going to lead to better outcomes for the investors ,” she explains . “ If you outsource your trading , and my trade gets stuck behind a queue of somebody else who ' s already been trading it or lumped in with another big block because someone else is trading it there ' s no way the client gets a better outcome .
“ Ultimately , while I can see the user case for smaller asset managers with more limited trading hours , for a manager of our size with our capabilities , I just can ' t see an outsource function coming anywhere close to the execution standards we can achieve for our clients .”
Equities equities equities Sitting in the European equities seat at Ninety One is Damion Kumarasinghe . Like Willis , his career was forged during testing times . He took his first role at Cofunds in 2000 “ just to the tail end of the dotcom bubble bursting ” as he puts it . He moved to Investec Asset Management – now Ninety One - in 2004 in an operations role before moving onto the dealing desk covering money markets and some FX in 2007 just in time for the global financial crisis .
“ It was really interesting to see how that crisis [ global financial crisis ] started to emerge in money markets as rates started spiking before it really fully fed through to the other markets . Those were incredibly tough times , with long , exhausting days .
It was an intense experience — one I ’ m glad to have lived through , though I wouldn ’ t want to repeat it ,” he says .
“ Each day brought uncertainty about whether our counterparties would be around the next . We were frequently forced to suspend relationships as they teetered on the brink of collapse . It was a chaotic period - banks were reporting record trading days , but for all the wrong reasons . Volumes were huge , but the market was unravelling .”
Kumarasinghe then moved into an equities seat . The desk was a lot smaller then and so oftentimes he would be covering the US and Asia out of London . Market dynamics in Europe are heading in the same direction as the US , he tells The TRADE .
“ Larger block liquidity is still very tough to find . You can get volume on screen , but you can sometimes struggle to find the more substantial block liquidity ,” he says . “ My concern would be that traders are getting more comfortable just trading throughout the day in small size and are reluctant to commit to larger blocks , especially if they cannot be confident that they are seeing
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