Countries' Heavyweight Stocks Can Hold Key Indexes Hostage
Beating the benchmark index, a perpetual challenge for investors anywhere, can be a lot tougher in Asian markets, and that has a lot to do with the heavy influence just one or two stocks exert.
In Hong Kong, HSBC Holdings makes up a third of the benchmark Hang Seng Index. In Singapore, United Overseas Bank makes up 17% of the benchmark Straits Times Index, and DBS Group Holdings 12%. In South Korea, Samsung Electronics makes up a fifth of the Kospi.
That makes life difficult for those trying to beat the index because it is considered risky to put, say, 15% or 20% of a portfolio into a single stock. But if investors don't hold these stocks at an equal weighting to the index, they are guaranteed to miss out if the stock rises.
"If you are running a country-specific fund, it's a problem, and you have to live with that," says Sunhee Oh, who runs a Korea fund for Schroder Investment Management. Schroder, like most fund houses, limits single-stock holdings to no more than 10% of a retail fund. Samsung Electronics has risen 14% this year, driving much of the Kospi's 9% gain.
If Samsung doesn't make up a big part of a fund manager's portfolio, it is difficult to keep up with the index. That helps explain why the average Korea country fund has risen just 6%, according to Standard & Poor's.
"It's tough every time Samsung does well," says Kes Visuvalingam, Singapore-based director of Asian equities at First State Investments. "We've tried to go down the food chain, and buy the components companies, as long as they meet our quality criteria." But no matter how many equipment makers for Samsung phones and TV monitors he buys, "they'll never make up for our underweight Samsung."
Of course, if the predominant stock in an index is falling, having an underweight position in it, relative to the benchmark, works in an investor's favor. Take First State's Hong Kong fund, which measures its performance against the Morgan Stanley Capital International family of indexes.
Hutchison Whampoa makes up about 15% of MSCI's Hong Kong index, and ports and infrastructure conglomerate Cheung Kong accounts for 10%. Their poor performance has helped keep the index's growth to less than 1% in the year to date, in U.S. dollar terms. But in large part because First State has avoided those companies, its Hong Kong growth-oriented fund is up 18% so far this year.
At HSI Services, the company that runs the Hang Seng Index, general manager Vincent Kwan says the company gets plenty of complaints about the predominance of HSBC in the index. That is partly why HSI created an additional set of market indexes, based on the amount of a company's stock that is freely tradable in the market. That series is rebalanced every six months to cut companies that go over 15% of the index back down to that 15% weighting.
Although HSBC is now officially headquartered in London, Mr. Kwan believes the fact that it makes up the largest percentage of market turnover on most trading days provides more than enough justification for its predominant place in the Hang Seng. "The facts are telling us HSBC is still an integral part of the Hong Kong market," he says. Of course, much of the volume comes from the stock's dominance in the index.
Besides, he says, "the market weight is not determined by us -- it's completely determined by investors," as they drive up and down stock prices. During the past 10 years, HSBC's market weight "has been on a long rising trend, because the company has been growing very fast."
The Hang Seng wasn't always so heavily dominated by HSBC. "If you look back on what the Hang Seng used to have, it was mainly industrials," says Sean Darby, Asia strategist at Nomura International. "Then it went through banking and property. ... [Now,] the way things are moving on the mainland, the predominance of the China stocks will come through." The second-biggest stock on the index is China Mobile, at 13% of total index weight; the sixth biggest is CNOOC, the Chinese oil company, at 3%.
The situation is similar in Latin America. In Brazil, Tele Norte makes up 14% of the Bovespa. In Argentina, five stocks each have more than a 10% weighting in the benchmark Merval index, which has just 14 constituents.
Even some established developed-market indexes face similar problems, especially when they are limited to just 30 or 40 stocks. In France, oil and gas company Total makes up 14% of the CAC 40. In Germany, industrial group Siemens makes up 11% of the DAX, and Deutsche Bank 10%. 3M makes up almost 10% of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Dow Jones Indexes are published by Dow Jones & Co., which also publishes The Asian Wall Street Journal.
Most indexes are adjusted from time to time, for reasons ranging from deleting a company that has become less representative of a market to adjusting the weight of a stock so it doesn't represent too high a percentage of the total.
The bottom line: all indexes have limits to what they can represent. An investor aligned too closely to the Hang Seng, for example, would have missed the small and mid-cap rally of the past year. "Responsible investors have to look beyond them," says Michael Kurtz , Asian equity strategist at Bear Stearns.
一两只股票就可能坏了投资者的大事
对投资者而言，让投资回报超过主要股指的表现永远是个挑战，而对亚洲投资者而言更是难上加难。亚洲市场上，大盘的走势往往取决于一、两只股票的表现。
在香港，汇丰控股(HSBC Holdings)在恒生指数中的权重高达1/3；在新加坡，大华银行(United Overseas Bank)在新加坡海峡时报指数中的权重高达17%，发展集团(DBS Group Holdings)的权重为12%；在韩国，三星电子(Samsung Electronics)在韩国综合指数中的比重高达1/5。
这使那些希望投资回报强于大盘的投资者感到为难，因为将投资组合的15%或20%投资于一只股票是一件很危险的事。但如果这些股票在投资组合中的比重达不到其在股指中的权重，投资者肯定无法因股市上涨而获利。
Schroder Investment Management旗下的一只韩国基金的基金经理Sunhee Oh说，如果你管理的基金只投资于某一个国家的股市，这就是个问题。但你别无选择。只有接受。和大多数基金公司一样，Schroder将针对散户投资者的基金个股投资比重限制在10%以下。三星电子今年已上涨14%，韩国综合指数9%的涨幅大多来自该股的推动。
如果三星在基金经理投资组合中所占比重不能达到20%的话，基金的表现就很难与指数同步。标准普尔(Standard & Poor's)称，这就是投资韩国股市的基金平均增幅仅为6%的原因。
First State Investments驻新加坡的亚洲股票部门主管Kes Visuvalingam说，只要三星上涨，他的日子就不好过。他管理的基金会买进所有三星供应商的股票以及韩国综合指数成份股，只要这些股票符合其投资标准即可。但无论他买进多少只三星上游公司（三星电话和电视显示器零配件供应商）的股票，都无法弥补三星在其投资组合中比重偏低带来的损失。
当然，一旦股指权重股出现下跌，投资组合中该股所占比重低于在股指中的权重将对投资者有利。以First State的香港基金（该基金的表现以摩根士丹利资本国际指数(MSCI)作为参照）为例，和记黄浦(Hutchison Whampoa)在MSCI香港指数中的权重约为15%，长江实业(Cheung Kong)的权重为10%。这两只股票表现欠佳使得MSCI香港指数今年迄今的涨幅按照美元计算还不到1%。但是由于First State基本上没有买进这两家公司的股票，其血管成长型基金今年至今已经上涨18%。
负责编制及管理恒生指数的恒指服务有限公司(HSI Services Ltd.)总经理Vincent Kwan称，该公司接到很多对汇丰控股在恒指中权重过高的投诉。这也正是该公司编制另一套市场指数的原因之一。新指数根据个股在市场上的自由流通量决定其在股指中的权重。这套指数每6个月调整一次，将那些权重超过15%的股票的权重降低至15%。
虽然汇丰控股目前将总部设在伦敦，但Kwan认为，该股在多数交易日占市场总成交量的比例最大，这一点就足以说明其在恒指中的主导地位是有道理的。他说，事实表明汇丰控股仍然是香港股市不可或缺的一只股票。当然，该股的成交量在很大程度上要归功于其在恒指中的主导地位。
他还指出，一只股票的市场权重并不是有恒指服务公司决定的，而完全是由投资者凭借其买卖行为确定的。在过去10年间，因为汇丰控股快速成长，其市场权重一直呈现上升趋势。
野村国际(Nomura International)的亚洲策略师Sean Darby说，恒指并非一直由汇丰控股所主导，过去权重较大的主要是工业类股，后来又变为银行和地产类股，而现在情况又开始出现变化，中国概念股的权重在上升。目前权重位居第二的是中国移动(China Mobile)，为13%；位居第六的是中海石油(Cnooc)，为3%。
拉美的情况也同出一辙。在巴西，Tele Norte在Bovespa指数的权重占到14%。在阿根廷，有5只股票在Merval指数的权重均超过10%，而该指数仅有14只成份股。
即使是一些较为成熟的发达国家的股票指数也面临同样问题，特别是指数成份股只有三、四十只的情况下。在法国，石油和天然气公司Total在CAC 40指数中的权重为14%。在德国，西门子(Siemens)在DAX指数中的权重达11%，德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)则占10%。3M公司(3M)在道琼斯工业股票平均指数中的权重接近10%。
多数股指都会不时调整成份股构成，剔除一些市场代表性下降的个股，削减一些股票的权重，以防其权重过高。
归根结底，所有股指的代表性都是有限的。比如，对恒指跟得过紧的投资者就可能错过了去年香港股市中小型股票上涨的行情。贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)的亚洲股票策略师Michael Kurtz说，肩负重任的投资者必须把眼光放得长远一些，而不只是盯在股指上。
