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The Philippine Dollar Bond Index Fund or PDBF is the newest addition to the BPI Investment Funds and complements BPI’s growing family of index funds. "With the macroeconomic fundamentals of the country still strong with expectations of GDP growth surpassing the average growth for the past years, and the fiscal deficit and ratio of government debt to GDP continuing its downward path, prices of Philippine assets including ROPs are projected to hold its ground for 2007," BPI Executive Vice President Adelbert Legasto who is in charge of BPI Asset Management said. Compared to other emerging bond markets included in the JPMorgan Chase Emerging Bond Index, the Philippines ranked 3rd best performing as of end 2006 and occupied the top spot when compared to its Asian peers. There is great opportunity, therefore, to earn superior returns in funds investing in dollar-denominated Philippine debt securities. Owing to this, the availability of BPI’s new fund came in an opportune timing for an investor to take advantage of the widening ROP spreads and achieve the widest diversification in Philippine bonds. More than the potential to earn higher income, investors may want to test the waters of index investing through PDBF. Index funds are still hardly a household concept in the BPI Asset Management pioneered the index funds in the country back in 2004 when it introduced the Philippine Stock Index Fund or PSIF. The PSIF is a stock mutual fund which attempts to achieve the same returns as the Philippine Stock Exchange Composite Index or PSEi. The PSIF provided small individual investors to ride the growth of the local stock market at a very modest investment amount. Since then, investors have enjoyed double digit returns every year. PSIF finished 2006 with 42.29 percent absolute return on investment given the very good performance of the local bourse last year which continues to date. |
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