Fidelity Asian Values plc (LON:FAS) monthly factsheet for September 2026.
Portfolio Manager Commentary
The Trust’s NAV rose by 5.2% during the 12-month period ended 30 September 2026, underperforming its reference index, which rose by 17.5%. The Trust’s share price increased by 7.3% over the same period.
Our process is driven by owning good businesses run by management teams we trust, and only when we believe there is an ample margin of safety. This often leads us to take contrarian positions, as undervalued businesses can be easier to find in less-favoured areas of the market. Consistent with this philosophy, the portfolio had limited exposure to Taiwan, where several AI-related companies that we do not own continued to rise despite elevated valuations, weighing on relative performance. We believe investors have not always distinguished between genuine long-term AI beneficiaries and lower-quality businesses with weaker competitive positions. Indonesia also remained out of favour with investors. From a sector perspective, stock selection in communication services and consumer staples contributed positively.
More recently, investors appear to have been rotating out of growth stocks and into value names in the Asian small-cap space. We believe this trend could continue, given that small-cap value stocks remain at a significant discount to small-cap growth stocks in Asia.
Overall, 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.
