Old faithfuls in the Asia-Pacific ex Japan sector


Money Management has analysed data from FE Analytics to see which funds in the Asia-Pacific ex Japan sector have consistently beat both the sector and the index for 10 years.
Just three funds in the sector have managed to consistently beat the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan index and the ACS Equity – Asia Pacific ex Japan sector over one, three, five and 10-year time frames.
Of the three funds, the Schroder Asia Pacific Wholesale fund returned the highest total returns relative to the benchmark over ten years with 10.61 per cent.
Thirty per cent of the fund’s holdings lay in China, while 19.3 per cent are in Hong Kong and 16.2 per cent are in South Korea. The fund’s top ten holdings are in information technology, with Samsung Technologies it’s top holding at 6.9 per cent, and financials, with AIA Group it’s top financial holding.
The Fidelity Asia fund returned the most out of the three funds over three-years with returns of 14.29 per cent relative to the 7.84 per cent benchmark.
The Fidelity fund’s largest holdings are in China (31.7 per cent), Hong Kong (16.6 per cent), Taiwan (14.6 per cent) and India (13.4 per cent). It also holds 21.4 per cent in financials and 20.2 per cent in consumer staples.
Blackrock’s iShares Asia 50 ETF outperformed the benchmark over one and five-year time frames, returning 20.7 and 16.04 per cent in each of those respective years.
It’s top holdings are in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea, and heavily skewed towards financials and information technology.
The chart below shows the three funds relative to the ACS Equity – Asia Pacific ex Japan sector and the common benchmark, MSCI AC Asia ex Japan.
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