The FSA Spy market buzz – 1 November 2024
Battleshares’ old versus new, Goldman Sachs’ Cassandra warning, Hong Kong property’s negative equity woes, Ninety One’s trillion-dollar question, Contrarian alert from CB, Lists and much more.
The Asia-Pacific equity markets took a beating in 2018. The MSCI AC Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) Index was down 13.66% during the year versus the MSCI AC World’s -8.93% performance, according to FE data.
However, markets have recovered, with the Asia-Pacific index returning 9.37% year-to-date.
“Given the momentum and the recovery we’ve had in 2019, there’s definitely more interest to date than there was last year, when Asia suffered along with the rest of the world,” said Isaac Poole, chief investment officer at Oreana Private Wealth.
Other fund managers and private banks, such as Robeco and Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, have also become more positive on the asset class.
However, familiar risks continue to put pressure on Asia-Pacific equities: the outcome of the US-China trade negotiations, the clear slowdown of China’s economy and key elections in the region this year.
Against this backdrop, FSA asked Poole to compare two Asia-Pacific equity funds: the First State Asian Equity Plus Fund and the Templeton Asian Growth Fund.
First State |
Templeton |
|
Size |
$3.9bn |
$3.3bn |
Inception |
2003 |
1991 |
Manager |
Martin Lau, Richard Jones |
Erik Mok, Sukumar Rajah |
Three-year cumulative return* |
50.54% |
41.00% |
Three-year annualised return** |
14.04% |
11.36% |
Three-year annualised alpha** |
4.40% |
1.44% |
Three-year annualised volatility** |
12.3 |
14.22 |
Morningstar analyst rating |
Gold |
Neutral |
Morningstar star rating |
***** |
** |
FE Crown fund rating |
***** |
*** |
OCF |
1.58% |
2.21% |
Battleshares’ old versus new, Goldman Sachs’ Cassandra warning, Hong Kong property’s negative equity woes, Ninety One’s trillion-dollar question, Contrarian alert from CB, Lists and much more.
Part of the Mark Allen Group.