New Fund: CIMB-Principal Australian Equity Fund

"Add stability to your portfolio, Invest in the strengths of Australia"

This is the tagline for the new fund, which is aiming to outperform the S&P/ASX 200 Accumulation Index over the medium to long-term, by feeding into Schroder Australian Equity Fund (an Australian-domiciled fund).

The fund will invest at least 95% of net asset value (NAV) in Schroder Australian Equity Fund, emphasising on investment in companies with sustainable competitive advantage in the long term, with a targeted annual return of 10-15%. According to its CEO Campbell Tupling, the Australian market presented exciting opportunities as it was the only major economy that had avoided a technical recession in 2009.

Key selling points:

1. Australia's positive economic outlook, with strong AUD currency.
2. Continue strong demand for its resources, especially from China.
3. Sound governance and effective financial policies.

Minimum invesment : RM 1,000

Minimum top-up      : RM   200

Service charge         : up to 6.5%

Initial offer price       : 25 sen

Go-ogle: New tactic in China

Starting today (23rd March 2010), users of Google.cn website will now taken to the Google.com.hk site as Mountain View, California-based company seeks to operate an uncensored service in China that won't infringe local laws, the Internet operator said.

As such, Mountain View had escalated a two-month censorship row with the government in the world's biggest Internet market yesterday by routing China-based subscribers to a search service on its Hong Kong site.

Was this a good move by Google?

In my opinion, this is a clever-cum-tactical move by Google to takes on China, because the playing ground had swifted to Hong Kong now. And, this could inviting backlash from Hong Kong people, if China want to completely ousted Google out of its territory.

Remember, Hong Kong has a separate government and economy, though mainland authorities have exercised powers to reinterpret local statutes since 1997. China had promised to preserve Hong Kong's capitalist system and free press for a further 50 years, when handing over of sovereignty then. However, traffic redirected to Google's Hong Kong site was still subject to Chinese government filters today. Can Hong Kong out-spoken citizens live without Google?

To recap:
Google said on Jan.12 it was no longer willing to censor content on its Chinese site after it was targeted by cyber attacks from within China. Hackers obtained proprietary information and e-mail data of some human rights activists in a "highly sophisticated attack", said Google. Clearly, Google is upset with the move by "Chinese hackers" or "hackers of China".

Disclaimer: This article is purely of personal opinions with no intention of biased to neither party.

New Fund: OSK-UOB China-India Dynamic Growth Fund

OSK-UOB Unit Trust Management Bhd is launching a new fund on 11th March 2010. The fund will capitalise on the potential growth of world's two largest emerging countries. With a spectacular GDP growth of 8-10% per annum, China and India poised to lead the world's economy out of recession. China and India now ranked as world's 2nd and 4th largest economy respectively, and will outpace Japan in the next few years.
Among the key selling points of the fund are:

1. Rapid urbanisation
2. Great domestic consumption demand
3. Sustainability of strong GDP growth

This is a high risk, high return fund, with portfolio allocation of 60%-40% between the two countries.
UOB asset management will manage the China portfolio, while, UTI International (Singapore) is the sub-manager for India portfolio of the fund.

How BNM OPR hiking affecting market?

4th March 2010, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) raised its overnight policy rate (OPR) by 25 basis points to 2.25%, signaling a reversed trend of interest rate environment in Malaysia. According to BNM, such measure was needed to normalize interest rate with improvement in economic conditions. I personally agree too, by rejecting the using the words of “monetary tightening”.

However, this is only just started; a gradual approach by BNM to raised OPR is expected. To recap, BNM had slashed OPR by 150 basis points to 2% starting 2008. In other words, BNM has a lot more room in reaching the pre-crisis level.

Below are some resulting effects:
1. Banks’ base lending rate will rise accordingly from 5.55% now.
2. Banks’ fixed deposit rate will rise accordingly from 2%-2.5% now too.
3. Ringgit will strengthen further against major currencies, like USD and Pounds.

How about Share Market?
A lot of people anticipate that share market will corrects when central banks hike interest rate. However, this time is not the same here, with KLCI inching 1.22% to 1299.78 points. Meanwhile, it also breaks the psychological 1,300 level since 19th Jan this year.

Why?
By analyzing KLCI, 28% was made up of banking counters, with Maybank rose 5.56%, RHBCap (+3.4%) and CIMB + (1.0%). Banking stocks were mostly up, due to improved profit margin given an improved interest rate environment. Besides, foreign funds also pouring into Malaysia in view of stronger ringgit and low sovereign default risk.

How Tiger fare in 2010?

Approaching the end of “Bull” year for Chinese, the year of “Tiger” is coming. In 2009, the year of Bull basically associated with a 360 degree turning of global share market. The Bull had knocked down the Bear, winning all the way till now. However, the Bull will be ending on 13th February 2010 in Chinese calendar. Meaning, the Bull-run would end soon?

2010 not necessary a bad year because Tiger was not a Bear.
After charging ahead for almost a year, the Bull of 2009 deserved to take a rest.

After talking about the economic terms of Tiger, how about our beloved golfer Tiger Woods? Let’s have a fun prediction of his life in 2010…

In Chinese Astrology, the year of Tiger is associating with Wood. However, it lacks Water as a very important element to makes things happen. If you refer back to Tiger Woods’ story, Water here means women, Wood mean golf wedge. So, can you relate this information?

In other words, Tiger Woods will only stick to his golf wedge without actions this year, if there is no woman supporting him behind. Or, do you have any other ideas?