TheEdge
KUALA LUMPUR: A slump in the domestic stock market and pullbacks across major global bourses in March led to a dismal month for Malaysia’s managed funds industry, with unit trusts registered for sale declining 3.84% in aggregate.
According to the Lipper FundMarket Insight Reports, with the exception of money market funds, yielding a steady 0.22% return, all major asset groups finished the month in the red.
It said government-linked stocks would continue to remain under pressure, although plantation and natural resources-based counters should still see good support, given record commodity prices.
“With Malaysia’s domestic political outlook largely uncertain, following the ruling party’s setback in March’s general elections, sentiment in the domestic bourse is likely to be weak over the second and third quarters,” Lipper said.
It said equity funds fell again on the back of heightened investor risk aversion to finish at the bottom of the scoreboard with a hefty 5.91% decline, weighed down notably by declines in funds investing in the domestic market.
“The fund sector scoreboard reflected the sorry state of March’s markets, with only three classifications managing to eke out a positive return among the 10 top fund groups,” Lipper said.
It said bond global offerings rose 1.47% on the back of declining sovereign bond yields, while money market funds provided investors a 0.22% return on their portfolios.
The only other category finishing in the black was Equity Emerging Markets Far East — consisting of a single fund offering investment in the Vietnam bourse that provided a marginal 0.02% gain.
Lipper said the other outperformers for the month in relative terms were a mixed bag, including Equity Sector Real Estate Global (-0.18%) and fixed income categories such as Bond MYR (-0.19%) and Bond Asia Pacific (-0.97%).
The ancillary product classes of protected (-0.40%) and guaranteed (-0.98%) unit trusts also finished among the 10-ten list, while rounding up the list were mixed-asset products with a conservative profile or a predominantly fixed income exposure (-1.06%).
Conversely, funds investing in the natural resources and precious metals sectors took a hard beating during the month, following a sharp pullback in oil and gold prices in March.
The former fell 11.06% in value while Equity Sector Gold & Precious Metals lost 9.37%. Gold prices had earlier peaked at US$1,030.8 per troy ounce, only to close at US$915.3 per troy ounce at the end of the month on heavy profit-taking.
Lipper said returns among the ten 10-performing Malaysia funds for March were largely muted, although several global equity funds managed to outperform, including Pacific S&P Global Stars Fund (+1.57%) and HLG Global Value Fund (+0.76%).
It said similarly, global real estate offerings such as HWANGDBS Global Property Fund (+2.75%), Alliance Global Diversified Property Fund (+1.69%), and ING Global Real Estate Fund (+0.74%) made tentative rebounds after having suffered substantial declines in the past year.
Ranking first for the month was AmDual Opportunities-Capital Protected Fund, rising 3.36% in value, while Bond Global products Alliance Global Bond Fund (+2.02%) and AmGlobal Bond Fund (+0.92%) also made an appearance on the top-10 list.
Lipper said domestic plays suffered large declines as a result of the poor showing of the Malaysian bourse, although Public Islamic Select Treasures Fund managed to buck the downtrend with a positive return of 0.64%.
The bottom-10 funds for the month were, however, invariably Equity Malaysia unit trusts, with key laggards being PB Islamic Equity Fund (-13.98%) and CIMB Islamic Equity Aggressive Fund (-11.26%) — both Islamic offerings. MAAKL-CM Shariah Flexi Fund (-11.51%) — a mixed-asset unit trust providing strategic and tactical exposure to Malaysian securities — placed second from last.
Disclaimer: Reading materials in this site are obtained from its respective website and it is for information purposes only. It is not Malaysia Unit Trusts - administrator view and it is not to be used against Malaysia Unit Trusts - administrator.
