Barclays GlobalAccess Japan Fund

Despite being the third largest economy in the world¹, Japan is rarely at the top of investors’ shopping list. Japan remains underrated and under-owned by international investors, perhaps because the economy has found it difficult to recover from the downturn that followed the boom years of the 1980s. But since Shinzo Abe became Prime Minister in 2012, we have seen some promising signs of a turnaround. It can be an exciting region to invest in, but the Japanese stock market has been volatile and unpredictable.

To make things more complicated, when it comes to investing in Japan, investors can be confused by the wide range of very different investment funds to choose from. We therefore look at a fund that takes a different approach to investing in Japan, the Barclays GlobalAccess Japan Fund.

Multi-Manager

The Barclays GlobalAccess Japan Fund is a multi-manager fund. That means it does not invest directly in shares, but instead the manager’s job is to choose other world-leading, specialist fund managers to look after parts of the fund. The methods these managers use to invest are very different to each other, and Barclays will balance allocation to each so that the fund’s investments have the potential to perform in all kinds of different economic conditions. When you’re investing in a market that’s as unpredictable as Japan, this can be an attractive approach to take.

Two very different managers

There are two managers within the GlobalAccess Japan Fund: Baillie Gifford and Schroders. Both are experts in investing in the Japanese stock market, but will do it in quite different ways. By investing in two very different managers together, the aim is to deliver more consistent performance, as when one underperforms the other manager has the potential to deliver outperformance. Over the long term, we believe this approach has the ability to outperform.

How to invest

The Barclays GlobalAccess Japan Fund is a fund worth considering if you’re thinking of taking a diversified approach to investing in the shares of Japanese companies. By choosing a multi-manager fund, an investor is leaving the day-to-day handling of a fund to a professional. This fund is one of 13 multi-manager funds on the Barclays Funds List. Find out more information about the multi-manager funds as well as other funds that invest in Japan.

Correct at the time of publishing.

To diversify your investment, you may like to consider our own Barclays Ready-made Investments (RMI). The RMI are just one example of a range of diversified funds which allow you to select the level of risk you are most comfortable with. These Barclays multi-asset funds invest in passive funds across a range of asset classes and regions, offering a globally diversified solution for investors. Ready-made Investments are not the only funds that we offer and they won’t be appropriate for everyone.

Past performance of the fund and its manager are not a reliable indicator of their future performance.

We don’t offer personal investment advice so if you’re unsure you should seek that independently.

Funds are designed for the long term so you should only consider them if you can stay invested for at least five years.

These are our current opinions but the future, as ever, is uncertain and outcomes may differ.

Read the Assessment of Value report [PDF, 3.2MB] for funds run by Barclays.