Gavekal Research

After stints in the French army and at Paribas, Louis launched Gavekal in London in 1998 with his father Charles and Anatole Kaletsky. In 2002, recognizing that China would become a bigger factor in global growth, he moved the firm's headquarters to Hong Kong. In addition to overseeing Gavekal's money management business and contributing to our research, he is the author of seven books. The latest, Avoiding the Punch: Investing in Uncertain Times, was published in August 2021.

Charles has been researching tactical asset allocation for over 40 years. In 1974 he founded independent research firm Cecogest, and in 1981 he co-founded Cursitor-Eaton Asset Management. As chief investment officer at Cursitor he managed US$10bn under a global asset allocation mandate. The firm was sold to Alliance Capital in 1995 and Charles stayed at Alliance until 1999, when he co-founded Gavekal. Charles is married and has four children and eight grandchildren.

Anatole is co-founder, chairman and chief economist of Gavekal. Before founding Gavekal he worked for 30 years as an economic journalist and commentator at the Financial Times, The Economist, and the London Times. He is also chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a foundation created to reform academic economics after the 2008 global financial crisis. His book Capitalism 4.0, on the post-crisis transformation of the global economy, was nominated for the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize.

August joined Gavekal in 2025 as an analyst covering macroeconomic and market developments in Europe. He holds a master’s degree in business and economics from Linköping University and started his career at Swiss Re’s Macro Strategy department. He speaks Swedish, English, French and enough Spanish to get by. August enjoys staying active skiing in the winter and running in the summer. Being Swedish, he never lets that stop him from enjoying the occasional kanelbulle.

After graduating with a degree in social sciences from the University of Paris Dauphine, Cedric studied economics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Cedric returned to Paris Dauphine, where he obtained an MSc in international economics. After interning at OECD, Cedric joined Gavekal Research in 2014 as an analyst focusing on emerging European economies and financial markets. He speaks French, English and German, and drinks both French wines and German beers.

After serving in the Swedish army, Pierre began his financial career in 1998 as an analyst at a venture capital firm in Stockholm. Joining Gavekal in 2001, he was responsible for building and maintaining the firm's financial models, and for running the daily research operations until 2011. He now oversees research sales and client management. He is proficient in Swedish, English, French, Danish and German. He is married with two daughters.

Simon oversees all output from Gavekal’s global research service and frequently appears on webinars and video interviews in the role of interrogator. He occasionally writes on political-economy developments in Asia, which is his expertise. Before joining Gavekal in 2012, he was an analyst at Blackrock and hedge funds based in London and Hong Kong. His early career was spent as a journalist working for media outlets including Bloomberg News and the South China Morning Post.

Tan Kai Xian writes mostly on the US economy, monetary and fiscal policy, and financial markets, as well as global market-moving themes. He has a particular interest in distinguishing signals from noise in markets and the economy using a model-based systematic approach. He is often quoted by media outlets such as Bloomberg, Barron’s and Forbes. KX, as he’s universally known around the office, joined the research team in 2013. He holds a first-class degree in Quantitative Finance from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Born and raised in Malaysia, he is fluent in English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Malay.

Tom helps to steer Gavekal’s global research, with a special focus on geoeconomics and energy markets. Before joining Gavekal in 2014 he worked as an analyst and commentator at media organizations including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review, earning his spurs as the lead foreign exchange analyst for Dow Jones during the 1997-98 Asian currency crisis. He originally started his working life as an exploration geologist, until a collapse in commodity prices forced him into journalism as the traditional refuge of the otherwise unemployable.

Tom focuses on geoeconomic issues, reporting on China’s influence overseas and on how middle powers from Southeast Asia to Latin America are hedging between China and the US. He also looks at emerging economies more broadly, especially India. Tom spent a decade with Dragonomics in Beijing, where he was managing editor of the China Economic Quarterly. He lectures on the China & Globalization MSc course at King’s College London, where he is an affiliate of the Lau China Institute. He is the author of China’s Urban Billion: The Story Behind the Biggest Migration in Human History (Zed, 2012), and China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road (Zed, 2017). He also wrote a chapter in To Get Rich is Glorious (Brookings, 2019), an academic survey of China’s Reform & Opening process.

Udith Sikand joined Gavekal in 2013 as an analyst covering macro-economic and market developments in India and the major Southeast Asian economies. Previously, he worked with investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods as an equity research associate covering Indian and South Korean banks. Prior to KBW, he worked as a research analyst with CreditSights covering Asian sovereigns and credit strategy. Udith holds an undergraduate degree in economics from SRCC, University of Delhi and a Masters degree in International Political Economy from the University of Warwick.

Will worked temporarily with our research team in 2005. We decided it was a good fit, so in 2007 he moved to Hong Kong to join permanently. Will is now our lead analyst on the US economy. He also helps manage the global research team. Will has a master’s degree in economics from Mises Graduate School, and a bachelor’s degree in business and economics from the University of Oklahoma. Will speaks English (including the occasional "y'all" in conversation), and is a struggling student of Chinese.