QDII funds under-performed benchmarks last year

Beijing— China’s four stock-oriented qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) funds have all reported big losses last year, and fund management companies blamed the failing performance on the US subprime crisis that caused volatility in the world market, Monday’s China Securities Journal reported.
Net value of the four QDII products - JP Morgan Fund QDII, Harvest Overseas Fund, Huaxia Global Selected Stock Fund and Southern Global Enhanced Balanced Fund - shrank by 6.3 percent to 12.1 percent of its initial value by the end of last year, according to their 2007 annual reports. Southern Global made the smallest loss in net value while Harvest Overseas suffered most. Reports in December said Southern Global suffered slightest slump in net value as it positioned more in funds than in stocks.
In the meantime, the four products also posted negative growth over the earlier-fixed benchmark growth rate, which serves as a major reference for investors to judge the performance of a fund, the biggest negative growth rate, at 10.91 percent, was Harvest Overseas Fund.
By March 22, all four stock-oriented QDII funds saw their net value fall below one yuan (14.3 US cents), the value set for fund subscriptions, with Southern Global at 0.765 yuan, Huaxia Global at 0.713 yuan, Harvest Overseas at 0.613 yuan and JP Morgan at 0.632 yuan.
The US subprime crisis should be blamed, the four fund management companies said in their annual reports. Huaxia Global said the world stock market, emerging markets segment in particular, was badly hit by a slowdown in the US economy as well as the world economy after the subprime crises surfaced in the second half of last year in the United States.

—Xinhua