Fund Objective

The Fund aims to achieve capital growth.

View on Past Performance

Japanese small-cap indices fell steadily. The broad-based Topix Small Cap Index fell by 4.7%. The JASDAQ Index lost 2.9% in local currency terms., while the speculative Mothers Index fell by 8.9%. The Topix Index, which measures the whole stock market, lost 3.7%.August was the season for reporting first-quarter results. Overall, recurring profits were reported to have fallen by around 15%. There is a perception that the global economic outlook has deteriorated since the end of June. Although the figures were not significantly worse than expected, the market could not advance in the face of falling earnings and downgrades to global growth expectations.Small companies, which are perceived to have greater economic sensitivity than their larger counterparts, were particularly badly affected.

Future Expectations

However, the relative valuation of small-cap companies is also attractive and we would not expect them to underperform large caps in any broad-based market rally.

Fund Details