The biggest economy in the world, that of the United States, has continued to slow down and the Federal Reserve, in a bid to revive it, has cut interest rates three times in the past three months.
Combined with a down trend in the equity markets, this has had a negative effect on retail investors, who have become very wary of US mutual funds and equities. Seasoned fund managers, however, love saying that 'behind every crisis there is an opportunity'.
Edmund Lacis, regional director at Janus International, is one of them. He points to Twenty Fund, a US-based fund which only invests in blue-chip stocks, which has survived the rough and tumble of the stock market volatility.
The fund, launched by Janus in the US in 1985 and the offshore version in 1998, is registered in Hong Kong.
'Both funds are essentially the same and are run by the same fund manager. The aim is to include the most promising companies in the portfolio with a bottom-up approach, which is the underlying investment principle of our house,' Mr Lacis said.
The Twenty Fund is also the only consumer fund in the Hong Kong market which applies a 'concentrated approach' in its investment strategy.