Capital Markets

Ant Group’s choice of Hong Kong and Shanghai for its listing signals how flush the two markets are with liquidity. But the upcoming US presidential elections have issuers worried.

There’s a team made up of staff from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the department of finance who call themselves ‘the Road to A’. They are tasked with completing a long journey for the sovereign credit rating: from BB- as recently as 2009, through BBB+ today, to achieving an A rating.

The country’s economy has not been this hard hit since the Asian financial crisis. Political instability, global tensions and weak productivity mean the recovery is going to be slow – and painful.

Erick Thohir once owned the Italian football team InterMilan. Now Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo has handed him one of the country’s toughest jobs: reforming creaking state-owned enterprises. If he succeeds, he could even get a shot at the presidency.

Creative strategies to avoid the appearance of non-payment are becoming more common in China’s domestic bond market. That leaves many investors at a disadvantage and uncertain of their rights.

This year’s winners of the Asiamoney Brokers Poll had to navigate myriad challenges, from trade tensions between the US and China to uncertainty around global growth. They managed to find exciting investment opportunities by quickly adapting to the changing market conditions – something they will need to do in 2020 as well.

When a bank performs well during a strong year for equity markets, it’s easy to say it is just going with the flow, but when a firm gives clients the best advice during turbulent times, it proves its worth.

The government has big ambitions when it comes to the financial sector, but a second stock exchange, launched as part of a bold plan to turn the country into a Dubai on the Steppes, is a big ask when it comes to developing the nation’s capital markets.

With five prime ministers and five treasurers in six years, Australia’s top two political offices have been likened to an AirBnB short-let, but with an election looming, can the new treasurer Josh Frydenberg keep his surging opponent Chris Bowen from again becoming the country’s top economic policymaker?