The FSA Spy market buzz – 20 December 2024
Merry Christmas! The Year in Funds; Nuclear; Mag-7; Small Caps; Robotics; Bitcoin; Large Cap Growth; US Manufacturing; AI; Big Data; Lithium Batteries; Emerging Markets; Warfare and much more.
Income has long been the catchword for Asian clients of private banks and wealth managers.
In 2017, seven out of the top ten asset-gathering Hong Kong-domiciled funds had an income strategy that provides exposure to high dividend investments under either a mixed strategy or single asset class approach, FSA reported earlier.
Luke Ng, senior vice president at FE Advisory Asia, agreed that the dividend-yielding strategy that pays out regular income is in strong demand in Asia.
He said high dividend equity funds are for equity investors who also want a degree of downside protection.
Moreover, he expects stable economic growth across emerging Asia will continue to support the region’s stock markets.
“Long term structural change in the region provides a lot of investment opportunities. As this year has begun with higher volatility, it should be a favorable environment for dividend strategies.”
But he noted that investors should be mindful of the political events in the region. “Most of Asia is still considered a emerging markets. Political uncertainties remain the major risk. Investors with an exposure to Asian equities should be aware of the impact that the China-US trade dispute, Korean peninsula events and the new government in Malaysia could bring,” he said.
The strengthening of the US dollar can also have a negative impact on emerging market assets, he added.
Against this backdrop, FSA asked Ng to provide a comparative analysis of the First State Asian Equity Plus Fund and the Value Partners High-Dividend Stocks Fund.
First State Asian Equity Plus Fund | Value Partners High-Dividend Stocks Fund | |
Size |
$3.5bn | $3.23bn |
Inception | 14 July 2003 |
2 September 2002 |
Manager |
Martin Lau and Richard Jones | Norman Ho |
Morningstar Rating | ***** |
**** |
FE Crown Fund Rating |
***** |
** |
Fees (OCF) | 1.58% |
1.46* |
Merry Christmas! The Year in Funds; Nuclear; Mag-7; Small Caps; Robotics; Bitcoin; Large Cap Growth; US Manufacturing; AI; Big Data; Lithium Batteries; Emerging Markets; Warfare and much more.
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