NEW GCASH INVESTMENT FUNDS! BPI Philippine Stock Index Fund vs. ATRAM PH Equity Smart Index Fund
Channel: ZIGGING by Mark Sigg
Date: 2021-12-16

After launching with five investment funds earlier in 2021, I'm excited to share with two new  GCash investment funds launched this December. Adding to the current roster of the ATRAM Money Market Fund, the ATRAM Total Return Peso Bond Fund, the ATRAM Philippine Equity Smart Index Fund, the ATRAM Global Technology Feeder Fund, and the ATRAM Global Consumer Trends Index Fund, GCash has beefed up its GInvest investment portfolio with the BPI-ALFM Global Multi-Asset Income Fund and the BPI-IMI Philippine Stock Index Fund! This is an exciting development since GCash's previous partnerships for GInvest were all previously with ATRAM. With this, GCash is exhibiting its aggressiveness to work with different partners and other fund management companies so hopefully, this is just the start of things to come. What better way to grow in its partnership base by partnering with BPI and ALFM --- obviously both Ayala companies! It actually makes me wonder why GCash didn't start with BPI and ALFM to begin with as they launched GInvest. But anyway, let's take a closer look at these new investment products from GCash!

The 1st is a fund that invests in the global markets: the BPI-ALFM Multi-Asset Income Fund. Briefly, this fund invests in fixed income securities, equities, and ETFs, with the perk of paying out dividends in yields of 3 to 5% having the BlackRock Global Multi-Asset Income Fund as its target fund. I won't go into lengthy details about the new GCash BPI-ALFM Multi-Asset Income Fund since I've already made a video on this months ago when it was exclusively available via BPI Online. It's the same exact fund so everything I've written about and shared in this video will be applicable: https://youtu.be/LfUa1ftMHh8

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The 3nd fund is the BPI-IMI Philippine Stock Index Fund, also a product of the collaboration between BPI and ALFM. This is a fund that invests in Philippine equities and will be the main point of discussion in this video. Aside from going through the basic details and historical performance of this fund, we're going to be doing this side-by-side with the ATRAM Philippine Equity Smart Index Fund. Why make this comparison? These two funds are similarly invested in Philippine stocks. In fact, they are so similar that they are directly competing with one another and I honestly don't see the point why you as an investor would need to be invested in both. You only need to pick one to invest in and have in your portfolio!

Let's start with the similarities of the ATRAM Philippine Equity Smart Index Fund and and the BPI-IMI Philippine Stock Index Fund. 1st, both funds are largely invested in local blue chip companies such as Ayala, SM, and BDO. Second, both funds only require P50 as a minimum investment amount and for subsequent top-ups. Lastly, both funds require a processing time of 3 banking days to process withdrawals.

While these two funds are similar, their differences actually lie within their inherent structure and numbers. The ATRAM Philippine Equity Smart Index Fund is a Unit Investment Trust Fund (UITF) regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. In contrast, the BPI-IMI Philippine Stock Index Fund is a Mutual Fund regulated by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). Structurally they are different but in terms of how this translates to investors, is almost negligible. 

The more significant differences lie first within the trust fees that the fund management companies charge.  ATRAM charges 1.5% per annum while BPI-IMI charges 1%. The 0.5% difference is already a stark contrast in terms of your overall returns. Second, the total funds that ATRAM is managing stands at P1.26B while BPI-IMI is at P10.85B. A big factor on this would be the BPI-IMI fund being launched much earlier in 2003 while the ATRAM fund was only launched in 2016. This doesn't necessarily result into performance butIf numbers spell your confidence in a fund, then this would certainly matter. Lastly, the biggest difference would be in terms of historical performance. As of September 2021, , ATRAM has returns of 16.77% while BPI is at 19% in a 1-year period. Over a 3-year period, ATRAM's cumulative returns are slightly under -4% while BPI is at slightly below -3%. The performance of the BPI fund is without a doubt better while the lower trust fees assure that your net payout will be better when compared to ATRAM. 

This is an easy comparison and I'm choosing BPI over ATRAM. Where ATRAM is better would be in terms of the the minimum holding period since it has none while BPI requires 90-days. While ATRAM has the advantage here, I am a long term investor so the minimum period is almost irrelevant to me. 

For GInvest videos, click here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHBMsBtgvjlMfXA6fR40b036fTSaLvnY

This video was shot at Two Palmtree Villas at Newport City, available on Airbnb:
http://bit.ly/ziggpt2

#gcash
#ginvest