14 Pakistani equity funds among world’s top 100

KSE is the best performing share market in Asia, up 49% during 2012.


Reuters January 18, 2013
Nearly 7,300 equity funds investing in Asia and tracked by Lipper returned an average 17.9% in 2012.

HONG KONG: Fourteen Pakistani mutual funds stormed into the list of the world’s top 100 best performing equity funds in 2012 as Asian regional markets rallied.

In total, 42 mutual funds investing in Asia had made the top 100 cut. The list included 14 equity funds each from Pakistan and Thailand and nine from India, according to an analysis of data for 27,153 actively managed equity mutual funds tracked by Thomson Reuters Lipper globally.

The Asia-focused funds produced an average return of 61.5%, outperforming the top market in the region as well as the 18.6% advance in the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan.

Nearly 7,300 equity funds investing in Asia and tracked by Lipper returned an average 17.9% in 2012. By comparison, non-Asian funds gained 13.3%, the data showed.

The world’s top 100 equity fund’s list ranked Golden Arrow Selected Stock Fund fourth generating a return of 105.29% in 2012, Safeway Mutual Fund 18th with a return of 74.23%, NAFA Stock Fund 26th (69.4%), AKD Opportunity Fund 32nd (65.82%), JS Pension Savings Fund – Equity Sub Fund 42nd (62.59%), Asian Stocks Fund Limited 45th (61.07%), Atlas Stock Market Fund 47th (60.69%), JS Growth Fund 51st (60.43%), Pakistan Pension Fund – Equity Sub Fund 52nd (60.31%), Atlas Pension Islamic Fund 80th (57.61%), Atlas Pension Fund 90th (55.93%), Pakistan Islamic Pension 91st (55.70%), ABL Stock Fund 96th (54.39%) and JS Islamic Fund was ranked 99th generating a return of 54.07% during 2012.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2013.

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COMMENTS (23)

Mehran Salik | 11 years ago | Reply

@Tanweer Haral @Mehran Salik: Equity Funds returns are always absolute returns and not annualized (whcih are used for Moeny market/fixed income returns)

That's correct. Let me be more specific. Pakistan has been experiencing high inflation during the year in question. Depreciating currency value distorts the returns perception in this case. In any case, these funds and their returns sadly don't reflect any real economic fundamentals but rather represent a policy of easy money flowed by the central bank and hot money looking for to park capital in the short-term.

Faisal Malik | 11 years ago | Reply

Its great to see the equities market of Pakistan doing good but unfortunately our economy and capital marekts move in two seperate directions. Most of the index is composed of businesses which have a hedge againt domestic concerns e.g E&P, Energy, Oil & Gas etc. Therefore the argument of comparing the performance of funds/equity markets viz-a-vz the economy is totally irrelevant. However we need to see is that India/Pakistan/Thailand all have low Gross savings as a % of GNI. Pakistan has declined in gross savings in the last 10 years which in 2010 was around 21% compared to 34% in India and 32% in Thailand. In 2001 Pakistan's gross saving was 22.4% of GNI. The other problem is currency in circulation which is currently around 32% of deposits v/s 18% in India. This money equating to aroun PKR 2trn in not even in the banking/savings chanel. No doubt that Pakistan's equities markets have performed extremely well and so have some of the fund mangers but the fact remains that the Pakistan's financial markets have not deepend itself and the capital markets have not been able to penetrate the way it should. On this premise that Pakistan's base of cpaital markets is extremely small in terms of capitalization, the funds managers have to focus on penetrating and widening the market. All in all credit should be given to the business of Pakistan as their shares have performed well despite all domestic odds. The fund managers were only able to catch up with the bull markets and some of them over performed as well.

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