(Apr 8): Jean-Louis Nakamura, Asia-Pacific chief investment officer and Hong Kong CEO for Lombard Odier, a Swiss private bank that was founded more than two centuries ago, does not expect the aggressively loose monetary policy implemented in the wake of the global financial crisis to ever be completely reversed. “Quantitative easing is here to stay forever,” he says. “It is a normal tool for central banks.”
And, he was surprised at the US Federal Reserve’s apparent hurry last year to normalise its monetary policy by hiking rates four times while shrinking its balance sheet, despite the absence of inflation and increasingly negative signals from the market. “At the start of last year, we did not expect the Fed to hike four times,” he says. “When we saw it was going to hike interest rates, we did consider it was, potentially, a strong policy mistake.”
Nakamura spoke to The Edge Singapore on the sidelines of the bank’s Rethink Investments Summit Asia, which attracted some 300 clients, prospective clients and partners from around the region and provided insights into some of the key political and economic forces shaping the region today.
