Fidelity Asian Values plc (LON:FAS) monthly factsheet for May 2026.
Portfolio Manager Commentary
The Trust’s NAV rose by +13.6% over the 12-month period ended 31 May 2026, underperforming its reference index, which returned +34.5%. The Trust’s share price increased by +20.0% over the same period.
Our process focuses on owning high-quality businesses run by management teams we trust and investing only where we see ample margin of safety. This approach often leads us to take contrarian positions, as undervalued opportunities are typically found in such areas of the market. Consistent with this philosophy, the portfolio maintained limited exposure to Taiwan and South Korea, where several hardware-related companies we do not own continued to rise despite elevated valuations, which weighed on performance. In our view, capital has increasingly been directed towards the broader AI theme without sufficient differentiation between genuine long-term beneficiaries and lower-quality, commoditised businesses with weaker competitive positions. Indonesia also remained the least favoured market by investors. From a sector perspective, stock selection within financial and IT detracted from returns.
Of late, investors appear to be rotating out of growth stocks into value names within the Asian small-cap universe. We believe this trend may continue, as small-cap value stocks remain at a significant discount to their growth counterparts.
At the end of the period, the Trust was overweight consumer discretionary, financials, consumer staples and energy. At a country level, it was overweight China, Indonesia and Australia
Fidelity Asian Values Plc (LON:FAS) provides shareholders with a differentiated equity exposure to Asian Markets. Asia is the world’s fastest-growing economic region and the trust looks to capitalise on this by finding good businesses, run by good people and buying them at a good price.
