Welcome to Issue 6 of Exchange Traded Fridays for the week ending 27th August 2021.
This is a special day in Australian ETFs because it's the 20 year anniversary so congratulations to all those involved in the market and to those who buy ETFs like you and me. It wouldn't be where it is today without all of you so well done!
This week in local news we saw a lot of reporting season news for equities and its important to look at this as these are the holdings that go into ETFs you hold.
Additionally, we saw further talk about ETF trends, what groups are buying up ETFs the most and what did well last week. Globally, we saw more talk about bitcoin ETFs and their delays as well as what to look out for. This week also saw us make some strides into a new set of ETFtracker features which we'll go through later in the newsletter.
All that and more in this weeks edition and before we get started we thought we'd highlight the updated ausbiz financial news website. They're latest update means you can now tag your favourite experts or topics and it makes the experience so much easier. If you're interested in checking out the history of things we've had on the show you can do that here: https://www.ausbiz.com.au/expert/mark-monfort?expertID=179
What's in this newsletter?
Articles - Local
Articles - Global
Videos
Podcasts
Chart of the week
ETF Education
ETFtracker App Updates
ETFtracker Forum
Listen or Watch
The Weekly Wrap Articles - Local ETF Stream - Should ETF investors consider impact of potential BHP deletion from major indices? - In this ETF Stream article, Jamie Gordon looks at BHP as it is about to be deleted from major European Indices like FTSE 100, Stoxx 600 and Euro Stoxx 50 after it announced it would have primary listing on the ASX now. The loss for those indices is a gain for local Australian and Asia Pacific ones so it's something to watch. AUSIEX AXIS - Active fund managers embrace ETFs - In this piece the folks at AUSIEX look at the latest new ETF listings and show how many are actively managed ETFs. This is a popular trend being seen here and overseas as the US saw more actively managed ETFs come to market this year so far. They go through the reasons for this in this article too. Yahoo Finance - 10 hot investing trends: How to pick the best thematic ETF - In this article from Eliza Balvin she speaks with some of the ETF market experts from BetaShares, ETF Securities and also features Jessica Amir of Bell Direct as well as Anthony Doyle from Fidelity Investments. Definitely worth checking out for the pros and cons of thematic ETFs and what to look out for when choosing an ETF. Best ETFs - VGMF - In this weeks Best ETFs edition they look at the Vanguard Global Multi-Factor Active ETF (Managed Fund). It's a smaller one at $31 million in FUM but could be worth considering if you want factor exposure. There's a link to a mini report the team have there too. Morningstar - Where ETF investors are putting their money in 2021 - Article from Morningstar's Shani Jayamanne looking at where ETF investors are parking their money in 2021. Which categories, which providers and which ETFs. The Australian - ETFs proving popular with young investors - Article by David Rogers looking at the demographics of ETF investors and it shows that younger Australians make up the biggest proportion of first time investors. Check this out and more in the article. ETF Securities Monitor - Week Ending 20th August - YANK (BetaShares strong US dollar hedge fund), BBOZ (BetaShares Australian Equities Strong Bear) and HLTH (VanEck Global Healthcare leaders) did the best over last week while QRE (BetaShares Australian Resources Sector), OZR (SPDR ASX200 Resources) and ETPMPD (ETF Securities Physical Palladium) did the worst.
Articles - Global FT.com - Asset managers rush to file applications for bitcoin futures ETFs - We've saw this in last week's edition how bitcoin futures ETFs were likely going to see favourable SEC treatment and this week we have the follow through. 4 asset managers have filed for bitcoin futures. For those of you who don't know, futures allow investors to hedge price movements and are an important part of other asset classes. Having something that helps the likely volatility in crypto ETFs is going to make it easier to invest in. Time will tell. U.S. News - Advisors, Why Bitcoin ETFs are Delayed - article going through the delays to SEC approval for a bitcoin ETF, more on regulation as well as alternatives to bitcoin ETFs for those interested. Videos The ETFtracker Show - Interviews with Experts Episode 2 - The ETF Issuer - this is our Wednesday morning show where we interview someone form the ETF industry. This time its Peter Harper of BetaShares and we go through a variety of topics from how investors build portfolios with ETFs to how BetaShares looks for new ETF ideas. This is also available on Spotify and our Podcast Page. 29mins ausbiz - Megatrends vs product innovation; the ETFs and stocks making mega waves - 25th August - In this episode we see Chad Hitzeman from ETF Securities discusses the shift in thematic trends from ESG to now lithium and when are the right times to get your money in to capture these trends. The Compound - The Secret Inflation Target Is... | What are your thoughts? 25th August - In this episode Josh and Ben go through a few topics like inflation targets for the Fed, China's stock market and some stats on how often the S&P is up versus down (hint, it's had more +20% years than negative years over the last 95 years) as well as very subdued drawdowns this year so far (see chart below). 46mins ausbiz - What's trending in ETFs - 24th August - Blair Modica from BetaShares chats with Nadine from ausbiz about new trends including the $2.8 billion of inflows we've seen in the overall ETF markets as well as other trends and how ETFs can provide ways to find returns when the markets are trading sideways. 6mins Bell Direct - Ringing the Bell: The 5 major drivers of ETF growth | ASX’s Rory Cunningham - Bell Direct's Jessica Amir talks with Rory Cunningham, a Senior Manager of Investment Products at the ASX. In this video they go through some research they've seen in ETF investing as well as further talk on megatrends and the tilt towards more global investing that happens with ETFs. They finish up with talk on multi-asset ETFs which investors may not have heard of. Have a listen to this and other great videos at Bell Direct. 9mins ausbiz - Warning: ETFs are not a risk free shortcut to investing - 20th August - Annette from ausbiz chats with Pat Garrett of SixPark talking about checklists that ETF investors need to go through as this asset class can be just as volatile as others. Check it out. 7mins ausbiz - Is the ESG trend an all-millennial phenomenon? - 19th August - Including this one from last week as we missed it on Thursday but it is important. It's about how ETF investors are becoming more climate conscious and how we can expect more to pour funds into ESG investing. 4mins
Podcasts ETF Edge - Reopening Trades & Mutual Fund-ETF Conversions 23rd August - Description from ETF Edge: CNBC's Leslie Picker fills in for Bob Pisani and speaks with Bryon Lake, head of Americas ETF client at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and Todd Rosenbluth, senior director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA. They discussed resurgent reopening trades, consumer resiliency, mutual fund conversions and the rise of active management Plus, Tina Herrera, chair of YWCA’s board of directors, shares the factors behind the Impact Shares YWCA Women’s Empowerment ETF (WOMN)’s success. Equity Mates - Australian Reporting Season Wrap | Atlassian, Telstra, Coles, REA Group, Goodman Group - 22nd August - Description from Equity Mates: It's the third of our Equity Mates Quartr specials, where we listen to the earnings calls of companies that interest us. Using the app Quartr, we've been taking out the best bits and talking about what it means. Because for a long time now we’ve had a gripe with earnings calls. Why? They’re at inconvenient times, and they’re hard to find and listen to on demand. But, they’re such a rich source of information for retail investors. This episode we hear from Atlassian, Telstra, REA Group, Coles and Goodman Group Shares for Beginners - Shani & Mark – Getting ready to invest - 21st August - Description from Shares for Beginners: Sometimes the hardest part is getting started. Or getting started the right way. Too many people jump into the share market thinking there are quick gains that will solve all of their financial problems. I was joined by Shanni Jayamanne & Mark LaMonica from the Investing Compass podcast to talk about some of the steps that you can take before heading off down investment road.
Tweet of the week This week its from Todd Rosenbluth looking at the biggest active ETFs - https://twitter.com/ToddCFRA/status/1430129325236539394
Chart of the Week - ASX total FUM growth to July 2021
This week the highlight chart goes to the crew at Morningstar where they showed that International EQuity ETFs had the most amount of inflows in 2021 followed by Australian equities and others. We see this in the ETFtracker app and its data too and this is a really great way to showcase it. Outflows occurred in cash/currency related ETFs.
Further ETF Education
Finder - A beginner’s guide to exchange traded funds (ETFs) - great summary from Kylie Purcell and the crew at Finder showing some of the factors to look at when buying ETFs - a great one to look at if you are getting started.
ETFtracker App Updates (and holdings app updates)
We've made some strides this week with new features to the ETFtracker which will go out in the next couple of weeks. The first is that we've added to the ETF holdings analysis tools with ETF Securities now being added to the mix. We cover 12 of the 17 funds they have (the other 5 are metals ETFs which hold gold or silver so we've not included those). Eventually we will also add Vanguard and VanEck coverage and then we begin the task of bringging all of the above into a single app.
Additionally, we've listened to our audience who wanted the main ETFtracker app to be easier to navigate - we're working on a few features to make it easier to analyse single ETFs as well as a new landing page so we'll talk more about that in time.
You can access the current app from: https://www.etftracker.com.au/the-app
ETFtracker Forum If you're not already a member of the ETFtracker Forum then please sign up - you can access conversations and share ideas amongst peers for free. Sign up is free: https://www.etftracker.com.au/forum
Listen or Watch Before we go further, if you'd prefer to consume all this content in more convenient forms of media, we've launched The ETFtracker Show as a podcast and video and Exchange Traded Fridays comes at the end of each week. Additionally, we've launched a series of interviews with various ETF market participants.
You can also access the podcast directly on our website here: https://www.etftracker.com.au/podcasts ETFtracker Socials - YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok We're on a few platforms (some more than others) so look up ETFtracker on your favourite platform for more.
Below is our the YouTube video from last weels episode.