A look at Vaneck MVR and the SFY ETF
The VanEck MVR ETF provides focused exposure to the Australian resources sector, which is a significant part of the Australian economy. This is a low-cost way to invest in the Australian resources industry through a single fund.
The SPDR SFY ETF is the only Australian ETF providing exposure to Australia’s top 50 listed companies, by market capitalisation. SFY provides a low-cost way to invest in the ASX’s top 50 companies through a single fund.
Learn more about the SFY ETF with our full analysis page. Get our SFY review.
So where do we start analysing SFY and MVR? In addition to using our years of experience analysing ETFs to ‘get a feel’ for the ETF, there are simple checks and balances our team uses to compare similar ETFs.
The first is fees. We score ETFs based on their management fees and costs and we take into account the spread. We’ll then compare these ‘all in’ fees and costs across sectors, strategy types and ETF providers.
We’ll keep it simple and just study the fees. Based on our data for July 2022, the MVR ETF has a management expense ratio (MER) of 0.35% while the SFY ETF’s yearly fee was 0.29%. Therefore, SFY 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.
Performance analysis
Performance is important. 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 good return one year just to generate poor 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 2022, the MVR ETF had an average annual return of 7.51%. During the same time, the SFY ETF returned 5.91%.
There’s one more important thing to consider: the company that starts and runs the ETF. They are in charge of operating the ETF on the ASX. The provider of the MVR fund 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. Meanwhile, the company responsible for SFY is SPDR. SPDR ranks highly for our scores of ETF providers and issuers in Australia. We think SPDR is one of Australia’s top 10 ETF providers for advisers and institutions, and its ETFs on the ASX provide good exposure to particular financial markets for retail investors.
Next steps
To keep reading about these two ETFs, be sure to visit our free MVR ETF report or SFY ETF review.
In summary, the SFY ETF ranks better against our internal scoring methodology but not by much compared to MVR.
Please, keep in mind, there is much more to picking 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 2024, keep reading…
