Hong Kong's Karl Thomson Securities and Taiwan's Chung Hsing Securities have joined forces to jointly develop financial services.
Under the co-operation, Chung Hsing Securities will refer Taiwanese enterprises with solid foundations to list on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and Karl Thomson will assist them in the listing applications and implementation in Hong Kong.
Karl Thomson plans to connect its online stock trading platform - manytrade.com with that of Chung Hsing Securities, jointly promoting the online trading of Hong Kong stocks and global equities in the future. This interconnection will not only provide a gateway for customers in Taiwan to participate in the Hong Kong stock market, but also allow customers in Hong Kong to access the Taiwan stock market.
Karl Thomson also plans to develop its asset management business, offering a diversified investment portfolio for Taiwanese institutional or individual investors.
In addition, the company, together with Chung Hsing Securities, will organise regular company visits and seminars to improve technical skills and exchange market information for the staff of both firms as well as investors in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Of the more than 300 MPF funds reviewed by Standard & Poor's Fund Services, only a handful delivered positive returns in 2001.
But despite the rather dismal general picture, there are still a number of above-average performers, says William Reidy, managing director for Standard & Poor's Fund Services Asia. In the money market sector, for instance, the capital preservation funds from HSBC Asset Management have been consistent top performers from the start of the MPF scheme (December 2000) until the end of 2001, delivering cumulative returns over the 12-month period of 3.87% (equivalent to 1.84% in dollar-averaged terms).
In the fixed income sector, CMG Choice Fixed Income with Guarantee though slipping slightly in the last quarter still outperformed its peers over the entire year. Its cumulative return from MPF scheme inception to end of 2001 is 5.58% (or 2.43% in dollar-averaged terms).
Amongst the asset allocation funds, which are funds that are invested into equity, fixed income and money market securities, quite a few funds have produced positive returns. In the less volatile asset allocation global defensive class, which includes funds with an equity portion of 30% or lower, the top performing fund is Tai Ping Ret Easy Guarantee with a cumulative return of 4.08% (or 2.20% dollar-averaged) from the end of January to end of December 2001.
For asset allocation funds with equity investment greater than 30% of total portfolio, SCB MPF Citi Balanced took the lead with a return of 3.80% over the entire year (equivalent to 2.18% on a dollar-averaged basis).
Finally, in the equity sector, although the average performance on an absolute basis was -17.09%, by making monthly contributions, investors only lost an average of 3.16% from the end of January until the end of 2001. The best-performing fund within this asset class was Kingsway Korea, which produced a return of 25.40% (or 23.34 dollar-averaged).
With the degree of stock market fluctuations that was experienced in 2001, Reidy says it was inevitable that MPF performance was affected, however he recommends that employees investigate carefully the charges involved before making changes to their portfolios. He also urges employees to exercise prudence when implementing changes since a lot of funds that are currently in the negative return area are invested into the equity markets which will deliver better performance as the US market recovers later this year.