Hi friends,
Ever since the previous review post where I call out the mistakes/biases/bullshits in April 2020, I have received quite a few requests to do something like this again. So, here is another one for the views.
Oh, TLDR; this post won't be as aggressive as the previous one as the speaker this time was way more balanced and provided an objective investment approach to the audience. There are still some shortcomings, but all in all, it was so much better than the previous one. Also, I will be calling Aberdeen Standard as Aberdeen.
I would have to say, I have enjoyed the attention garnered by the post. Especially from financial advisors that tried to defend the views of that webinar (Example: "Oh, different people have different perspectives in finance, fees are not that important".)
They need to know something; there is a difference between perspective and facts. Data are facts. Data have shown that fees hinder performance. Data have shown that passive funds outperform index funds. Intentionally omitting/ignoring these facts shows me that you are simply a bad financial advisor and you should not be doing this job. Just call yourself a salesman. You do not provide quality and sound financial advice for your clients and to the public).
Let's start the post properly:
This webinar was conducted by Aberdeen Standard to promote their Pacific Equity Fund, an actively-managed fund that focuses on Asian companies.
They gave a brief introduction of what Aberdeen does, what asset they managed, their AUM, their offices. From that, the audience knows about the relative advantages that Aberdeen possesses and the service that they can offer.
Next, the audience was given a 2020 recap over the events that has happened that has led to the stock market's behavior (namely; Covid-19, Oil price war, Stimulus packages, Trade War Episode 2)
Then a more precise figure about how the market has performed with all these events, in particular, the S&P 500, Europe, emerging markets, and the world index in general.
The speaker started to explain their rationale for focusing on Asia, especially how Asia has good growth potential compared to other more mature and efficient markets. He then elaborated on these rationales (1. Growing middle class - Moving towards a consumer economy, 2. Urbanization - Need for construction materials, construction companies 3. Premiumisation - Increase in GDP per capital would allow for higher standards of living 4. Strong balance sheets - Asian companies have a higher cash ratio and a lower debt ratio compared to their western counterparts 5. Valuation - Asian companies are traded at a lower P/E ratio too)
Lastly, the speaker outlined the investment approach of the fund that he is promoting, which is already hinted at during the starting portions of the webinar (1. They look for companies that are leading the changes in Asia, like consumer, travel, F&B. 2. They look for companies that can scale up quickly by leveraging on digital technologies like Fintech, gaming, cloud. 3. Tech companies at the forefront of IoT, 5G, big data 4. Suppliers of infrastructural companies)
Now, the most important part, the performance of his fund as compared to the market index. (This is the only part where I find fault in the presentation - that there are no mentions of the fund charges, expense ratio, load charges, management fees. Not sure if it was intentional or not. But fees are still important in determining the actual returns of a fund). So yes, take the next picture with a grain of salt, I don't think the graph is inclusive of all the fund charges (and if you think about it, there are the ILP charges as well)
At the end of the webinar, we were given an opportunity to ask some questions, so naturally, I asked my favourite question:
In which the speaker replied in a tactful manner, he defined the Asia market as inefficient and that's where active-managed funds would do better (which I find to be speaking half-truth) but sure. Then he moved on to the next questions
The Good:
Conclusion:
It was refreshing coming out of this webinar as I felt that I have learnt something, rather than being fed up with the behaviour of the speaker. I look forward to hearing from them in the future,
Let this be a lesson to the agents that I have mentioned at the beginning of the post. If you want to defend something, you should do it with proper data or theory, not throw shades at the other party.
Ever since the previous review post where I call out the mistakes/biases/bullshits in April 2020, I have received quite a few requests to do something like this again. So, here is another one for the views.
Oh, TLDR; this post won't be as aggressive as the previous one as the speaker this time was way more balanced and provided an objective investment approach to the audience. There are still some shortcomings, but all in all, it was so much better than the previous one. Also, I will be calling Aberdeen Standard as Aberdeen.
I would have to say, I have enjoyed the attention garnered by the post. Especially from financial advisors that tried to defend the views of that webinar (Example: "Oh, different people have different perspectives in finance, fees are not that important".)
They need to know something; there is a difference between perspective and facts. Data are facts. Data have shown that fees hinder performance. Data have shown that passive funds outperform index funds. Intentionally omitting/ignoring these facts shows me that you are simply a bad financial advisor and you should not be doing this job. Just call yourself a salesman. You do not provide quality and sound financial advice for your clients and to the public).
Let's start the post properly:
This webinar was conducted by Aberdeen Standard to promote their Pacific Equity Fund, an actively-managed fund that focuses on Asian companies.
They gave a brief introduction of what Aberdeen does, what asset they managed, their AUM, their offices. From that, the audience knows about the relative advantages that Aberdeen possesses and the service that they can offer.
Next, the audience was given a 2020 recap over the events that has happened that has led to the stock market's behavior (namely; Covid-19, Oil price war, Stimulus packages, Trade War Episode 2)
Then a more precise figure about how the market has performed with all these events, in particular, the S&P 500, Europe, emerging markets, and the world index in general.
The speaker started to explain their rationale for focusing on Asia, especially how Asia has good growth potential compared to other more mature and efficient markets. He then elaborated on these rationales (1. Growing middle class - Moving towards a consumer economy, 2. Urbanization - Need for construction materials, construction companies 3. Premiumisation - Increase in GDP per capital would allow for higher standards of living 4. Strong balance sheets - Asian companies have a higher cash ratio and a lower debt ratio compared to their western counterparts 5. Valuation - Asian companies are traded at a lower P/E ratio too)
Lastly, the speaker outlined the investment approach of the fund that he is promoting, which is already hinted at during the starting portions of the webinar (1. They look for companies that are leading the changes in Asia, like consumer, travel, F&B. 2. They look for companies that can scale up quickly by leveraging on digital technologies like Fintech, gaming, cloud. 3. Tech companies at the forefront of IoT, 5G, big data 4. Suppliers of infrastructural companies)
Now, the most important part, the performance of his fund as compared to the market index. (This is the only part where I find fault in the presentation - that there are no mentions of the fund charges, expense ratio, load charges, management fees. Not sure if it was intentional or not. But fees are still important in determining the actual returns of a fund). So yes, take the next picture with a grain of salt, I don't think the graph is inclusive of all the fund charges (and if you think about it, there are the ILP charges as well)
At the end of the webinar, we were given an opportunity to ask some questions, so naturally, I asked my favourite question:
In which the speaker replied in a tactful manner, he defined the Asia market as inefficient and that's where active-managed funds would do better (which I find to be speaking half-truth) but sure. Then he moved on to the next questions
The Good:
- I guess the webinar is definitely useful is providing a different perspective (on how emerging markets can provide additional diversification for your portfolio as they have higher growth potential because of our changing demographics).
- The speaker provided valuable insights and information without throwing shades at other investment approaches (the speaker in the other webinar should learn a thing or two). Even though in essence, he was still trying to pitch a fund, he did it by focusing on the strengths of the product he was promoting.
The Bad:
- The way he answered my question with half-truths wasn't satisfying to me. But I guess he would have to consider his pitch as well.
Conclusion:
It was refreshing coming out of this webinar as I felt that I have learnt something, rather than being fed up with the behaviour of the speaker. I look forward to hearing from them in the future,
Let this be a lesson to the agents that I have mentioned at the beginning of the post. If you want to defend something, you should do it with proper data or theory, not throw shades at the other party.
