Why investors study the Australia 200 ETF and Australian Equal Weight ETF
The Betashares A200 ETF provides exposure to the largest 200 Australian companies, based on market capitalisation. Unlike many other Australian shares ETFs, A200 uses the Solactive Australia 200 Index. This is virtually the same thing as the indices provided by S&P/ASX, as it also uses a market capitalisation weighting.
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.
Want to know (lots) more? Read through our full MVW ETF review: see our MVW ETF review now.
Obviously, an easy way to analyse any ETF or fund like MVW or A200 is with quantitative methods, such as studying the fees and past performance (keeping in mind past performance is no guarantee of future performance).
We’ll keep it straightforward and just study the fees. Based on our data for July 2022, the A200 ETF has a management expense ratio (MER) of 0.07% while the MVW ETF’s yearly fee was 0.35%.So A200 comes out on top. 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.
Track record
Let’s look at the past results. 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 strong return one year just to generate weak 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 A200 ETF had an average annual return of 6.79%. During the same time, the MVW ETF returned 5.62%.
Finally, at Best ETFs Australia, we apply a rating to the ETF issuer or provider. That is, the company that starts and is responsible for operating the ETF on the ASX. There are too many considerations that go into our scoring to detail here. The issuer of A200 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. 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.
Conclusion
To keep reading about these two ETFs, be sure to visit our free A200 ETF report or MVW ETF review.
In summary, the A200 ETF rates better for our internal scoring methodology but not by much compared to MVW.
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 2024, keep reading…
