The fact FinanceAsia magazine featured Abdul Hussain with a crystal ball in the last issue looks prescient. At the half-way stage of our spread prediction competition he leads his peers in the fixed income research world.
The competition began on June 1 and invited investors to predict where three bonds spreads would be at the end of September 2. The bond spreads were: KDB 06 (5.25%), Petronas 2012, and PLDT 09. Against the investors we pitted the region's top fixed income research analysts.
If we were to close the competition at the half way point (July 15), here's who would be winning on the analyst front:
- KDB was trading at 88bp over treasuries. Closest analyst is CSFB's Abdul Hussain, who predicted 90bp. (Second place, Fan Jiang of Goldman Sachs).
- Petronas was trading at 190bp over treasuries. Closest analyst is CSFB's Abdul Hussain, who predicted 200bp. (Second place, Fan Jiang again)
- PLDT was the most volatile of the bonds. It was trading at 781bp over treasuries. Closest analyst is CSFB's Abdul Hussain, who predicted 625bp. (Second place, Nuj Chiaranussati of Deutsche).
Can Abdul keep it up? Victory on September 3 will be determined by which player comes closest to all three spreads based on an average margin of error.
Eight investors were selected to play, and the winning investor will win champagne on September 3. Also included in the line-up is Noel's son, an eight year old boy. However, Noel's son is currently a little too bullish on PLDT.
For full details of the spread predictions see FinanceAsia's June issue.
Closing spreads for the half time game were sourced from Barclays Capital, which is not a participant in the competition.
