Joel Ruiz groaned. The Philippine businessman, who lives in Hong Kong, has most of his cash in a rolling one-month Hong Kong dollar time deposit. Over time, funds yield returns superior to bank accounts, but most are not as volatile as individual stocks because they invest across industries and countries. And now is probably as good a time as any to start buying them. There are more than 4,000 of these fish swimming in Asia's investment waters, mainly in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
Investors also benefit from a big push by banks into wealth management.
Fund-management houses are themselves developing a slew of new products. For investors, the growing breadth and diversity of Asian funds increase the chances of constructing a portfolio that will perform well in good and bad times. A few caveats. Mutual funds are long-term investments. Don't use money you will need in six months your investment is unlikely to have made enough by then to cover even just the initial costs.