Goodbye Andy
October 7th 2006 04:14
The name Andy Xie rings familiar bells for those who follow Asian business affairs closely. The top Asia economist from Morgan Stanley resigned last Friday following a leak of his internal email with spiking statements on Singapore. Officially, his resignation was purely personal but many believe it was his criticism of Singapore, and under the pressure from the Singaporean Government that Morgan Stanley caved in to show the exit sign for Xie.
Excerpts from the FinanceAsia report on Andy's departure:
..."This proved to be a highly embarassing situation for Morgan Stanley. Singapore is one of the US firm’s key investment banking markets in Asia.
Commenting on Xie’s departure a spokesperson for Morgan Stanley says: “We do not comment on personnel issues. We do not elaborate on the reasons of our employees’ departure.”
But on the subject of the email, the spokesperson adds: “This is an internal email based on personal suppositions and aimed at stimulating internal debate amongst a small group of intended recipients.
"The email expresses the views of one individual and does not in any way represent the views of the firm. Morgan Stanley has been a very strong supporter of Singapore and has a great deal of respect for Singapore’s achievements.”
Xie joined Morgan Stanley in 1997 and was a managing director. He regularly ranked highly in investor polls as one of the region’s most popular economists, thanks in large part to his direct style and forthright opinions.
The 46-year-old, who has a doctorate from MIT, previously worked at the World Bank and Macquarie Bank."
No doubt, his staunchly independent and critical research notes will be dearly missed but such talent would not go to waste and it would be a matter of time that this fine mind would be back with a vengence. The following is the purported text of his leaked email, and the judgement is yours.
I participated in the panels on Commodity (sic) and China-India and in some obligatory dinner parties. On Friday night the Singapore prime minister invited the speakers at the meeting that the Singapore government organised. Trichet, Larry Summers, Paul Volker (sic) Chuck Price, the finance ministers of ASEAN countries were there. No government official from China was there …guess I was there to make it look like China was represented.
The dinner was turned into an Oprah with PM Lee Hsein Long (sic) at the center. The topic was on the future of globalization. People fawned him like a prince. Of course, he is. There are two reigning princes in the world that the Davos crowd kiss up to, Jordan and Singapore. The Davos crowd are Republican on economic issues and democratic on social issues. Somehow they manage to put aside their moral misgivings and kiss up to Lee Hsein Long and Abdullah.
I tried to find out why Singapore was chosen to host the conference. Nobody knew. Some thought it was a strange choice because Singapore was so far from any action or the hot topic of China and India. Mumbai or Shanghai would have been a lot more appropriate. ASEAN has been a failure. Its GDP in nominal dollar terms has not changed for 10 years. Singapore’s per capita income has not changed either at $25,000. China’s GDP in dollar terms has tripled during the same period.
I thought the questioners were competing with each other to praise Singapore as the success story of globalisation. Actually, Singapore’s success came mainly from being the money laundering center for corrupt Indonesian businessmen and government officials. Indonesia has no money. So Singapore isn’t doing well. To sustain its economy, Singapore is building casinos to attract corrupt money from China.
These western people didn’t know what they were talking about. Aside from the nauseating pleasantries some useful information came out of it. Trichet sounded very bullish on euro-zone economy (sic). He noted that euro-zone was catching up with the US in growth rate (sic) and talked about further gain in 2007. His tone was much more bullish than our house view. As Japan is surprising on the downside, I don't see how the rise of euro-yen could be stopped.
Larry Summers and Paul Volker (sic) were very worried about the US economy. As you probably know, Alan Greenspan is talking the same way. At the CLSA conference last week, he talked like one of his critics. There is fear of a US collapse. Many Americans think that an RMB reval (sic) would save the US. This is just a dream, in my view.
Most were worried about the future of globalisation due to income inequality. As average workers in the west are not seeing wage increase (sic), they may vote against globalisation. I thought that they were understating the benefit from cheap consumer goods. However, as inflation comes back, it does diminish the benefits for western consumers.
No-one was worried about the growth outlook for China and India. The Indian Planning Minister was very bullish, talking about 9% forever.
My sense is that policymakers are relexed (sic) about the short-term economic outlook but anticipate a US collapse at some point. Americans think that RMB reval could save the US. So they would keep pressuring China."
Andy Xie
Morgan Stanley
Market Update
The trading week closed with the market ended slightly higher with the ASX S&P 200 benchmark index gaining by a mere 1.4 points, due to lack of economic data releases and bland lead from Wall Street. Most of the market attention went to Telstra after its release of its new five year strategic plan with a $1 billion communication infrastuture plan with the goal of bringing high speed internet throughout Australia for the coming years. The proposed network known as Next G which is 50 times faster than dial up connection.
Earlier this year, a long term buy recommendation of Telstra by an analyst in Money Magazine was rather puzzling and odd as the sentiment back then and until recenly for Telstra was deep in the dark waters. Perhaps that analyst had recognised the few tricks in Sol's sleeve. On the portfolio front, the Portfolio 1.5 - EW's valuation fell to 12.38% with a paper profit of $4,286. The biggest gainer is MRE.
Till then, enjoy your weekend.
Excerpts from the FinanceAsia report on Andy's departure:
..."This proved to be a highly embarassing situation for Morgan Stanley. Singapore is one of the US firm’s key investment banking markets in Asia.
Commenting on Xie’s departure a spokesperson for Morgan Stanley says: “We do not comment on personnel issues. We do not elaborate on the reasons of our employees’ departure.”
But on the subject of the email, the spokesperson adds: “This is an internal email based on personal suppositions and aimed at stimulating internal debate amongst a small group of intended recipients.
"The email expresses the views of one individual and does not in any way represent the views of the firm. Morgan Stanley has been a very strong supporter of Singapore and has a great deal of respect for Singapore’s achievements.”
Xie joined Morgan Stanley in 1997 and was a managing director. He regularly ranked highly in investor polls as one of the region’s most popular economists, thanks in large part to his direct style and forthright opinions.
The 46-year-old, who has a doctorate from MIT, previously worked at the World Bank and Macquarie Bank."
No doubt, his staunchly independent and critical research notes will be dearly missed but such talent would not go to waste and it would be a matter of time that this fine mind would be back with a vengence. The following is the purported text of his leaked email, and the judgement is yours.
I participated in the panels on Commodity (sic) and China-India and in some obligatory dinner parties. On Friday night the Singapore prime minister invited the speakers at the meeting that the Singapore government organised. Trichet, Larry Summers, Paul Volker (sic) Chuck Price, the finance ministers of ASEAN countries were there. No government official from China was there …guess I was there to make it look like China was represented.
The dinner was turned into an Oprah with PM Lee Hsein Long (sic) at the center. The topic was on the future of globalization. People fawned him like a prince. Of course, he is. There are two reigning princes in the world that the Davos crowd kiss up to, Jordan and Singapore. The Davos crowd are Republican on economic issues and democratic on social issues. Somehow they manage to put aside their moral misgivings and kiss up to Lee Hsein Long and Abdullah.
I tried to find out why Singapore was chosen to host the conference. Nobody knew. Some thought it was a strange choice because Singapore was so far from any action or the hot topic of China and India. Mumbai or Shanghai would have been a lot more appropriate. ASEAN has been a failure. Its GDP in nominal dollar terms has not changed for 10 years. Singapore’s per capita income has not changed either at $25,000. China’s GDP in dollar terms has tripled during the same period.
I thought the questioners were competing with each other to praise Singapore as the success story of globalisation. Actually, Singapore’s success came mainly from being the money laundering center for corrupt Indonesian businessmen and government officials. Indonesia has no money. So Singapore isn’t doing well. To sustain its economy, Singapore is building casinos to attract corrupt money from China.
These western people didn’t know what they were talking about. Aside from the nauseating pleasantries some useful information came out of it. Trichet sounded very bullish on euro-zone economy (sic). He noted that euro-zone was catching up with the US in growth rate (sic) and talked about further gain in 2007. His tone was much more bullish than our house view. As Japan is surprising on the downside, I don't see how the rise of euro-yen could be stopped.
Larry Summers and Paul Volker (sic) were very worried about the US economy. As you probably know, Alan Greenspan is talking the same way. At the CLSA conference last week, he talked like one of his critics. There is fear of a US collapse. Many Americans think that an RMB reval (sic) would save the US. This is just a dream, in my view.
Most were worried about the future of globalisation due to income inequality. As average workers in the west are not seeing wage increase (sic), they may vote against globalisation. I thought that they were understating the benefit from cheap consumer goods. However, as inflation comes back, it does diminish the benefits for western consumers.
No-one was worried about the growth outlook for China and India. The Indian Planning Minister was very bullish, talking about 9% forever.
My sense is that policymakers are relexed (sic) about the short-term economic outlook but anticipate a US collapse at some point. Americans think that RMB reval could save the US. So they would keep pressuring China."
Andy Xie
Morgan Stanley
---
Market Update
The trading week closed with the market ended slightly higher with the ASX S&P 200 benchmark index gaining by a mere 1.4 points, due to lack of economic data releases and bland lead from Wall Street. Most of the market attention went to Telstra after its release of its new five year strategic plan with a $1 billion communication infrastuture plan with the goal of bringing high speed internet throughout Australia for the coming years. The proposed network known as Next G which is 50 times faster than dial up connection.
Earlier this year, a long term buy recommendation of Telstra by an analyst in Money Magazine was rather puzzling and odd as the sentiment back then and until recenly for Telstra was deep in the dark waters. Perhaps that analyst had recognised the few tricks in Sol's sleeve. On the portfolio front, the Portfolio 1.5 - EW's valuation fell to 12.38% with a paper profit of $4,286. The biggest gainer is MRE.
Till then, enjoy your weekend.
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