Michael Spencer & team
Deutsche Bank
After a year at No. 1, Michael Spencer’s five-member Deutsche Bank crew slips back to second place. With three economists in Hong Kong, one in Mumbai and one in Singapore, the team covers a dozen markets across the region and is bullish for the year. “All economies in Asia, even China and India, will benefit from a recovery in Europe and stronger U.S. growth,” Spencer declares. “Stronger export growth will also likely be reflected in higher private capital expenditures and in household consumption as well.” The squad predicts regional real gross domestic product growth of 6.8 percent this year, up from 5.9 percent in 2012, and 7.4 percent next year. “We expect China’s GDP growth rate will rise to 9 percent in mid-2014, driven mainly by this export impulse, and India will likely see a return to 7 percent growth over the next year,” he adds. Excluding those two countries, “growth in the ten smaller economies that we follow is expected to rise from 3.8 percent last year to 4.3 percent this year and 5.1 percent in 2014,” Spencer says. Deutsche’s economists are “proactive and very quick to respond to any market news,” attests one buy-side supporter. — Thomas W. Johnson