Awards

Bloomberg - Recognition for our FX forecasting strength - 9 April 2013

The latest Bloomberg forecasting poll is out, and again the Group features strongly in global competition from 49 other banks and firms.

For the four quarters ending March 2013, we are in fourth place overall. After adjusting for the currencies that we forecast, we actually move up to third. Our overall individual placings include:

• 5th in AUD/USD forecasts
• 6th in USD/CHF forecast
• 7th in NZD/USD forecast
• 8th in EUR/USD forecast

There continues to be quite a bit of volatility in the FX market, but it is the strength of our forecasters’ ability to translate regional economic trends that has largely been the success of our team. “We have a good understanding of the Australian and New Zealand economies, which particularly help us with the US cross rates for both these currencies,” said Richard Grace, Chief Currency Strategist & Head of International Economics. “We make a point of considering a breadth of economic issues, such as the impact of quantitative easing, or non-impact, which helps us improve the accuracy of our forecasts.

Our predictive capability for the Swiss Franc might appear out of place, but according to Richard it shouldn’t be. “The Swiss national bank looks to keep the Swiss Franc quite closely tied to the Euro,” said Richard. “So the accuracy of this forecast is really a testament to our ability to predict the movement in the Euro and the US Dollar, which we obviously have greater exposure to.”

We can expect our ratings to continue to rise in future Bloomberg surveys, as in recent weeks, the team have made some particularly good calls on the Japanese Yen.

“Its results like these that really help us to support our clients by providing them with strong hedging advice as a result of the accuracy of our currency forecasts,” added Richard.