Asian markets climbed to a highest level this year in May. For the whole month, India and Singapore markets surged over 28% and 21%, which were the best performing market across Asia. The India Equity and Singapore Equity, gained 33.68% and 32.26% respectively, were the top performing Morningstar categories.

For the past week, with the optimism of global recovery sprouted, stock markets of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Japan, etc, went up for at least 1%. Hong Kong and India markets were up 6.5% and 5.3% respectively, while Singapore’s rose 3.7%. However, Malaysia stock market dropped by 0.1%. The best Morningstar category for the week was Sector Equity Real Estate Indirect – Asia, which gained 10.56% in a single week. But the best performing fund was from India Equity category, the LG India Fund Limited earned 28.75%.

Hong Kong Equity funds gained 5.97% on average, becoming the second best performing Morningstar category in last week. Other Asian country funds like India and China also performed quite well. India Equity category and China Equity category rose 4.63% and 5.03% respectively. On the other hand, Korea has been struggling with political and military tensions, and Korea Equity funds lost 1.15% on average.

The strong rebound in the global equity market stimulated investors’ risk appetite and diverted investor away from safety assets. Dollar bond reported poor results. Dollar Government Bond category, which fell 0.72%, was the worst among all Dollar bond fund categories.

Top Performing Category Ranked by 1 Week Return
Morningstar Category	Trailing Total Returns (USD, %)
	1-week	1-month	3-month	1-year	3-year	5-year
Sector Equity Real Estate Indirect - Asia	10.56	25.38	52.00	-30.00	-7.84	8.43
Hong Kong Equity	5.97	22.74	47.64	-23.72	0.85	9.89
Latin America Equity	5.79	22.35	56.50	-41.83	-2.98	20.16
Sector Equity Real Estate Indirect	5.79	10.96	39.96	-45.83	-18.85	-4.77
Russia Equity	5.59	33.42	99.58	-57.03	-22.45	0.11
Sector Equity Precious Metals	5.30	27.29	33.83	-13.88	-4.75	12.52
Islamic Syariah Equity	5.20	19.40	40.08	-29.84	N/A	N/A
BRIC Equity	5.07	24.67	57.97	-37.84	-3.01	N/A
China Equity	5.03	19.05	48.35	-21.61	8.75	16.47
Sector Equity Energy	4.94	16.41	35.92	-43.54	-8.26	10.70
Data as of 2009-05-29