Index funds

Since the unit trust market was liberalised with more relaxed rulings on offshore investments, most new fund launches have been nothing but regional and global funds. At this point, many of our local fund managers are still not up to the standard of managing these foreign funds so the easiest and fastest way to offer offshore funds is to buy into another fund, thus the local fund becomes a feeder fund.

Response to offshore funds have been very good because for the first time, people are allowed to invest overseas. Not to mention that the performances of many feeder funds have been great too compared to the local ones.

I’ve invested in a few foreign funds myself, but never in any of these feeder funds. The fund manager I buy my funds from manage the foreign investments themselves. So far, they have showed that they are quite capable because most of these funds have shown positive results.

Now I am searching for local index funds to buy into but I don’t seem to find any. Maybe it’s because index funds carry very low fees and most fund managers don’t find it lucrative to sell them. Perhaps index funds are just not catching on yet in this part of the world?

I’m unsure how true this is, but a few months ago I read that Tune Money will be selling index funds. They are due to launch some unit trust products sometime in June and I really hope it’s going to be a suite of index funds to follow suit. And if it’s not too much to ask, let them be equities index funds!