etfSA.co.za monthly South African ETF, ETN and unit trust passive index tracking performance survey

Mike Brown, Managing Director, etfSA.co.za.

The Performance Survey for the period ended 30th October 2015, is attached. The Survey measures total investment returns for all 70 JSE listed ETFs/ETNs, and 24 index tracking unit trusts for periods of 3 months to 10 years.

Foreign denominated index tracking products, that are readily accessible to the SA public as JSE listed Exchange Traded Products, dominate the performance returns for periods of 6 months to 5 years. The combination of global equity market recovery, coupled with the depreciation of the rand, has made this market sector the optimal source of high investment returns for the entire period. The investment public, particularly institutional and retirement fund investors, have been slow to pick up on the alpha type returns from such investments and have often stuck rigorously to trying to source such returns in the domestic investment market, often with very limited success.

In the short-term (3 months), the best investment returns have come from commodity tracking ETFs and ETNs, notably palladium. Although these are early days, this may be an indication of a commodity price revival.

To see the full performance survey click here.