etfSA Monthly South African ETF / Index Tracking Unit Trust Performance survey

The etfSA Performance Survey is updated monthly and looks at total return performance, over the period 1 month to 5 years, for index tracking unit trusts and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) available to the retail investor in South Africa.

The Property Sector has shown superior performance over the period surveyed. The only Funds which produced positive investment growth over all the periods surveyed were the Prudential Enhanced SA Property Tracking Unit Trust Fund and the Proptrax SAPY ETF, which tracks the FTSE/JSE SAPY Property index. The Prudential fund was the best performer of all the Funds surveyed for the 5 year and 3 year periods. Property portfolios have the advantage of high distribution yields – the average yield on the SAPY index over the past 12 years has been around 9% per annum – but also benefit from the capital appreciation of the underlying property portfolios.

The Satrix RAFI 40 Total Return ETF and the NewFund eRAFI Industrial 25 ETF were amongst the top three performing funds over the past 12 months. Although the Satrix RAFI Fund has not been listed long enough to participate in three year performance records, other RAFI Funds, such as the Plexus eRAFI Enhanced Strategy Unit Trust Fund and the NewFunds eRAFI Overall SA Index Fund, have shown significantly better 3 year performance (over 10% per annum on average) than conventional index tracking funds that track the Top 40 or All Share indices (which have delivered average performances of 3% or less per annum) over the past three years. The RAFI technology uses fundamental accounting data to identify value opportunities in the equity market and appears to provide a significant performance premium over conventional passive tracker finds in the South African market.

The full etfSA Performance Survey is attached. The etfSA Performance Survey measures the total return (price changes plus reinvestment of dividends) for index tracking unit trusts and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) available to the retail public in South Africa. The performance table (attached) measures the 1 month to 5 years total return compared with the benchmark index returns (including reinvestment of dividends). Note, as the FTSE/JSE calculates the index without taking into account any brokerage or other transaction costs, index tracking products will typically underperform the index because of their transaction and other running costs.