2016 All-Asia Research Team: Equity Strategy, No. 1: Sakthi Siva & team

Sakthi Siva & team

Credit Suisse

First-Place Appearances: 3

Total Appearances: 14

Team Debut: 1994

Sakthi Sivaguides her Credit Suisse crew back to the winner’s circle. The strategists slipped to second place in 2014 then tumbled to runner-up last year, but they are back on top, in large part thanks to the team leader’s expertise at forecasting market shifts by understanding “who’s buying what,” as one fund manager in Hong Kong says. “She’s really keyed in to the self-managed superfunds, which are important players in the region.” Despite ongoing weakness in China, Siva and her associate are forecasting that regional sectors correlated to economic activity should be buoyed by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s recent policy shift away from easing. “Once the Fed starts to tighten, historically we have seen the trade-weighted dollar peak,” she advised in March, “and this has been associated with a rally in cyclicals.” Accordingly, they are counseling clients to overweight quality cyclicals — those with high return on equity or improving earnings per share — in the consumer, industrials and technology spaces, and underweight consumer staples, telecommunications and utilities. Since December, moreover, they have maintained a less negative outlook on the deep-value cyclicals in energy and materials, “given the potential for a tactical rally amid oversupply,” Siva reports. Examples of specific stocks that meet the researchers’ criteria include British-Australian metals and mining multinational Rio Tinto; Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding; Indian software developer HCL Technologies and aluminum and copper manufacturer Hindalco Industries; South Korea’s autos industry leaders Hyundai Mobis Co. and Hyundai Motor Co., diversified electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. and petroleum products manufacturer SK Innovation Co.; and Taiwan-based oil refiner Formosa Petrochemical Corp., electronic manufacturing services provider Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.