Looking for the best-performing index tracker funds? According to Mike Brown, managing director of etfSA, the top Collective Investment Scheme over the past year was Prudential Enhanced Property Tracker Fund, a unit trust. Its total return for the year ending December 30 2010 was 30,04%. It was followed by Proptrax, with a total return of 29,38%. The Satrix Divi also gave a decent return of 29,34% over the same period.
Short-term performers included the Satrix Resi 20, eRAFI Resources and the NewFund Shariah Top 40. Over a three-month period ending December 2010, total returns were 17,96%, 15,40% and 15,23% respectively.
Looking at three- to five-year returns, etfSA’s Performance Survey for December 2010 shows the Satrix Indi 25 is holding on to its long-standing place as a top-performing product available to retail investors through ETF and unit trust providers. It provided a total return of 17,70% a year for the five-year period ending December 2010.
For the first time in over a year, though, it was pipped for top-performing tracker fund by the Prudential Enhanced Property Fund, which gave a fractionally better 17,76% total return per annum over the past five years.
In the three-year performance survey, the Satrix Divi came out tops, with a total return of 16,31% over the same period.
Brown believes property funds have featured strongly because money is moving into these types of products as people search for yield.
He believes the latest local inflation data points to possible opportunities for the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates further in the next few months — or at least avoid interest rate hikes. “This would continue to make listed property shares and index tracking products on property indices attractive, because of their relatively high distribution yields in a market where high yields on other asset classes and other shares are hard to find,” he said.
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