HwangDBS Select Income Fund

Jessica Tess Cambensy is a popular model from Chicago 

HwangDBS SIF is paying off handsomely for the past two years since I poured some stake into it. The fund is headed by Ms.Esther Teo who is the head of Hwang's Fixed Income and has the prestigious CFA certification. http://hwangim.com/cms/about-us/head-of-fixed-income. One reason SIF is capable of generating better returns is due to its capital allocation of minimum 70% fixed income and up to 30% equities. Most of the time as much as 50% of fixed income are into bonds. I have noticed a few key items:-


1.Equity investment scope is global in nature with very big emphasis on Asian  stocks; companies that are monopolistic and generally non-cyclical. They also do have stable history of good dividends as far as my eye can see. I have no qualms for the focus on EM (emerging markets). Since the 09 crisis, we can clearly see that EM economies continuously playing a bigger role with China as the centerpiece. EM now constitutes 83% of the world's population, 75% of global foreign reserves, ~50% global exports and 35% of global GDP!


2. Fixed income securities; NO history of defaults! As far as I know Hwang has a stringent criteria selection process therefore landing it with a perfect track record since the fund's inception back in January 2005. SIF employs active currency hedging. It works like this, when MYR is strong hedging is employed but when MYR is weak unhedging applies.  For example in the year 2010 all Asian currencies show short term strengthening bias and therefore all non-Asian currency positions are hedged back to MYR. At that time fund flow to Asian region was strong (because money will never flow into the Developed Economies due to their staggered and slow recovery) leading to sustained Asian currency strength.


I for one do not like what is happening in EU with their debt laden economies. I am extremely satisfied when HwangDBS SIF decided to sell all their EU exposure back in 2011 and now has more Asian credits. To name a few Public Bank and PTT Exploration (Thai's top 10 company and is in the O&G business). We are half way now into 2012 and I should expect HwangDBS to move a little bit of their overweight holdings out from China to more mature developed economies in Asia. This is due to inflation concerns and credit tightening in China. We shall see when their interim report for 2012 comes out in June. Fingers crossed. As of now SIF remains a solid investment portfolio and is performing slightly better than I expected!! You can read back how I picked mutual funds (I do not pick 100% equities fund as I rather invest it myself). 
http://aboiwealthpot.blogspot.com/2010/05/of-unit-trusts-mutual-funds.html
http://aboiwealthpot.blogspot.com/2011/04/give-me-break-pb-fund-fanatics.html

Above these highlighted ones..I simply don't understand why they are so costly!!

Hwang's SIF the leading Mixed Assets MYR Conservative Fund!