakened to 1,101.56. Subbaraman, 45, earned a master’s degree in economics at the U.K.’s University of Warwick and served as an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia before becoming chief economist for Asia ex-Japan at Lehman Brothers in 1997; Nomura acquired Lehman’s Asia-Pacific operations in 2008. — Pam Baker