On the ASX, the Betashares Australian Sustainability Leaders ETF (ASX: FAIR) and Vaneck Australian Equal Weight ETF (ASX: MVW) might be worth digging into in 2021.
What are the Betashares FAIR and Vaneck MVW ETFs designed to do?
The BetaShares FAIR ETF provides exposure to the largest Australian shares and focuses on companies which operate ethically. FAIR has been certified by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA), as part of the Responsible Investment Certification Program.
The VanEck MVW ETF provides exposure to over 60 of the largest and most liquid Australian shares, equally weighted. By equally weighting shares, this ETF aims to reduce concentration risk in specific Australian stocks and sectors.
For more information on the FAIR ETF, see our ASX FAIR review.
We’ll keep it basic and just study the fees. Based on our data for July 2021, the FAIR ETF has a management expense ratio (MER) of 0.49% while the MVW ETF’s yearly fee was 0.35%. Therefore, MVW wins on this one. That said, a more useful metric to know is the fee quartiles that these ETFs find themselves in (note: quartile 1 is best). For example, any ETF which has a fee below 0.3% would be considered in our first (best) quartile.
Show me the money
It’s time to study the track record. 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 compelling return one year just to generate subpar 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 July 2021, the FAIR ETF had an average annual return of 13.64%. During the same time, the MVW ETF returned 11.91%.
Okay, one final thing. Let’s talk about the company responsible for the ETF. There are too many factors that go into our internal scoring of fund providers to step through in this article. The provider behind the FAIR ETF is Betashares. Betashares ranks highly for our scores of ETF providers and issuers in Australia. We believe BetaShares is one of the leading providers of index and non-index style products to retail investors in Australia. Meanwhile, MVW’s provider is Vaneck. VanEck ranks highly for our scores of ETF providers and issuers in Australia. Our team considers VanEck to be one of Australia’s leading providers of specialised ETFs and funds for retail investors and advisers.
Our takeaway
Be sure to visit our free ASX FAIR review or ASX MVW ETF review.
For us, the MVW ETF rates greater against our internal scoring methodology, but only just.
We hope this article helped you analyse ETFs. Don’t forget, there’s a lot more to investing well than what we just outlined (risks, diversification, other potentially better ETFs, etc.). Our analyst team at Rask Australia spends months looking at new ASX investments (it’s our day job!). To make your life easier, you can get the name of our team’s top ETF pick for 2021 in a free report. Keep reading to find out how to get our analyst’s report emailed to you right now…
