ASX to open Singapore office this year

SYDNEY: ASX Ltd will hire staff for a new office in Singapore this year as Australia’s main exchange operator seeks to do more business with Asian hedge funds and proprietary traders.

“It will be a meaningful presence,” Peter Hiom, Sydney-based deputy chief executive officer at ASX, said in an interview on Jan 31, adding that the Singapore office would focus on derivatives products. “There’s an untapped opportunity for us in South-East Asia.”

Asia’s third largest listed exchange by market capitalisation is expanding in derivatives, already its biggest source of revenue, as trading volumes for cash equities in its home market stagnate.

Inflows into hedge funds were set to jump 25% this year to the most since 2007, Barclays Plc said last month, citing a survey of investors.

CME Group Inc, the world’s biggest listed exchange, and units of Deutsche Boerse AG, the fourth largest, have offices in Singapore as the firms jostle for a share of the Asian market.

ASX’s expansion into Singapore comes about three years after it had an A$8.3bil (US$7.3 bil) merger with Singapore Exchange Ltd, Asia’s fourth largest listed exchange, vetoed by the government. The firm’s international ambitions were dented when former Treasurer Wayne Swan rejected the tieup, saying the move amounted to a takeover and wasn’t in the national interest. — Reuters

“What we’ve got going on for the first time in this recovery is truly global synchronised growth,” said James Paulsen, the Minneapolisbased chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, which manages about US$340bil in assets. “It’s still slow by long-ago historic standards, but it will feel pretty good in this recovery.”

Growth for the United States and Europe at the same time, even if moderate, was a welcome change for company earnings, Paulsen said.

The US economy is projected to expand 2.8%, matching 2012 as the fastest pace since 2005, while the euro area is on track for its first annual growth since 2011. Although American retailers have been hurt as lower income families rein in expenses, carmakers are projected to sell more than 16 million cars in the United States for the first time since 2007.

European car sales are “going to get better for the first time after five years of a strong decline,” said Carlos Ghosn, chief executive officer of Renault, in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, last month. “We’re going to get back slowly to growth, moderate growth, 1% to 3% for the years to come.”

Earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index are forecast to rise 8.5% in 2014 from 5.2% last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

About 79% of companies that have reported results for the fourth quarter have topped estimates, signalling that corporate profits were already gaining momentum at the end of 2013. — Bloomberg