Morningstar’s analysts in Asia qualitatively cover a wide range of managed strategies. In addition, we continuously monitor the broader fund universe through discovery meetings. In this quarterly publication, we share our take on a selection of these strategies. For our fourth-quarter 2025 report, we highlight two equity funds and four bond funds.
Decade-low US credit spreads, a softer US dollar, and easing local interest rate cycles have renewed investor interest in emerging-markets fixed-income assets. They also provide higher carry and diversification for a well-balanced portfolio. Improved risk sentiment has given a boost to higher-yielding frontier markets, which benefited from better liquidity and stronger refinancing prospects. UBS Emerging Markets Global Bond offers exposure to hard-currency emerging-markets sovereign debt and is led by a veteran within the asset class. The strategy isn’t afraid to make bold bets in some frontier markets, which have paid off thus far over the manager’s relatively brief tenure.
BEA Union Investment Asian Strategic Bond adopts a balanced approach to Asia credit investing, combining top-down macro analysis with bottom-up credit research. The strategy invests mainly in hard-currency investment-grade issuers but can allocate up to 20% in high-yield debt. Its experienced lead manager has been successful at avoiding credit defaults since the fund’s 2017 inception, reflecting a strong emphasis on risk management.
India credit has become an increasingly important part of Asian bond portfolios as regulators have liberalized access to foreign investors and Indian bonds have been added to major global emerging-market bond indexes. PineBridge Asian High Yield Total Return Bond adopts a benchmark-agnostic approach, venturing into diversified opportunities such as India renewables and Macau gaming, while successfully side-stepping the China property-sector downturn thanks to prudent credit selection and risk management. This boosted the fund’s results relative to peers in recent years, despite its focus on better-quality high-yield bonds, which limited potential gains.
For more specialized exposure, HSBC GIF India Fixed Income scours predominantly local-currency government bonds and corporate credits within the market. The fund is led by a recently appointed manager with relevant expertise.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong equities have benefited from a rerating, supported by a surge in liquidity driven in part by rising southbound flows from mainland China and policy tailwinds, while offering a gateway to China’s long-term structural opportunities.
JPMorgan SAR Hong Kong‘s recently appointed lead manager taps into the opportunity set of both offshore-listed mainland China-based companies and Hong Kong-based companies via a core investment approach, while HSBC GIF Hong Kong Equity follows a quality growth process to identify long-term compounders within the universe.
For the full report, please visit: https://www.morningstar.com/en-hk/business/insights/research/apac-investment-opportunities
