YZC is not too shabby, but I sold it a few months ago and added to my PTR position. PTR continues marching higher although the Chinese stock market is in the toilet.
NTES is another Chinese internet company. I used to hold this one but as I often do I sold after reaching a profit target. Of course it continued higher after I sold. :hump:
NTES is another Chinese internet company. I used to hold this one but as I often do I sold after reaching a profit target. Of course it continued higher after I sold. :hump:
Another China Option
There's growing excitement about the China story and the potential of several of its neighbors, and we've received lots of calls about the best way to play the region.
Well, the Matthews family is an excellent place to start. It's a pure-Asia shop that has been around for more than a decade, while many Asia offerings are from firms with short-term or limited experience in the region. Matthews also boasts a broader array of Asia offerings than any other fund company. In addition to its one regionwide fund and two Asia ex-Japan offerings, the firm has single-country funds that focus on Japan, Korea, and China--the three most important markets in the area--and an Asia technology offering.
The quality of the Matthews' lineup is impressive.
Matthews Asia Pacific MPACX, which invests across the whole region and is the family's youngest offering, has crushed its typical peer since opening in late 2003. Matthews Asian Growth & Income MACSX and Matthews Pacific Tiger MAPTX sport the best and second-best 10-year returns in the Pacific/Asia ex-Japan category, respectively, as well as topnotch shorter-term results. And all three of the family's single-country funds have been superior performers. (Matthews Asian Technology MATFX has no true peers and thus is tough to evaluate, though it has outpaced most global tech offerings.)
A Talented and Growing Team
Not surprisingly, there's a first-rate team of investment professionals here. Chief investment officer Paul Matthews, who serves as the lead manager or comanager on a handful of funds, had roughly one decade of experience running Asia money before founding Matthews International Capital Management in 1991. President Mark Headley, who is lead manager or comanager on several funds, was already an experienced Asia hand when he joined the firm in 1995. And Richard Gao served as a loan officer, foreign-exchange trader, and assistant manager at Bank of China as well as an analyst and comanager at Matthews before taking the helm of Matthews China MCHFX.
Matthews has done a nice job of beefing up its investment team in recent years as its assets under management have increased substantially. (The firm, which had just $350 million in assets at the end of 2001, currently has $3.6 billion in assets under management.) It brought back former analyst Andrew Foster as director of research in 2003; it hired Patricia Higase as a senior analyst in 2004; and it gave both comanager responsibilities earlier this year. And after bringing on a China specialist and a general analyst in 2004 to join the Korea/tech analyst who had been on board since 2000, Matthews hired a Japan analyst in mid-2005 and is about to hire an India specialist. Thus, the firm now has nine investment professionals and soon will have 10.
Good Marks for Shareholder Friendliness
The firm is also fundholder friendly overall. Recognizing that Asia funds are inherently vulnerable to market-timers, it has been very early and aggressive in its use of redemption fees, fair value pricing, and other tools to combat such activity. It has also done a nice job of cutting expenses on funds as assets have risen. And it promptly closed Matthews Asian & Income to new investors in late 2003, when it had roughly $800 million in assets, so manager Paul Matthews wouldn't have to change his approach.
Like many other successful boutiques, Matthews has a consistent investment philosophy, and that philosophy gives its funds certain advantages. In particular, its managers focus on fundamentally sound companies with good growth prospects and attractive valuations, and they search the far corners of their universes for such issues. Because the managers pay significant attention to smaller-cap and smaller-market opportunities, the funds make better diversifiers than most of their rivals.
But Which Fund?
Asia fans who are attracted to the family's strengths need to choose their funds carefully. Despite their common investment philosophy, the Matthews funds have very different uses due to the variations in their geographic purviews as well as the details of their security-selection strategies.
Matthews Pacific Tiger has the broadest appeal of the six Matthews funds that are open to new investors. It's one of the best emerging-Asia offerings around and has superior diversification value, so it's a terrific choice for investors who want to complement their foreign large-cap holding with some Asia spice as well as for those who want to build their own diversified emerging-markets exposure by combining regional emerging-markets offerings.
Matthews Asia Pacific is a tad tougher to use. It, like all diversified Pacific/Asia offerings, pays a lot of attention to Japan, and most investors already have significant exposure to that market through their core international holdings. That's mitigated by the fact that this fund's Japan stake tends to be smaller and less mainstream than the diversified Pacific/Asia offering norm. Thus, this fund could be used as a source of extra Asia exposure by investors who have a foreign large-cap offering that is light on Japan in particular and Asia in general. A better use, though, would be as a part of collection of regional offerings. Along the same lines, Matthews Japan MJFOX is best used similarly.
Like all single-country emerging-markets offerings, Matthews China and Matthews Korea MAKOX come with severe political, economic, and other risks and are extremely volatile. Thus, they're way too aggressive for investors who are merely seeking a supplemental international offering with some pop. (Individuals who fall in that camp--and who are interested in China or Korea--should note that Matthews Pacific Tiger normally has big stakes in both markets.) Rather, these two funds are best suited for investors who already have well-diversified portfolios of international funds and are comfortable adding a daring long-term investment to the mix. Indeed, these funds have risk/reward profiles like those of bold stocks and should be used in a similar manner.
Finally, it's important to recognize that even the less-aggressive members of the Matthews lineup tend to be pretty volatile in absolute terms--Matthews Asian Growth & Income is the only exception--so investors who are interested in any of the family's open offerings should be sure that they can handle sharp sell-offs and that they have long time horizons. They also would be wise to dollar-cost average in slowly.
William Samuel Rocco is a senior analyst with Morningstar.
There's growing excitement about the China story and the potential of several of its neighbors, and we've received lots of calls about the best way to play the region.
Well, the Matthews family is an excellent place to start. It's a pure-Asia shop that has been around for more than a decade, while many Asia offerings are from firms with short-term or limited experience in the region. Matthews also boasts a broader array of Asia offerings than any other fund company. In addition to its one regionwide fund and two Asia ex-Japan offerings, the firm has single-country funds that focus on Japan, Korea, and China--the three most important markets in the area--and an Asia technology offering.
The quality of the Matthews' lineup is impressive.
Matthews Asia Pacific MPACX, which invests across the whole region and is the family's youngest offering, has crushed its typical peer since opening in late 2003. Matthews Asian Growth & Income MACSX and Matthews Pacific Tiger MAPTX sport the best and second-best 10-year returns in the Pacific/Asia ex-Japan category, respectively, as well as topnotch shorter-term results. And all three of the family's single-country funds have been superior performers. (Matthews Asian Technology MATFX has no true peers and thus is tough to evaluate, though it has outpaced most global tech offerings.)
A Talented and Growing Team
Not surprisingly, there's a first-rate team of investment professionals here. Chief investment officer Paul Matthews, who serves as the lead manager or comanager on a handful of funds, had roughly one decade of experience running Asia money before founding Matthews International Capital Management in 1991. President Mark Headley, who is lead manager or comanager on several funds, was already an experienced Asia hand when he joined the firm in 1995. And Richard Gao served as a loan officer, foreign-exchange trader, and assistant manager at Bank of China as well as an analyst and comanager at Matthews before taking the helm of Matthews China MCHFX.
Matthews has done a nice job of beefing up its investment team in recent years as its assets under management have increased substantially. (The firm, which had just $350 million in assets at the end of 2001, currently has $3.6 billion in assets under management.) It brought back former analyst Andrew Foster as director of research in 2003; it hired Patricia Higase as a senior analyst in 2004; and it gave both comanager responsibilities earlier this year. And after bringing on a China specialist and a general analyst in 2004 to join the Korea/tech analyst who had been on board since 2000, Matthews hired a Japan analyst in mid-2005 and is about to hire an India specialist. Thus, the firm now has nine investment professionals and soon will have 10.
Good Marks for Shareholder Friendliness
The firm is also fundholder friendly overall. Recognizing that Asia funds are inherently vulnerable to market-timers, it has been very early and aggressive in its use of redemption fees, fair value pricing, and other tools to combat such activity. It has also done a nice job of cutting expenses on funds as assets have risen. And it promptly closed Matthews Asian & Income to new investors in late 2003, when it had roughly $800 million in assets, so manager Paul Matthews wouldn't have to change his approach.
Like many other successful boutiques, Matthews has a consistent investment philosophy, and that philosophy gives its funds certain advantages. In particular, its managers focus on fundamentally sound companies with good growth prospects and attractive valuations, and they search the far corners of their universes for such issues. Because the managers pay significant attention to smaller-cap and smaller-market opportunities, the funds make better diversifiers than most of their rivals.
But Which Fund?
Asia fans who are attracted to the family's strengths need to choose their funds carefully. Despite their common investment philosophy, the Matthews funds have very different uses due to the variations in their geographic purviews as well as the details of their security-selection strategies.
Matthews Pacific Tiger has the broadest appeal of the six Matthews funds that are open to new investors. It's one of the best emerging-Asia offerings around and has superior diversification value, so it's a terrific choice for investors who want to complement their foreign large-cap holding with some Asia spice as well as for those who want to build their own diversified emerging-markets exposure by combining regional emerging-markets offerings.
Matthews Asia Pacific is a tad tougher to use. It, like all diversified Pacific/Asia offerings, pays a lot of attention to Japan, and most investors already have significant exposure to that market through their core international holdings. That's mitigated by the fact that this fund's Japan stake tends to be smaller and less mainstream than the diversified Pacific/Asia offering norm. Thus, this fund could be used as a source of extra Asia exposure by investors who have a foreign large-cap offering that is light on Japan in particular and Asia in general. A better use, though, would be as a part of collection of regional offerings. Along the same lines, Matthews Japan MJFOX is best used similarly.
Like all single-country emerging-markets offerings, Matthews China and Matthews Korea MAKOX come with severe political, economic, and other risks and are extremely volatile. Thus, they're way too aggressive for investors who are merely seeking a supplemental international offering with some pop. (Individuals who fall in that camp--and who are interested in China or Korea--should note that Matthews Pacific Tiger normally has big stakes in both markets.) Rather, these two funds are best suited for investors who already have well-diversified portfolios of international funds and are comfortable adding a daring long-term investment to the mix. Indeed, these funds have risk/reward profiles like those of bold stocks and should be used in a similar manner.
Finally, it's important to recognize that even the less-aggressive members of the Matthews lineup tend to be pretty volatile in absolute terms--Matthews Asian Growth & Income is the only exception--so investors who are interested in any of the family's open offerings should be sure that they can handle sharp sell-offs and that they have long time horizons. They also would be wise to dollar-cost average in slowly.
William Samuel Rocco is a senior analyst with Morningstar.
Redneckman said:
Damn, Forgot all about this forum. Buffet bought 30% of PTR at 22$ a share 3-4 years ago. I got it at 25 and what was then a 7% dividend. Sina I just bought on my own at 9$ and sold half at 40.
Thanks for the Incites so far. I-shares China, I my get with next pinnacle check.
