On 12th January, at the start of this year, I had a blog entry where I looked at the markets that was quickest out of the gate at the start of the year. At that time, it had only been one week into the new year 2010, but ranking up the funds in terms of category then then, Turkey equity funds was at the top, followed by Gold, Resources, Materials, Indonesia, and Energy. It has been 11 months now, and with only one month left to go, baring a huge shakeup in December, there shouldn’t be too much change in the rankings of fund categories. The list is not exhaustive in terms of categories, but this should be the majority of the ones of interest to investors. Let’s see how they stand towards the end of the year as compared to the start.
Fund Category | YTD Performance as at 8th Jan 2010 (%) | YTD Performance as at 1st Dec 2010 (%) | Ranking of performance YTD |
Turkey | 7.39 | 23.64 | 4 |
Gold | 6.14 | 19.03 | 6 |
Resources | 5.9 | 19.71 | 5 |
Materials | 4.17 | 3.03 | 17 |
Indonesia | 3.97 | 35.07 | 2 |
Energy | 3.82 | -6.39 | 23 |
Latin America | 3.41 | 4.83 | 12 |
Global Agribusiness | 3.37 | 4.23 | 14 |
Global finance | 3.29 | -7.78 | 19 |
Eastern Europe | 3.29 | 0.44 | 25 |
Malaysia | 3.16 | 23.68 | 3 |
Singapore small cap | 2.72 | 16.08 | 7 |
Brazil | 2.7 | -3.36 | 22 |
Emerging Europe | 2.28 | 0.44 | 20 |
India | 2.2 | 11.61 | 8 |
Korea | 2.13 | 3.72 | 16 |
BRIC | 1.73 | -0.59 | 21 |
Asia ex Jap | 1.59 | 9.04 | 10 |
Middle East/Africa | 1.57 | 8.31 | 11 |
Europe inc UK | 1.52 | -8.06 | 26 |
Greater China | 0.92 | 3.93 | 15 |
Tech | 0.8 | 1.85 | 18 |
Singapore | 0.75 | 9.86 | 9 |
Thailand | 0.48 | 42.36 | 1 |
Healthcare | 0.43 | -6.46 | 24 |
Property | -0.25 | 4.63 | 13 |
Performances are based on bid to bid prices and in SGD dollar terms, with dividends reinvested
From the table, Turkey equity funds, gold and resources equity funds have not disappointed, ranking 4th, 6th, and 5th as at 1st December in terms of bid to bid performances year to date. The same goes for Indonesia equity funds, which are currently the second best performer in terms of category. However, there are risks to going by this “fastest out of the starting block” strategy as well. Materials and energy funds ended up near the bottom of the table at 17th and 23rd respectively.
There were also some categories, which started out at the bottom of the table, which then surged up during the year. Thailand and Singapore equity funds are two such categories of funds. Both were really slow at the start of the year, but Thailand equity funds ended up the best performing category of funds so far year to date, and Singapore equity funds also ended up 9th, which is in the top ten.
On a regional basis, Asia is doing well so far near the end of the year, with category returns year to date of 9.04%. Given that many of our Fundsupermart investors are overweight in Asia, that is good news. Many should be up for this year, helped by their Asian equity funds. Europe has been hit badly, due to the European financial crisis, and understandably, many of the worst performing categories are situated in Europe.
As we come to the end of the year, don’t forget to rebalance your portfolio. I remain bullish on equities, and will be overweighting equities over bonds for next year. However, it doesn’t mean I don’t have to rebalance. It is likely that even with that factored in, my portfolio by now at near the end of the year is too overweight into equities and I will have to shift some out of equities.
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