Which geographic sectors are doing worst?
Despite averaging losses, the North America and Asia sectors are the best-performing geographically, as the Australia, Europe and emerging market sectors lag behind in the year so far, according to data from FE Analytics.
According to FE Analytics, within the Australian Core Strategies universe, the North America sector lost 5.53%, followed by Asia Pacific ex Japan (6.24%), Asia Pacific single country (6.66%), global (7.17%), emerging markets (12.19%), Australia (15.98%) and Europe (17.04%) since the start of the year to 30 April, 2020.
In the North America sector, three of the 12 funds had positive returns: BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF (10.76%), SSgA SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (8.16%) and BetaShares U.S. Equities Strong Bear ETF Currency Hedged (7.89%) – the latter being negatively correlated to the US stockmarket.
The NASDAQ 100 ETF heavily relied on tech stalwarts that were equipped to handle the pandemic including Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Netflix; while the SSgA ETF had similar top holdings.
In the Asia Pacific ex Japan sector, Mirae Asset Asia Great Consumer Equity returned 8.22%, followed by Platinum Asia Quoted Managed Hedge ETF (3.05%), Platinum Asia (2.26%) and Pendal
Asian Share (0.14%).
VanEck Vectors China New Economy ETF (13.57%) and Vasco ChinaAMC China Opportunities (3.52%) were the only ones in the Asia Pacific single country sector to deliver positive returns.
In the global equities sector, there was over 20 funds that had delivered positive returns.
The best performers were CFS FC Baillie Gifford Long Term Global Growth which returned 22.88%, followed Lakehouse Global Growth (11.58%), CFS Baillie Gifford Global Stewardship (10.63%), Hyperion Global Growth Companies (10.16%) and Loftus Peak Global Disruption (9.26%).
The CFS FC Baillie Gifford Long Term Global Growth fund had allocated 70.42% to North America and its top holdings were Tesla, Amazon, Alibaba, Tencent, Facebook and Netflix.
Geographic-based sector average returns since the start of the year to 30 April 2020
AUTHOR
Chris Dastoor
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