Are you ready for an all-weather fund?

If you started investing in the stock market 10 years ago, chances are, you are very disappointed with the returns that you are getting right now. 

If I just started 10 years ago, I would be. Fortunately, I’m old enough and started early on doing my regular investing such that I’ve seen several scenarios over the decades that allows me to be patient with this currently ho-hum market. If the last 10 years (2013 – 2023) gave us a Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index that’s virtually unchanged, the earlier 10 years (2003 – 2013) gave us a six-fold return.

But then again, 10 years is a long wait that would make the regular Juan regret having invested in this asset class, particularly in our local stock market that has become very insignificant to foreign fund managers. 

There’s no Bruce Lee movie here but we are entering the Year of the Dragon soon and it may be an opportune time to shake things up a little bit in our investment portfolio.

On Nov. 6, 2023, I attended an event hosted by COL Financial to talk about their newly launched all-weather fund called COL Strategic Growth (CSG) Equity Fund. It is a Philippine  Peso-denominated fund that aims to generate long-term capital growth through active portfolio management. The fund invests in common stocks listed in the PSE, with the goal of outperforming its benchmark’s return over the long term.

1. CSG Fund is flexible in terms of asset allocation. Unlike other funds that have restrictive asset allocations (e.g. primarily stocks, balanced stocks and fixed income, fixed income only, etc.), CSG can allocate its funds according to how it reads the market, with no maximum cash limit. This is beneficial given the cyclical and volatile nature of the local equity market.

2. It has no lock-up period.

3. It does not charge early redemption fees.

4. It has one of the lowest management fees.

5. It has very low minimum subscription requirements: P500.00 for initial subscription and P100.00 for additional subscription.

With its low initial subscription and additional contribution, every Juan and Juana can afford this. But wait! How about the risk? The risk rating of the fund is a high Risk Level 4/4. This means that the fund’s