The TRADE 60 | Page 3

[ E D I T O R I A L ] THETRADE thetradenews.com  Editor JOHN BRAZIER [phone] [email protected] Senior Reporter HAYLEY MCDOWELL [phone] [email protected] Contributors AUDREY BLATER, CHRIS HALL Advertising Director MARC CAROLISSEN [phone] [email protected] Senior Account Manager MATT ALDRED [phone] [email protected] Head of Operations KAREN DELAHOY [phone] [email protected] Subscriptions [phone] [email protected] Head of Design STEPHAN SLATER [phone] [email protected] Publisher JONATHAN WATKINS [phone] [email protected] Tungsten Publishing 20 Little Britain London, UK EC1A 7DH [phone] © The Trade is owned and produced by Tungsten Publishing Ltd. ©Tungsten Publishing 2018 Although Tungsten Publishing has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this publication, neither it nor any contributor can accept any legal responsibility whatsoever for consequences that may arise from errors or omissions or any opinions or advice given. This publication is not a substitute for professional advice on a specific transaction. No reproduction allowed without prior permission. Never mind the b…uzzwords H ow do you deal with the buzzwords we hear ricocheting around the in- dustry? Do you tune them out? Do you take them at face value? Or do you take the time to find out the facts behind the noise and come to an informed decision? As a reader of The TRADE, my hope is that you take the third route, relying on our content to separate fact from fiction, and get to the heart of what is really going on. My own tolerance with industry buzzwords essentially vanished after the Great Blockchain Blitz of ’16, when the PR machine went beyond overdrive and tried to convince us that an idealistic, almost utopian, industry was just around the corner all thanks to a shiny new bit of tech. Well, it’s now over three years later and I don’t see a single blockchain at work, so make of that what you will. In this issue, we address some of the most prevalent trends currently occu- pying the industry, trying to separate the buzzwords from the industry-trans- forming movements. Artificial intelligence is a prominent buzzterm for the industry at the mo- ment and is in danger of approaching blockchain-levels of hyperbole inflation, at least in some quarters. Thankfully, the buy-side appears to have a far more pragmatic approach to how the tech can actually be applied to current trading processes and developed a sense of where the dangers of exaggeration may trip them up (see page 62). There is also the increasing move to outsource the buy-side trading desk to take into account, which Hayley McDowell has taken an in-depth look at and found just what benefits and drawbacks this approach can offer (see page 48). At the top of our hot-topic list is diversity, which for some has hung around their neck like a very public albatross as firms scramble to justify gender pay gaps, all-male executive boards and high barriers to entry for young people of differing ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds. For the ones who have ac- knowledged the barriers and are proactively looking to counter the imbalance, both socially-benefiting and performance-related rewards await. This quarter’s cover star, Cathy Gibson, head of dealing at Royal London Asset Management, sat down to explain how she has made diversity the core of her mandate to establish and develop the firm’s desk since the beginning of last year (see page 40). It’s a marked change of tune to hear a buy-side head of desk talk about the issue in detail, rather than pay lip service to an idealised version of the industry that so often crops up during conferences and the like. Never let it be said that The TRADE doesn’t have its finger on the pulse… In addition, accompanying this issue of The TRADE you will also find the Emerging Markets Special supplement, produced in association with HSBC, which explores the current thinking around emerging markets from how to define them to what to expect from interacting with them. John Brazier Enjoy the issue(s). Editor The TRADE Issue 60 // TheTradeNews.com // 3