The Vanguard MSCI Australian Large Companies Index ETF (ASX: VLC) and iShares S&P/ASX 20 ETF (ASX: ILC) are exchange-traded funds (ETFs) operating in the Australian shares sector, and aiming to make investing as simple as possible.
How the VLC and ILC ETFs fit in a portfolio
The Vanguard VLC ETF provides exposure to the MSCI Australian Shares Large Cap Index. This index is a ‘free float-adjusted market capitalization index’ which provides investors with exposure to the largest companies on the ASX.
The iShares ILC ETF provides exposure to the largest 20 Australian stocks, giving you targeted exposure to Australian blue-chip companies. This is a low-cost way to access top Australian companies through a single fund.
See our ASX ILC report – it’s totally free.
Okay, so we know what they’re designed to do, the sectors and strategies. Now what? One of the quick ways to compare ETFs like ILC and VLC is to study the fee load. No one likes paying high fees if they don’t need to. Here at Best ETFs and Rask Austalia, we begin by analysing the fees and ‘all in’ costs of an ETF or fund. Our team will score ETFs based on management fees, plus any other costs, then put them into quartiles by sector, strategy and across the entire ETF market.
To make this article easier to digest, we’ll just study the fees or ‘management expense ratio’ (MER). Using data for December 2020, the VLC ETF has an MER of 0.20% while the ILC ETF had a yearly fee of 0.24%. As a result, VLC comes out on top. Keep in mind, a more useful metric to know is the fee quartiles that these ETFs find themselves in (note: quartile 1 is best). Meaning, we take all the Australian shares ETFs in our database and classify them into 4 quartiles, based on their fees. For example, any ETF which has a fee below 0.3% would be considered in our first (best) quartile.
How we study past performance
Time to look at past returns. Keep in mind, performance isn’t everything — and past performance is not indicative of future performance. It’s just one part of a much bigger picture. The reason we say performance is not everything is because of volatility of financial markets and the economy from one year to the next. Some ETFs and funds can put in a attractive return one year just to generate unsatisfactory returns the next time around. That’s why we prefer three-year or seven-year track records over one-year track records. It can smooth out the temporary performances caused by external factors. Both ETFs have achieved our three-year performance hurdle. As of December 2020, the VLC ETF had an average annual return of 8.83%. During the same time, the ILC ETF returned 8.64%.
One final point: the ETF provider is important. In Australia, we believe there are a handful of stand-out ETF providers and many that are mid-pack or very fresh. As you guessed, the provider backing the VLC ETF is Vanguard. And Vanguard ranks highly for our scores of ETF providers and issuers in Australia. We consider Vanguard to be in Australia’s top three ETF providers for retail investors, advisers and institutions. ILC’s ETF provider on the ASX is iShares. iShares ranks highly for our scores of ETF providers and issuers in Australia. We consider iShares to be among the best ETF providers in Australia and globally.
What it all means
If you’d like to learn more about these two ETFs, be sure to visit our free VLC ETF report or ILC ETF review.
In summary, the ILC ETF ranks higher against our internal scoring methodology but not by much compared to VLC.
Please, keep in mind, there is much more to choosing a good ETF. That’s why you should now use these skills to find the best ETF you can. If you want the name of our team’s top ETF pick for 2021, keep reading…
