Tea with Invest Apprentice: 7 Reasons Why We Need Unit Trusts.

Another guest blog by Invest Apprentice and this should be read as a companion blog to the earlier guest blog. Please see related post number 1 at the end of this blog:

7 Reasons Why We Need Unit Trusts.

1) When we only have a small capital and it's too expensive to buy individual stocks or bonds in a certain market we want exposure to.

Eg. A global equity fund is a quick way to gain exposure and diversification to most of the mega cap companies in the global stock market.

2) When we want to diversify our risks and ETF is not a ready option. Our SGX exchange currently does not offer the range of ETFs compared to foreign exchanges such as the US, where you could literally buy an ETF for any sector, style, country, asset class etc. you can think of. They even have leveraged ETFs for you to “short” the market should you wish to (no thanks for me)! But until the day our SGX offers even half the range of ETFs, to some extent I’ll still have to rely on some unit trusts to diversify into certain sectors or markets.

3) When our research on macroeconomic drivers lead is to identify an undervalued sector or a country's market that is extremely promising, but we lack the confidence or funds to invest directly in specific stocks in that sector or country.

A simple example is the Phillip S-REIT Fund which I bought in late 2011 for my mum. She was new to investing and thus averse to picking REITs directly. That fund reinvested its quarterly dividend and has returned about 40% when I sold it in Feb this year.

4) When we favour the fund manager’s style and endorse the fund’s investing philosophy. For example, I still hold on to Aberdeen funds even though they underperformed their benchmarks last year, because I like the defensiveness of their portfolio selection and hold the view that going forward, defensive sectors like consumer staples tend to fare better in an increasingly difficult market.

5) When we don’t have a better alternative. Usually, this means that the sector/country/asset class we want to invest in does not have an ETF representing it, or the ETF is seriously illiquid in our exchange and therefore difficult to trade.

For example, there are unit trusts that invest in exotic frontier markets like Ukraine (!) and Vietnam which we may like to “try-try”, such as FTIF-Templeton Frontier Markets Fund managed by Mark Mobius.

6) When we want clean-cut portfolio allocation and easier time doing rebalancing. It’s easier to create a diversified portfolio like, “I want 40% into US equities, 30% into Asian equities, and 30% into global bonds, and I want to do that with $5,000”.

7) When we are not looking for spectacular returns, but a better than average market return at lower risk compared to investing in individual stocks.

Wilfred Ling did a breakdown of the various myths surrounding unit trusts. Some of my points are similar to his, although I added my personal interpretations:

 

Hopefully the above gives you a broader perspective on the role of unit trusts in one's portfolio. Personally, I am NOT a unit trust fan myself and I do my own active stock picking. I also use ETFs for investing in broad funds. I am just writing this as a response to the negative hype against unit trusts in recent years, at least among the fellow investors I spoke with or read about.

Every investing instrument has its place in the arena.

Disclaimer:
This is NOT investment advice and I am not a licensed FA. Invest on your own risk or seek a professional FA.

Related posts:
1. Can we trust unit trusts?
2. SRS: A brief analysis.

Tea with Invest Apprentice: Can we trust unit trusts?

This is a guest blog by Invest Apprentice, someone whom I got to know on FB. Knowledgeable but very humble, I have been asking him to guest blog for ASSI for months. So, I hope you enjoy this:

Among my friends savvy in investing, the common perception is that unit trusts don't earn money, or they had lost money in unit trusts before. So, they would rather invest on their own.

It's true that unit trusts lose money in a few scenarios:
 

1) The underlying market they are invested in lose money.

2) High expense ratio and management fees.

3) They underperform the market they are benchmarked against.

For (1), this is the market risk that you can't run away from even if you use an ETF or you invest directly in the said market. For example, if you bought an emerging market unit trust since last year you would most likely have lost money, because MSCI Emerging Market index was -5% since last year. In an ETF, that would be the loss you make. If you pick stocks, they have to be strong enough to withstand the broad market decline.

For (2), it's true that unit trusts have a higher cost over index funds and ETFs over the long run. But you also need to pay upfront commission charges for buying ETF, especially if you are buying in small lot sizes. If you diversify your stocks the commission costs will mount up as well. Saying that low cost index funds beat actively managed, expensive unit trusts over the long run is accurate provided you kept commission charges lower than the expense ratio of the unit trusts you are comparing against.

For (3), this is due to poor active management skill of the fund manager. But what is active management? It means the fund manager is using his own analytical research, forecasts, judgement and experience in making investment decisions on what securities (stocks, bonds, commodities) to buy, hold and sell, given the investment universe dictated by the fund objective (sounds like what you and I do when stock picking).

The objective is to beat the benchmark of the fund. This means that if the benchmark returns -20%, and the fund returns -15%, the fund manager has “beaten” the benchmark, even though on your statement it shows a loss. And by the way, that’s supposed to be a good thing!

What we should lament is not that the unit trust we bought loses money, but that it underperforms its own benchmark. This happens when the stocks or bonds the fund bought did not rise as much as the index, or fall in value relative to the broader market. Remember this can happen to us stock pickers as well. I have bought and am still holding on to a number of stocks that are still underperforming the STI.

One way to mitigate this - besides looking at past performance - is to look at the investing objective and philosophy of the unit trust in its prospectus, and also the top 10 holdings and asset allocation of the fund. See if they practice what they preach in their prospectus. One can also read their commentary to see if they explain their rationale behind buying into or divesting of a security / stock.

My "favourite" example is Aberdeen unit trusts. I held a few Aberdeen funds (still do), and I always thought they are the best, until last year I checked the performance of Aberdeen Global Opportunity Fund vs the benchmark MSCI World. To my horror I realized that Aberdeen Global Opportunity Fund only returned 16% in 2013 vs MSCI World Index's return of 27%. Now, 16% is good performance, no doubt, but not when your benchmark returns almost 70% better - you might as well do indexing.

What happened? Basically if you look into their fund factsheet, their country allocation was underweight US in 2013 – and we know that US was the best performing market that year.

Looking at the fund factsheet (for this example: http://www.aberdeen-asia.com/doc.nsf/Lit/FactsheetSingaporeOpenAGOF) and comparing it with the benchmark’s factsheet (for this example, MSCI World Index: http://www.msci.com/resources/factsheets/index_fact_sheet/msci-world-index.pdf) will show you the distinctive investing style of the fund. Study their country and sector allocation.  In this example, you will notice that Aberdeen Global Opp is still underweight US (less than 30%) vs the index (54%). You will have to decide whether you agree with such an allocation.

Let’s say you agree to the investing style of the unit trust. The next thing to look for is the top holdings, also found in the fund factsheet.

If you like the top holdings, buying into the unit trust is a viable way of gaining exposure to these companies - especially if they are not represented in the index that your ETF is tracking. This way you can supplement your passive indexing.

There are of course other things to look for when choosing a unit trust. The above is only a quick guide.

Very often people look at the absolute return instead of the benchmark the unit trust is tracking. If we put things into perspective, buying the right unit trust at the right time can help a portfolio.

Disclaimer:

This is NOT investment advice and I am not a licensed FA. Invest on your own risk or seek a professional FA.

Related posts:

1. OCBC Blue Chip Investment.
2. SRS, CPF-OA and CPF-SA.