THE TRADE Asia

Franklin Templeton Investments is one of the world's largest asset management groups with over $640 billion in assets under management on behalf of over 20 million private, professional and institutional investors. Mark Mobius has been president of the flagship Templeton Emerging Markets Fund for 20 years, covering the world from his base in Hong Kong. An acknowledged pioneer in emerging markets investing, in 2006 Asiamoney listed Dr Mobius among the ‘Top 100 most powerful and influential people’. The TRADE Asia spoke to him both about Asia as an investment region and his engagement with investment opportunities around the globe.

As asset managers lead the charge into Asia, buy-side traders are left grappling with the dual challenge of finding liquidity and disguising their intentions in markets that are not geared to accommodate large institutional orders.

Hani Shalabi, executive director, Direct Execution – sales, UBS, Hong Kong, assesses the trends most likely to impact trading desks active in Asia in 2008.

Brook Teeter, director, equities, Advanced Execution Services, Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) highlights how individual markets in Asia can be grouped from a trading perspective.

Matthew Carr, managing director and head of international equity sales at BNP Paribas, examines how alternative execution venues are set to circumvent the inefficiencies of Asia’s exchange-driven markets.

Carrie Cheung, head of Pac Rim electronic trading sales at Merrill Lynch, lists the key attributes the buy-side should look for when choosing a broker.

Algorithms must be adapted for the Asian markets. But this alone is not a guarantee of superior performance, writes Kirsti Suutari, global business manager, Algorithmic Trading at Reuters.