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 […]
The month of August fills me full of joy every year as (a) it’s my birthday, (b) it’s the Summer in London (at least 1 week of Sun!) and (c) I don’t get on a plane to support our many ETF partners around the world. Aeronautically speaking though, August is a notable month – way Read more […]
With the release of the latest SPIVA® Cross-Country Comparison results, the debate between active and passive investment management has once again ignited. Proponents of passive management point to the SPIVA data as evidence of the inability (in aggregate) of asset managers worldwide to beat relevant passive indices over meaningful periods of time. Meanwhile, proponents of Read more […]
The Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) landscape in Australia continues to grow and mature in assets under management (AUM) and in number of ETF products offered. As of June 2015, the Australian ETF Market was reported to be at A$18.1 Billion in AUM and 107 ETFs traded on the ASX. As an index provider with deep Read more […]
