Head To Head

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Alquity versus T Rowe Price

FSA compares two Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) equity products: the Alquity Asia Fund and the T Rowe Price Asian Opportunities Equity Fund.

by Francis Nikolai Acosta 23 April 202123 April 2021

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Performance

The Alquity fund has returned only 7.09% on a three-year cumulative basis, hugely underperforming its peers, according to data from FE Fundinfo (see above).

On the flipside, the T Rowe Price fund performed 46.33% over the same period, outperforming both its benchmark index and peer average.

2018 was a huge detractor for the Alquity fund, when the fund fell around 17%, according to McDermott. While the T Rowe Price fund also posted negative returns during the same year (-11%), the fund bounced back sharply in the succeeding years.

“The Alquity Fund tends to underperform when large China tech companies dominate, and outperform when domestically-orientated stocks are doing well.

“Meanwhile, the T Rowe Price fund’s focus on quality may cause it to underperform in the short-term in a strongly rising market, but it has tended to outperform on the downside, which is key in a more volatile market such as Asia,” McDermott said.

Discreet annual calendar performance (%)

Fund / index / sector	YTD 2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016
T Rowe Price	5.73	15.49	10.37	-17.09	26.64	-4.59
Alquity	5.07	26.78	23.72	-11.39	42.79	2.38
MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Index	5.22	25.36	18.52	-14.12	42.08	5.76
Sector – Asia Pacific ex Japan	5.87	21.83	18.21	-16.05	35.01	2.3

Source: FE Fundinfo. In US dollars.

Three-year annualised volatility

Fund / index / sector	Volatility
T Rowe Price	18.54
Alquity	19.32
MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Index	19.23
Sector – Asia Pacific ex Japan	18.25

Source: FE Fundinfo

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