Reviewing Asia Fund opportunities

prinx

I currently own MSMLX, MAPIX and MACSX
I am considering FPBFX and FPA
Any comments and any other ideas would be appreciated.
prinx

Symbol Fund Name 1 Wk 13 Wk YTD 1 Yr 3 Yr (Annualized) 5 Yr (Annualized) 10 Yr (Annualized)
MSMLX Matthews Asia:SmCo;Inv 0.51% 0.01% 0.70% 11.36% 9.16% 10.94% --
MAPIX Matthews Asia:Div;Inv 1.45% 3.66% 5.70% 8.99% 9.40% 9.18% --
MACSX Matthews Asia:G&I;Inv 0.55% -0.36% 2.17% 3.08% 7.49% 7.69% 8.94%
FPBFX Fidelity Pacific Basin 2.27% 3.88% 5.37% 9.31% 13.14% 12.39% 9.09%
FPA Frst Tr ADex:AsiaPacexJp 1.81% 5.97% 7.05% 11.68% 8.03% -- --

Crash

PRASX. Ahn Lu is back from a leave-of-absence. That is the Asia fund I own.
YTD
+4.17
1 MONTH
+2.23
1 YEAR
+14.64
3 years
+6.53
5 years
+8.92
10 years
+12.25

Ranks in terms of percentile for each period: 53, 65, 23,59, 22, 27.

JohnChisum

Another fund is SFGIX. While it is not a pure Asia play, it has about 60% of assets in Asia. Andrew Foster is a well respected manager formerly at Matthews.

Dittos on the TRowe Price fund.

AndyJ

I like MEASX, the Matthews (nearly) pure EM fund.

Old_Joe

I believe that you can get inoculation shots for MEASX.

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

Ted

@prinx: FYI; I am linking U.S. News & World Report ranking of diversified Pacific/Asia Funds.
Regards,
Ted
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/diversified-pacific-asia

AndyJ

Old_Joe said:

I believe that you can get inoculation shots for MEASX. (Sorry, couldn't resist...)

Another ticker that's easy to remember (like RYSEX, MALOX, DSENX, etc.)!

LLJB

I like MEASX also but make sure you understand its not only 90% emerging markets but half of that is frontier markets. I don't know the answer but I'd check the collection of Matthews funds, look for overlap and consider whether there's any opportunity/benefit to reduce the number. I like DXJ as a hedged allocation to Japan and a bet that their quantitative easing each month, some portion of which is being invested directly in Japanese stocks, will help push stocks higher and also protect the downside a bit.

David_Snowball

You might use our own database search to browse for options. It's Accipiter's Miraculous Multi-search. Pick a category (diversified Asia/Pacific) and you'll see all of the funds. Returns are color coded (cool colors are good) and it's sortable by field (want to know who has the lowest Ulcer Index? click!). The key to reading the numbers is this: the numbers reflect the age of the fund, we give the 20 year Sharpe for a fund that's 20 years old and the 3 year Sharpe for a fund that's three years old, so be sure to compare funds of similar vintage.

For what help that offers,

David

Crash

Hi, David. I can never get that thing to work. Sigh.

davidrmoran

I get it to work overall, pretty much, although the search DB is sketchy; try entering AOA or AOK after finding them in the list. Also it would be good to hold the row of column heds, else repeat it every dozen or so fund rows.
Ah, I see search does not work at all, when I put in FAIRX or MAPOX. (Chrome is the browser.)
Tip: To sort for quality, just click 10y and then check elsewhere for manager tenure.
Having heard that the head of a big local hedge fund had just returned from Japan doing research on ops there, I put long money into two Matthews and one Fido. May bail due to timidity down the road, though.