Asian Markets

Party_Animal

I've been advised to add some Asian stock to my portfolio. I've been trawling through and I've come up with the following;

Newton Asian Income ( best reviews )
Aberdeen Asian Small Companies
Blackrock Frontiers Trust
Schroders Asian Total return

Can anyone recommend any of these or others? I also read that Asian markets are high risk. Are they a much higher risk than UK or Europe?
Thanks

Reaper

Well one of them is. The Blackrock Frontiers Trust sticks out like a sore thumb. On the risk scale you have "Emerging Markets" pretty risky then at the far end "Frontier Markets". I happen to quite like it but it is for only a very small amount of your money at most. Also the 4 largest countries it invests in are Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, and and Quatar. So I don't understand why it is on your short list.
Sept 2013 Factsheet: http://www.blackrock.co.uk/literature/fact-sheet/blackrock-frontiers-investment-trust-plc-monthly-factsheet.pdf

As for the others I invest in the first 2 so I personally like them. Not so keen on Total Return funds but some people like them.

As to whether Asia is higher risk than UK/USA... traditionally the view is yes but as they recently fell more than I think justified my view is it is not a bad time to buy. However with world stock markets volatile and unpredictable only time will tell if I'm right.

ColdIron

Not all Asian funds are the same any more than UK funds are. You need to establish what your objectives are and then find a fund to suit, E.g growth, income, capital preservation, large/small cap etc

Party_Animal

ColdIron wrote: »

Not all Asian funds are the same any more than UK funds are. You need to establish what your objectives are and then find a fund to suit, E.g growth, income, capital preservation, large/small cap etc

Many thanks. I don't understand large/ small cap. I'm new to this. My objective is growth. I'm looking at 5 to 10 years, though I'm 65 so not looking at much longer. Ideally, capital preservation, though I accept this obviously isn't going to be guaranteed so I'm prepared to take some risk.
I'm considering the Newton Asian Income.

bugbyte_2

HSBC Pacific fund has the following composition:

Asia - Developed 51.28%
Australasia 35.93%
Asia - Emerging 9.38%

It has an ongoing charge figure of 0.37% which makes it a cheap tracker. To quote: "The investment policy of this sub fund is to invest in companies that make up the FTSE World Pacific excluding Japan Index."

I'm not suggesting this fund - its just a good all rounder for Asia that invests in the larger companies out there.



Not an FA, so don't take anything I write literally.

jimjames

A tracker like the HSBC one would be a good way to build exposure. Another non tracker that gets recommended is the First State Pacific leaders fund.

Out of interest who is recommending more Asia exposure and if they recommend that are they not recommending what to get?

Party_Animal

jimjames wrote: »

A tracker like the HSBC one would be a good way to build exposure. Another non tracker that gets recommended is the First State Pacific leaders fund.

Out of interest who is recommending more Asia exposure and if they recommend that are they not recommending what to get?

I got this advice from Dunstoh when I was checking out the Artemis. I've now got Europe and the US but no Asia.
Thanks
"It is single sector in that it is UK equity. No europe, US, Japan, Asia, Emerging markets, fixed interest securities, property, global bonds etc. it is single asset. UK shares.

As a single investment fund in isolation, we would have that as risk 9 out of 10 on our scale (1 being cash and 10 being the highest risk unit linked options). If you are a new investor (i.e. no other investments) then going straight in at risk 9 would be something we would put you off. Now, that doesnt mean you shouldnt do it. When you DIY you decide for yourself what to do and you may feel that whilst it is generally considered poor investing to go single sector/single asset, that is what you want to do. You may have a hundred thousand in cash savings and this may only be £5000 of that and you accept the risk. However, if that was the case, you would typically look to be across the risk scale and not have one amount in risk 1 and another amount in risk 9. "

bigadaj

Don't say advice, you'll have dunstonh spitting out his whiskey and soda!

These were general comments about potential alternatives, which are eminently sensible.

The problem here is that splitting your investment between UK equity income and Asian funds still isn't giving you a fair balance for investements.

You need to go through a staged approach, first determining your attitude to risk, and translating that into an asset allocation, so certain amounts in equities, cash and bonds and possibly gold, property commodities etc

Then apportion the equity portion to sectors and geographically.

The easy way of doing this is to use the vanguard or similar lifestyle funds, and many would advoctse this approach with some side funds. Diversification only really becomes effective with larger sums so if your amounts aren't too large then a general spread might be best.

grey_gym_sock

in asia, they might say that it's europe and the USA that are riskier. (they talk about the "western financial crisis", not "global".)

planteria

they do ggs...
and though there are challenges, i think the long-term potential of Asia, Latin America and Africa should not be overlooked.

i have
Fidelity South East Asia
Matthews Pacific Tiger
Threadneedle Latin America
Renaissance Pan African
in my SIPP

bigadaj

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

in asia, they might say that it's europe and the USA that are riskier. (they talk about the "western financial crisis", not "global".)

I'd agree, though the sheer size of the us particularly means that whatever happens if the yanks sneeze then everyone catches a cold.

My points were more about general diversification,and a weighted average is a good place to start, and then justifying modifications to move away form this.

Have been revwiing my holdings and I'm overweight uk, Asia and emerging markets and underweight in USA Nd Europe and would agree with the Asian view even though I think I've probably gone a bit too far and need to slightly up particularly my us allocation.