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China slowdown and Matthews

....Just reading WSJ today. The debt overhang and everything else inside China sounds dire. If you own Matthews, is all of this smelly news causing you to make any moves?
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304360704579419792604179898?mg=reno64-wsj

Comments

  • Howdy,

    Not me. I've got both income and pacific growth to cover the squares MACSX and MPACX. Good for me. It's long term stuff and china and asia are long term winners. Ignore the noise.

    peace,

    rono
  • Rono,

    How do you and others see MAPIX fitting in with MACSX and MPACX?

    Thanks.

    Mona

  • I second that, Mona. I'd be interested to hear about that from someone who's not an amateur like myself.
  • Mona said:


    How do you and others see MAPIX fitting in with MACSX and MPACX?

    You don't need all three and the question should rather be how do you see any of these funds fitting in with your total portfolio. If your portfolio strategy is a few funds with wide coverage, you can use MAPIX to give some strategy diversification and fill some holezs in Asian coverage. If your portfolio strategy used specialized funds to specific geographical locations, you can use MACSX or MAPIX and see if you need MPACX to fill some hole in your overall portfolio.

    If your portfolio strategy is kitchen sink popular here with one of every good fund you hear about, then why stop at just those three?:-)
  • To answer the original question, I have had MAPIX for a long time in my core portfolio but also have FXP in my play portfolio for the current situation that creates a hedge for China weakness.
  • edited March 2014
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Mapix is my core holding for Asia exposure. Really don't wish to replicate other Matthews funds.

  • edited March 2014
    @Mona and @Crash ,

    Not an expert at all, which is why I give money to them, but Matthews published this sales guide regarding their five "core strategy" funds: MACSX, MAPIX, MPACX, MAPTX, and MAFSX. You can also use this tool to compare. These helped me differentiate a little.

    The way I understand it, MACSX is meant to be a very conservative growth fund using convertables. Think Asian PRWCX.

    MAPIX focuses on dividends and dividend growth as a means to judge company health. It ends up being a fairly low volatility fund meant for "total return" with "current income." I tend to compare VDIGX.

    I'm less familiar with MPACX, but did look at it because of the smaller asset base. It focuses on earnings growth due to "regional integration", but with an all Asia focus as opposed to MAPTX. Its mandate can create some extreme focus. MPACX is currently ~50% in Japan.

    All of them use the same basic thesis: Long term Asian growth. And while China and Japan are the two major Asian powers, I wonder if long term the Chinese dip doesn't help that growth by letting other players come forward. Of course one could take the opposite view too, but I'm adding to MAPIX and holding.
  • Thanks a lot. Very thoughtful. I appreciate the response, mrdarcey.
  • Yes mrdarcey, thank you very much.

    Mona
  • You're welcome, I hope those links helped people a little.

    People have been harsh on Matthews and former darlings MAPIX/MACSX (and funds like SFGIX) lately. But it seems to me that the problem isn't with management, per se, but with emerging markets leading to bad Asian results. That's in part what the Horrocks' letter someone linked to several weeks ago sought to address. All in all, the Matthews funds seem to have held up pretty well. It's up to individual investors to decide whether this is a long term trend or not. But I don't think this is a Matthews' problem.
  • Matthews will be having a webcast on the 13th according to an email I received this morning. I think one can view these on Wealthtrack if they don't want to register on the Matthews site. The webcast is specific to the China slowdown and how it affects investments.
  • Thank you for the heads up.
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