Japan

Top-performing Japanese equity manager Hideo Shiozumi has said investors should not expect another runaway 12 months for the country's stock markets until 2016.

Rathbones' chief investment officer Julian Chillingworth has labelled the apparent value in European equities ‘misleading', claiming the region is in for another year of anaemic growth.

Dalton Strategic Partnership has extended its Tokyo-based Japanese equities team after hiring Fumio Matsumoto from Japanese asset manager T&D Asset Management.

2014 Outlook

Former Barclays UK private banking head David Semaya is to join Nikko Asset Management, as CEO Charles Beazley steps down for family reasons.

Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), has said the country is not facing a Japanese-style deflationary spiral despite recent data showing inflation is sliding.

David Jane, founder of Darwin Investment Managers, has named the five investment themes he is backing in his multi-asset fund to outperform this year.

Japan is the "most interesting place" to take equity market risk thanks to Abenomics, according to the managers of the Ruffer investment trust.

The US dollar is closing in on a five-year high versus the yen, with gold heading towards a one-year low, ahead of the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's historic December meeting.

Asia's major equity markets have fallen after data from China's services sector disappointed.