HEAD-TO-HEAD: Fidelity versus Matthews Asia

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Andrew Daniels, Morningstar

Introduction

With Asia expected to recover first from the Covid-19 pandemic, several asset managers have positive views on the regional outlook.

“It is a first-in and first-out situation, and markets in Asia have tended to manage the situation better than a lot of other regions, as they have become a little stricter in terms of their confinement rules,” Esty Dwek, head of macro strategy for investment solutions at Natixis Investment Managers, said recently.

“We think Asia is going to be among the winners. In some of the [mixed-asset] portfolios that we run, we have put overweights in emerging Asia versus the rest of EM,” she said.

Echoing Dwek, Kevin Anderson, head of investments for Asia-Pacific at State Street Global Advisors, recently said that the firm continues to be “slightly overweight” in Asia equities given its outlook in the region.

“There would seem to be a greater propensity for a swifter recovery in some of the Asian markets, where there has been thus far greater containment of the public health emergency,” he said.

Fund selectors globally have also been looking to allocate more to the region. In Asia, at least 20% of them intend to increase their allocation to the asset class in the next 12 months, while a third of fund selectors in the UK are also looking to buy the region, according to Last Word Media Research.

Against this backdrop, FSA asked Andrew Daniels, senior analyst for equity strategies manager research at Morningstar, to compare two Asia-Pacific equity products: The Fidelity Funds – Pacific Funds and the Matthews Asia Funds – Dividend Fund.

Source: Morningstar, FE Fundinfo

*19 May 2017 – 20 May 2020

**20 May 2017 – 15 May 2020

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