Asia tracker funds - fees vs returns

Rich1976

Linton said: 

Deleted_User said:

I have an s&s ISA through H&L and have been looking to add an additional fund with an Asia focus. After a bit of research I have narrowed down 3 which I'm interested in however there is a bit of variation in the fees but also the short and long terms returns. I'm trying to weigh up the costs of participating in funds vs the fees charged. The funds are:

Baillie gifford pacific B acc
JPM Asia growth C acc
Ishares pacific ex japan equity index H acc

....

My question is, if I had invested £1000 in each fund 1 year ago how would the fees charged have affected the return? Would the manged funds still have done better than the passive fund overall and accounting for fees?

Thanks 

As El-Torro says fund manager charges are always included in performance data.  You never need tro add them on afterwards.

The important things is that these are very different funds.  For example the Ishares tracker is 27% Australia and 1% China.  Baillie Gifford Pacific is 50% China and 1.5% Australia.  This is a perfect example of why there are the frequent arguments with those who claim that the priority when choosing an investment should be to minimise charges .  What a fund invests in is far more important than charges, even for funds in the same sector.

My strategy is to decide up front where to invest and then find the best fund to use.  Charges are a minor consideration.

Don't let the Vanguard brigade hear you say charges a minor consideration 😅

Prism

Deleted_User said:

Interesting that baillie gifford's own website has a different country weighting than H&L for this fund:

I would ignore HLs allocation - its wrong.

Linton

Prism said:

Deleted_User said:

Interesting that baillie gifford's own website has a different country weighting than H&L for this fund:

I would ignore HLs allocation - its wrong.

Weeell it's not actually wrong, being generous I would say it's more of an interpretation.  It is the same issue we have seen before.  Some of the Baillie Gifford Pacific fund's major Chinese holdings eg Alibaba and JD are in ADRs traded in the US. So HL classifies them as US shares.

Prism

Linton said:

Prism said:

Deleted_User said:

Interesting that baillie gifford's own website has a different country weighting than H&L for this fund:

I would ignore HLs allocation - its wrong.

Weeell it's not actually wrong, being generous I would say it's more of an interpretation.  It is the same issue we have seen before.  Some of the Baillie Gifford Pacific fund's major Chinese holdings eg Alibaba and JD are in ADRs traded in the US. So HL classifies them as US shares.

Lets just say that HL are kind of out on their own in their interpretation of the data I do wonder where they get their funds stats from as it always seems different than everyone else.

dunstonh

Prism said:

Linton said:

Prism said:

Deleted_User said:

Interesting that baillie gifford's own website has a different country weighting than H&L for this fund:

I would ignore HLs allocation - its wrong.

Weeell it's not actually wrong, being generous I would say it's more of an interpretation.  It is the same issue we have seen before.  Some of the Baillie Gifford Pacific fund's major Chinese holdings eg Alibaba and JD are in ADRs traded in the US. So HL classifies them as US shares.

Lets just say that HL are kind of out on their own in their interpretation of the data I do wonder where they get their funds stats from as it always seems different than everyone else.

Their website says they use FE.  However, FE shows the following:

ivormonee

... which in turn matches (with a 1% discrepancy) BG's own data:

Fund %
1	China	46.6
2	South Korea	11.8
3	India	9.5
4	Taiwan	9.3
5	Singapore	7.8
6	Vietnam	6.5
7	Indonesia	4.8
8	Hong Kong	2.1
9	Others	1.1
10	Cash	0.5
Total		100.0

HL's data seems to be based on location of stock exchange rather than location of company activity. Eg. JD.com operates in China but listed in the US, so it's an EM Asia company, but shows as US per HL.
Moral of story: Where there are discrepancies always go with the fund provider's own data!