The real interest today is in the more sophisticated, but largely misunderstood smart beta funds. What exactly is smart beta? Helena Conradie, CEO of SATRIX, explains.
Most investors will be familiar with the investment terms ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’. Beta is the volatility of a portfolio relative to that of the market as a whole. The market has a beta of 1. If your portfolio has a higher or lower beta, it is more or less volatile than the market. If you employ an active fund manager (one who studies companies and chooses a basket of shares for you) who gives you a return (and probably risk) which is different to that of the market (either positive or negative), this under- or outperformance of the market is called alpha.
Both measures are compared to a benchmark, which in this case is the market. A fund which has a beta of 1 is synonymous with the market and will often be called a tracker, even if the underlying components don’t look exactly like the market index (i.e. it behaves just like the market).
Ultimately, alpha is the result of the manager weighting stocks differently to the index. For example, if Naspers makes up 10% of the JSE All Share Index, but the manager allocated only a 5% weight to it, and Naspers underperforms the index, this underweight creates positive alpha. Likewise, if the manager allocated 20% to Naspers and it underperforms, the overweight results in negative alpha. Basically, to create positive alpha, you need to be underweight in underperforming stocks and overweight in outperforming stocks.
Smart beta funds attempt to capture excess return (or alpha) in a systematic – or rules based – way. The simplest example is the SATRIX Equally Weighted Top 40 Index Fund. The rules dictate that the top 40 stocks are equally weighted in the portfolio as opposed to market cap weighted. This will result in a different beta to the FTSE/JSE Top 40 index – hence smart beta. The idea is to deliver a better return while taking on different risk than the JSE Top 40 index – at a lower price.
The drawing below shows the different ways in which passive funds can weight their stocks.
The result of weighting stocks differently to the JSE is that you have a fund which differs from the JSE in terms of:
The sector and dramatically different factor exposures of the SATRIX Top 40, the SATRIX Equally Weighted Top 40, the SATRIX RAFI 40 and the SATRIX Dividend Plus Index funds are shown below.
Most of the criticism levelled at passive investments focuses on market cap weighted indices, which simply mimic some of the larger indices such as the JSE All Share Index or the JSE Top 40 Index. These index funds have been accused of being heavily exposed to overvalued stocks and less so to undervalued stocks. Smart beta offers the more sophisticated investor the opportunity to invest in a different sector or factor exposure than is characteristic of the broader market cap indices.
For example, if you felt that the market was better suited to value investing, you would consider the SATRIX RAFI 40 Index Fund. Alternately, if you felt that it was a growth market, you may consider the SATRIX Momentum Index Fund. Your passive fund now becomes an active choice in your portfolio as you make a selection which will give you a different performance profile than that of the market.
Satrix, wholly owned by Sanlam Investment Holdings (Pty) Limited, is South Africa’s leading provider of passive investment products, with more than R40bn in assets under management invested in its wide range of retail and institutional Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), Unit Trusts offerings and segmented mandates. SATRIX was the first company to launch ETFs in South Africa in 2000 with the launch of its flagship SATRIX Top 40 ETF, and has been a pioneer in the passive investment industry launching a number of new and innovative index tracking products over the years. For further information visit, www.satrix.co.za.