Survival Kit for an Equity Analyst. Shin Horie

effective with the China A-share market (Chinese companies listed onshore in Mainland China) where the more than 3,000 companies currently listed operate in a full range of industries from services to manufacturing. Usually, those interesting growth companies are first discovered by local investors but increasingly foreign investors have the chance to find hidden jewels in certain areas such as low-profile specialized industrial products that may not be as fully appreciated by the local investor base. Some foreign investors have seen the industry dynamics and growth of very similar companies in their home markets and hence immediately understand the opportunities.

      Connecting the Dots: From Asia to Global (2018–now)

      After leadership changes, I was given the opportunity to cohead the Global Equity Research department with a US-based colleague. My cohead used to be one of the legendary ‘all-star’ technology analysts in the US market and it was very natural for him to lead the global team from the headquarters in New York. So, I defined my role as ‘connecting the dots’, with the aim of substantially improving our global connectivity between analysts. Taking key advantage of my position in Asia, I put a strong emphasis on educating non-Chinese analysts about China and in turn educating Chinese analysts about the global situation and read-across for their companies.

Many industry teams already host regular global calls and frequently share information. But I did find that in many cases the analysts did not heavily debate and reconcile their disagreements because they did not want to step on the toes of other analysts. It is acceptable to not reach full agreement on everything, but there is a lot of value to everyone in having a quality debate. It was fascinating to see the business model differences of the food-delivery business by country, but the analyst teams never quite fully understood these until they held in-depth global discussions on it. Auto-industry analysts in each region have different nuanced views regarding the electric vehicle adoption curve. Having an open debate on why they have different views is likely to be extremely beneficial to everyone in the global team.

      It is also fascinating to find a perception gap across different markets. Even though we believe there is almost no time lag in accessing most investment related information, I was quite surprised to see a large perception gap on climate-control-related matters across different continents. Market participants and corporates in Europe were extremely serious about decarbonization of the economy and were taking various actions by 2018 when I first started this global research role. The US market, at least in my view, was substantially less sympathetic about CO₂ emission issues at that time and Asia was somewhere in between the United States and Europe. As of 2021, there are almost no regions or countries that are not serious about ‘net-zero’ emission efforts. So, if we were to have a full understanding of corporate actions, technology development, regulatory changes, and investor behaviour in Europe in 2018, and then if we had anticipated such changes in other markets, it would have provided a very successful investment in the past few years.

One thing I really enjoy and feel proud being part of is quick idea generation calls. This is when an analyst has a fresh important theme and then arranges a call with various relevant analysts across the globe to hold instant sophisticated discussions. It could be hydrogen energy, battery supply chain, 5G technology, US-China trade friction, tourism consumption, sportswear market, plant-based food, fintech, emission regulation on tankers, component shortage, or horizontal manufacturing model of the auto industry. I normally just listen or lightly moderate the discussion and am always fascinated to watch the process of real industry experts in different areas all contribute to create something very insightful. I have seen many cases where the collective minds of a small number of analysts have created a much larger impact than working solo.

      In terms of analyst characters, I was quite surprised again to find substantially more similarities than differences among global analysts, a very similar experience to the one I had when shifting from Japan to Asia-Pacific. When I started the global role, I interviewed several of the most successful analysts in Europe and the United States about their success factors, with the list of answers almost amusingly similar to the ones I received from the top Asia analysts. It was particularly encouraging for me to have found all the top analysts strongly emphasized how much they enjoy the intellectual part of their work.

Part II Laying the Groundwork