PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3

SHOWS: SINGAPORE (JANUARY 9, 2014) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)

MANPREET GILL, HEAD OF FIXED INCOME, CURRENCIES AND COMMODITIES STRATEGY, STANDARD CHARTERED

1. (QUESTION GRAPHIC)

'The Fed expects the U.S. economy to bounce back strongly this year. What are you views?'

2. MANPREET GILL SAYING:

'No we are not surprised at all. I mean it fits very well with our view that developed market equities, particularly the U.S. are likely to be, you know, the best performing assets in this year as well. And if you think about the Fed's stance itself, the very fact that they commence tapering, you know, earlier than market consensus expectations, by itself, was a great signal that they were fairly confident in their outlook for the U.S. economy. And economic data we received in the last two weeks of December, if anything, supports that fact. And if you look at indicators like the NHB housing price index, you are looking at durable goods, eyes on manufacturing, I mean everything we saw from about 15th of December onwards was very, very strong. So you know, it matches with our view, it clearly fits to the recent economic data. And I think the minutes really sort of back up what we saw in terms of actual action from the Fed. So all in, you know, really quite a consistent picture in our view.'

3. (QUESTION GRAPHIC)

'Do you expect the pace of tapering to increase?'

4. MANPREET GILL SAYING:

'I mean it's possible. But it's not something we are really taking a strong view on. I mean, to us, the Fed has already started on a bout of tapering. And given that they have started, it's really hard for them to say that, you know, we are going to pause or potentially cut back on it. Increasing the pace, yes it's possible, but in our view, the market has already moved beyond this point. And by the time you reached the second quarter, it's very likely the conversation already shift to what after tapering. So in that sense, whether the tapering ends a little faster or a little slower than what the current pace allows for, to us will not have a tremendous impact on markets. To us, it's really about you know, what the market moves to price in in terms of when the first actual rate hike might occur. In our view, that will be well into 2015, not sooner than that. But of course market expectations could vary and to us, that will be the key question in 2015, in 2014.'

5. (QUESTION GRAPHIC)

'What is your biggest concern for India?'

6. MANPREET GILL SAYING:

'Well with India, the concern is not any different to what it was a few months ago. I mean, in India there are two primarily concerns for foreign investors at the moment. One is the fundamentals themselves, that if markets, emerging markets more broadly, begin to sell off, not due to risk in India but due to risk anywhere else, investors are still concerned that India may be affected. I mean partly because the country still runs a current account deficit, even if it was temporarily reduced at the latest reading. But the second is that the political cycle does make it fairly difficult to invest. I mean market behavior over the past few months has made it fairly clear that they are looking at elections in a fairly binary way, where if we have a strong single government that's capable of making strong decisions, they are treating that as a positive outcome, while a fractured coalition will of course be negative. And that makes it you know, very difficult to predict the market outcome, it makes it very difficult investing environment. So we believe that's also clearly a concern. It's a concern for us, so we are really taking more of a neutral stance until the risk would ultimately improve and things become clearer.'