Fidelity Southeast AsiaFSEAX

Morningstar Rating

Fund Research and Analysis

by Karin Anderson

Another manager change at Fidelity Southeast Asia is reason to avoid it.

Jess Tan's 16-month stint on this Pacific/Asia Ex-Japan offering coincided with emerging-markets stocks' extreme roller-coaster ride. The fund's heavy stake in telecom firms, such as top positions in Chunghwa Telecom CHT of Taiwan and SK Telecom SKM of South Korea, had a significant impact on performance in 2008 and 2009. Read more

Kudos

Backed by extensive research staff.

Relatively low expense ratio. Read more

Risks

New and unproven manager.

Invests in volatile markets.

The fund isn't necessarily a pure play on Southeast Asia, with a big stake in South Korea.

Most investors already have some emerging-Asia exposure through their core foreign fund. Read more

Strategy

The fund's country and sector exposure mainly flows from bottom-up research conducted by the firm's managers and analysts located in Hong Kong. Current manager Colin Chickles' predecessor, Jess Tan, let bigger-picture concerns affect her weightings where her conviction was strong. Read more

Management

Colin Chickles took over this fund in October 2009 and draws upon a deep well of analysts located in his Hong Kong office, as well as Sydney, Australia; Seoul, Korea; and Singapore. He has been at Fidelity since 1996, first serving as a quantitative analyst and then covering financial, real estate, and small-cap emerging-markets stocks. Read more

Inside Scoop

This fund's manager has traditionally devoted more assets to bigger regional markets like Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan, but he will also venture into China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Read more

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