Q4-2020 Swiss-Asia Communication

4th March 2021

Q4-2020 Swiss-Asia Communication

Written by Steve Knabl, COO & Managing Partner

It has taken me a little while longer than usual to write this update as we have been quite focused on gearing up for a very busy year ahead. Seems that the year of the Ox will play out perfectly well for Swiss-Asia in many ways.

Looking back, I think that I can safely say that 2020 was one of the best we have seen in terms of general YTD performance across the board. It was most certainly a bumpy ride, but many managers demonstrated real skill to jump into the game and generate some serious Alpha. I have decided to publish all the funds that have returned positive numbers for 2020 this time around. 

On the Crypto side of the business. Both active managers have seen a very strong performance and profited from the market volatility and returned positive numbers month after month. Acuity and Kernel are both trading volatility and run quantitative strategies.  

We have also seen some substantial progress on the Crypto regulatory front over the past few months with Hong Kong SFC not only defining Bitcoin as a virtual commodity (not legal tender, but most importantly that no Capital Gains Tax will be applicable on cryptocurrencies. As anticipated, the SFC will be the regulator for crypto exchanges and AML/CFT laws apply to every individual or business in Hong Kong, irrespective of activity. We have also seen some progress made by MAS in Singapore with certain players being considered under the updated Payments Services Act which will clearly change the game and prepare the Digital currencies for being used as legal tender. 

Also in the Crypto space, we would also like to proudly announce that we have recently just signed an agreement with Fireblocks. Fireblocks, is the market leader in providing secure digital asset infrastructure for over 180 institutional clients. Their solution drastically improves the security around rights of transfers of digital currencies between wallets. It allows multi-level approval process for exchange withdrawals and transfers. Not only will it make our current transfer process even more secure, but it offers an insurance coverage in the event of failure of their infrastructure. This is a major milestone for our Digital Currency operations.

More information on Fireblocks here: https://www.fireblocks.com/ 

NEW FUND LAUNCHES

Renaissance 21 Index.

Tom Sigerhall has launched the Renaissance 21 AMC in December 2020. The focus of the AMC is on global growth stocks. Tom applies a Fundamental bottom-up model to pick his stocks. Looking at each individual company to make sure that both sales growth and EPS growth are showing promising growth. Valuation and balance sheet are important factors in the analysis matrix. Companies that have a strong growth track record are prioritized with an emphasis on technology stocks. Tom avoids companies with no current sales which are developing a product or a service. Only proven businesses make the cut. Options are also used to enhance the performance and to build the portfolio across diverse sectors.  The AMC is on the Leonteq platform. Leonteq AG is a Swiss company founded in 2007 and headquartered in Zurich. It is specialized in structured financial products and in insurance products in the sector of finance and technology.

Tom Sigerhall – Executive Director with SwissAsia since 01.07.2016, was formerly a Senior Private Banker and Equity sales with Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken. His career with SEB spanned 17 years with roles in Stockholm, Luxembourg and Singapore. Tom holds a Master of Science in International Business Administration and Economics from Linneus University, V?xj?, Sweden. This is most certainly an AMC to look out for.

 FEATURED FUNDS

Agathis Fund 

Agathis Fund is a concentrated long-only fund with a bias on Southeast Asia and Australia. The fund holds no more than 15 stocks and has a five-year CAGR of 23.8%. Agathis is Advised by Nicholas Cashmore who first launched the fund with Swiss Asia in 2014. Prior to that Nick was an independent investor and on the sell-side with CLSA in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines. 

Antwern Tactical Trading Fund

Since its inception in Apr 2019, Antwern has generated positive returns in both 2019 (4.31%) and 2020 (28.23%). What makes its performance numbers remarkable is that they were achieved whilst maintaining a strong negative correlation to equities (-0.44 against MSCI World) during this period. Antwern relies on a combination of discretionary macroeconomic analysis and quantitative models to trade the global equities, fixed income, commodities, and volatility space. Options play an important role in Antwern's investment and trade structuring process, and are actively used for both alpha generation and risk management purposes. Antwern is managed by Chue Zheng Yang, who prior to launching the Fund, led quantitative research at the pension programme of Singapore's Ministry of Defence, where his responsibilities included developing the programme's asset allocation, risk, and actuarial models.

At first glance, it would seem strange for a tactical trading fund to be managed by someone formerly from the pension industry, which its generally known for both its long-term mindedness and long-bias. But Zheng Yang is quick to assure that much of his current investment philosophy and approach is a result of research work and observations made during his previous gig. For example, Zheng Yang believes that as interest rates get lower and lower, the ability for fixed income assets to act as risk mitigators diminishes. While several solutions to this problem exist, he believes that tactical trading in the form that Antwern embraces (the ability to opportunistically and adaptively trade around longer-term investment themes) is one such way to reduce drawdowns and help smoothen the overall risk-return profile of a portfolio. 

Moving forward, Zheng Yang is of the view that markets are increasingly getting more correlated and a large portion of most investment outcomes (whether positive or negative) will ultimately be explained by just a few fundamental factors and mass liquidation/risk-off events. As such, much emphasis will be placed on keeping Antwern's portfolio as tight, focused and liquid as possible.  

We finished off the year with a positive outlook for 2021 even though this was far from expected. We hopefully will be back with some interesting updates in Q1-2021.

On behalf of the Swiss-Asia team, I would like to again thank all our Managers and support teams for their dedication and hard work throughout 2020.

Steve