Many market participants in Asia reckon the region is overbroked. Nomura is more sanguine, continuing apace its recruitment drive. Its latest hiring is veteran research star Bill Overholt to head Asian strategy.
Overholt is something of an oddball in Asian broking. Behind his laconic American drawl is a man who has written five books, helped foster a popular revolt and is sometimes thought to have CIA connections.
Overholt denies any links with the CIA, though he confesses to having done consultancy work for the Pentagon during the Vietnam war and to knowing "what to do and who to call".
It was in this capacity that he was Corazón Aquino's political adviser, fund raiser and "physical security organizer" when she ousted president Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.
Part broker, part character that might have stepped out of a Graham Greene novel, Overholt says he likes to think he did "a few things in life apart from making money". But clearly he's pretty good at that too. Nomura managed to poach him from BankBoston after just six months - and as he wryly puts it: "I like to make a little more money this year than last.