KUALA LUMPUR –  Affin Hwang Asset Management Berhad (“Affin Hwang AM” or “the Company”) marked a new milestone with the debut of its smart beta exchange traded funds (ETF) that were successfully listed on the Main Market of Bursa Securities today.

In a strategic thrust towards bolstering its product offerings, the Company announced the simultaneous listing of 2 smart beta ETFs on Bursa, namely the TradePlus MSCI Asia ex Japan REITs Tracker and the TradePlus DWA Malaysia Momentum Tracker. The ETFs seek to combine the best of both active and passive strategies by investing in companies based on a series of objective factors.

Smart beta ETFs are innovative forms of ETFs that apply a series of objective factors when selecting its component companies. These component companies are then ranked and weighted according to specific factors such as earnings growth, price momentum or dividend yield.

This approach provides an alternative strategy compared to traditional market-cap weighted ETFs which are biased towards larger-cap stocks because they constitute a heavier weight in an index. By complementing their portfolio with smart beta strategies, investors can potentially exploit market anomalies and uncover hidden value to reap better risk-adjusted returns.

Teng Chee Wai, Managing Director of Affin Hwang AM said, “As we continue to build our name in the ETF industry, we are proud to introduce another new ETF solution for investors to grow their wealth. This is also in line with the regulator’s revised guidelines that allow for greater product innovation within the ETF landscape through the introduction of smart beta strategies. With its low-cost advantage, smart beta ETFs are ideal building blocks for investors to pile on different strategies such as dividend or momentum factors to construct a diversified portfolio.”

The TradePlus MSCI Asia ex Japan REITs Tracker seeks to provide investors access to the highest and most consistent dividend-yielding REITs in Asia (excluding Japan) through the smart beta selection of the index. Against a backdrop of high volatility in the market, investors can add a measure of stability in their portfolios through consistent dividend pay-outs from REITs. The strategy has historically provided an average annual dividend yield ranging between 4% to 5% p.a.*

The TradePlus DWA Malaysia Momentum Tracker aims to provide investors exposure to local stocks with the highest price momentum as its smart beta factor. Being the country’s first momentum strategy on Bursa, investors can potentially reap higher returns by capturing stocks with the most upswing momentum to ride the recovery in the local stock market.

As the index provider responsible for the methodology behind Malaysia’s first momentum strategy, Jay Gragnani, Head of Research and Client Engagement of Nasdaq Dorsey Wright (NDW) said, “TradePlus DWA Malaysia Momentum Tracker offers turnkey access to relative strength strategy, empowered by NDW’s global technical research. The underlying index is an effective tool to track momentum for adopting disciplined investment solutions. Our work with Affin Hwang AM expands strategic options for the investing public in Malaysia and the entire APAC region.”

Sylviane Carot, Executive Director at MSCI said, “We are very pleased to work with Affin Hwang Asset Management to help address their clients’ need for smart beta strategies. At MSCI, we are committed to provide indexes, data and tools to help investors build and manage better portfolios.”

With the Company’s 6 current ETF offerings, today’s new listings would bring the Company’s total ETFs to 8, making Affin Hwang AM the largest ETF provider in Malaysia (in terms of number of ETFs listed) as it continues to expand its product suite.

Units of the ETFs start trading today on Bursa Securities under the following stock code:-