Tag Archives: indexing

Index mutual funds or ETFs?

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patmckeough
Pat McKeough

By Pat McKeough, TSINetwork.ca

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Index mutual funds can provide a low-cost way to invest in the stock market. However, they have disadvantages and there are better alternatives.

Index mutual funds are among the better financial innovations to come along in the past few decades. These are specialized mutual funds that invest so as to come close to equaling the performance of a market index, such as the S&P/TSX 60.

Index mutual funds do show better long-run performance than more than half of all actively managed mutual funds with long-term track records. That’s partly because index fund fees run around 1.0% of assets per year, compared to 2.5% or more on many broker-sold mutual funds.

One big advantage of index mutual funds is that they can help you avoid the risk of choosing a fund with a management style that virtually guarantees below-average long-term performance.

For example, mutual funds that pursue a trading or sector-rotation approach to investing belong in this can’t-win category. Managers of these funds try to out-perform the market by betting on relatively short-term trends, rather than putting their investors in a position to profit near automatically from long-term growth in the economy. This can work, but only for limited periods.

In any one year, the top fund is often run by a market timer who is having his or her proverbial “day in the sun.” In any one decade, however, the top funds are generally run by conservative managers who focus on long-term growth in the economy.

Spread investments across five main economic sectors

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Video: the age-old debate of active management vs. indexing

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Screen Shot 2016-05-23 at 3.03.36 PMWhen it comes to investing philosophies, there are two camps that are almost diametrically opposed: so-called “active” security selection practiced by mutual funds, hedge funds and similar vehicles; and the low-cost “passive” approach epitomized by index funds and ETFs.

A good summary of this old chestnut can be found in the latest FWB TV video, which runs just under four minutes. It can be found by clicking on this highlighted link: He said, she said: the active versus passive argument.  In the investment industry, “she” is correct and her name is SPIVA® (S&P Indices Versus Active).

Is Mr. Active telling us the whole story?

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ETFs break past $100 billion milestone in Canada

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Tiwari_Atul_11_bBy Atul Tiwari

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Last Friday, ETFs (Exchange-traded Funds) surpassed the magic $100 billion mark in assets under management in Canada and hopefully, continued growth in the markets and sales will keep us moving forward. But this milestone signals that many investors are gaining greater appreciation for these powerful, low cost and transparent investment vehicles.

And the industry is growing rapidly with new providers and products joining the ranks, regulatory changes on the horizon and technology changing the investment management field, like it has many others.

But the doubling of assets and tripling of ETF providers since 2010 is an indication that ETFs are being integrated into more investors’ portfolios. We see this every day with a growing number of ETF options and lower costs across the industry.

While there are a multitude of factors for the rising popularity of ETFs, I wanted to take a deeper look into four in particular.

  • The rise of indexing.
  • Increased competition.
  • Regulatory efforts to increase the transparency and awareness of investment fees.
  • More fee-based financial advisors.

The rise of indexing

Canada was an early innovator in ETFs, as the first ETF in the world was listed here in Canada 26 years ago. Continue Reading…

SPIVA Scorecard: Canada comeback?

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graham-bodel
Graham Bodel

By Graham Bodel, Chalten Advisors

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

“Not to fear, we have found a manager based in our very own Canada that is able to consistently beat the pack.”

Standard & Poor’s has done a brilliant job over the last few years of shining the light on the fund management industry by publishing its SPIVA (S&P Indices Versus Active Funds) Scorecards,  which report on the performance of actively managed mutual funds relative to their benchmark indices.

We’re not spoiling anything by telling you the results don’t usually come out favourably for active managers:  the performance data has been fairly consistent and compelling for years.

The latest SPIVA Canada Scorecard for the year ended December 31, 2015 came out on Monday and at first glance there may be reason to cheer, especially for those fund managers focused on domestic stocks.

SPIVA Canada Scorecard 2

While 57% might not seem very convincing, it’s certainly a better result than US domestic equity managers, only 25% of whom managed to beat the benchmark last year (Source: SPIVA US Scorecard).

Of course, 2015 was a year where the Canadian stock market performed worse than any other developed market globally in USD terms and was only able to squeak past Russia and Brazil.   If you’d been one of the few lucky Canadians to properly diversify outside of Canada last year, you would have been disappointed with active fund management as only 21% of Canadian funds managing International Equities (outside North America) were able to outperform their benchmark.

The longer the time period, the worse the results

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Advisors now more likely to recommend ETFs for clients than mutual funds

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davenadiq
Dave Nadig

Here’s my latest MoneySense blog, which recaps the two-day  Exchange Traded Forum 2016 in Toronto this week.

You can find the full blog by clicking on this headline: Are ETFs beating out mutual funds in popularity?

Pictured to the left is Dave Nadig, ETF director for FactSet Research Systems Inc. of Norwalk, CT,  who in his keynote address said that since the financial crisis,  net mutual fund inflows were US$61 billion, compared to a whopping US$1.2 trillion for ETFs.

Hockey stick curve

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