The S&P/ASX Australian Index Series has played a significant role in characterizing the Australian equity market performance since its inception in April 2000. Since then, the S&P/ASX 200 has served as the foundation for benchmarks and index-based investing strategies from sectors to quality, value, and momentum factor approaches. Following the launch of the S&P 500® Read more […]
At the recent Australian Indexing & ETF Masterclass series held in Melbourne & Sydney, we asked the audience, 83% of whom were Financial Advisers, a number of questions using a mobile-enabled polling tool. Over 260 people attended the Masterclass across the two cities, and 189 of these people used the polling tool. 767 discrete votes Read more […]
In early March over 265 financial advisers came together in Melbourne and Sydney for S&P Dow Jones Indices’ 9th Annual Indexing and ETF Masterclass. This half day Masterclass provided advisers with the opportunity to hear from, and interact with, both local and international peers, S&P DJI subject matter experts, as well as leaders in the Read more […]
I spent a recent weekend at the Self-Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF) Expo talking to SMSF trustees about indices. While I often spend Monday through Friday talking indices, to spend Saturday and Sunday chatting about indices was something new. The SMSF Association hosted the first SMSF Expo in Australia, attracting over 1,500 people over the three-day Read more […]
The S&P/ASX 200 is widely regarded as the institutional investable benchmark in Australia. It is composed of the largest 200 companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange by float-adjusted market capitalization. Although the majority of the companies are domiciled in Australia, a lot of them derive a significant portion of their revenue from foreign markets. Read more […]
The SPIVA® Australia Scorecard reports on the performance of actively managed Australian mutual funds against their respective benchmark indices over various investment horizons. In the year-end 2017 report, we extended the analysis to 15 years. In 2017, the majority of Australian funds in most categories underperformed their respective benchmarks, apart from the Australian A-REIT category. Read more […]
In the mid-year 2017 SPIVA® Australia Scorecard, the majority of Australian funds underperformed their respective benchmarks across most categories, similar to previous scorecards. More than 80% of Australian Mid- and Small-Cap funds underperformed the S&P/ASX Mid-Small over the past 12 months. In contrast, A-REIT funds stood out as the best-performing category versus their benchmark, the Read more […]
Sustainable investing has become particularly popular in Europe, across many countries. In the Asia Pacific region, certain countries such as Japan and Australia have shown stronger interest in ESG thanks to asset owner demand, availability of ESG data, and regulatory pressures. In the last couple of years, we have seen some of Japan’s largest institutional Read more […]
We have previously taken a dive into performance differences between Australian market cap segments and observed that mid caps offer a “sweet spot” for market participants. Year-to-date, this message continues to resonate—the S&P/ASX MidCap 50 has returned 10.1% as of July 13, 2017. Meanwhile, corresponding large-, small-, and broad market indices have returned measurably less Read more […]
When one is paying management fees for the investment in active funds, one might reasonably expect the funds to outperform benchmarks and resist downturn when the market is volatile. However, results from our S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA®) Scorecards[1] suggest this expectation is often not met. SPIVA reports across different regions, including the U.S., Canada, Read more […]
