State Street Australian Equity is an Managed Funds investment product that is benchmarked against ASX Index 200 Index and sits inside the Domestic Equity - Large Cap Neutral Index. Think of a benchmark as a standard where investment performance can be measured. Typically, market indices like the ASX200 and market-segment stock indexes are used for this purpose. The State Street Australian Equity has Assets Under Management of 262.10 M with a management fee of 0.7%, a performance fee of 0 and a buy/sell spread fee of 0.49%.
The recent investment performance of the investment product shows that the State Street Australian Equity has returned 2.71% in the last month. The previous three years have returned 2.21% annualised and 10.9% each year since inception, which is when the State Street Australian Equity first started.
There are many ways that the risk of an investment product can be measured, and each measurement provides a different insight into the risk present. They can be used on their own or together to perform a risk assessment before investing, but when comparing investments, it is common to compare like for like risk measurements to determine which investment holds the most risk. Since State Street Australian Equity first started, the Sharpe ratio is NA with an annualised volatility of 10.9%. The maximum drawdown of the investment product in the last 12 months is -3.7% and -23.94% since inception. The maximum drawdown is defined as the high-to-low decline of an investment during a particular time period.
Relative performance is what an asset achieves over a period of time compared to similar investments or its peers. Relative return is a measure of the asset's performance compared to the return to the other investment. The State Street Australian Equity has a 12-month excess return when compared to the Domestic Equity - Large Cap Neutral Index of -4.29% and -2.12% since inception.
Alpha is an investing term used to measure an investment's outperformance relative to a market benchmark or peer investment. Alpha describes the excess return generated when compared to peer investment. State Street Australian Equity has produced Alpha over the Domestic Equity - Large Cap Neutral Index of NA% in the last 12 months and NA% since inception.
For a full list of investment products in the Domestic Equity - Large Cap Neutral Index category, you can click here for the Peer Investment Report.
State Street Australian Equity has a correlation coefficient of 0.88 and a beta of 0.88 when compared to the Domestic Equity - Large Cap Neutral Index. Correlation measures how similarly two investments move in relation to one another. This establishes a 'correlation coefficient', which has a value between -1.0 and +1.0. A 100% correlation between two investments means that the correlation coefficient is +1. Beta in investments measures how much the price moves relative to the broader market over a period of time. If the investment moves more than the broader market, it has a beta above 1.0. If it moves less than the broader market, then the beta is less than 1.0. Investments with a high beta tend to carry more risk but have the potential to deliver higher returns.
For a full quantitative report on State Street Australian Equity and its peer investments, you can click here for the Peer Investment Report.
For a full quantitative report on State Street Australian Equity compared to the ASX Index 200 Index, you can click here.
To sort and compare the State Street Australian Equity financial metrics, please refer to the table above.
This investment product is in the process of being independently verified by SMSF Mate. Once we have verified the investment product, you will be able to find more information here.
SMSF Mate does not receive commissions or kickbacks from the State Street Australian Equity. All data and commentary for this fund is provided free of charge for our readers general information.
On the 22 June 2023, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) hit a low of 12.9, down -40% from the start of the year when it was trading at 21.7.1 The VIX is a measure of investors expectation of volatility based on S&P 500 Index options. It is a commonly accepted measure of investor fear (or in this case lack of fear). The recent decline may be suggesting investor complacency. This is important because equity markets are more vulnerable to shocks when they are not expected. Figure 1 below highlights the recent fall in the VIX. At these low levels the VIX now sits below the 25th percentile.
The possible complacency has coincided with exuberant equity markets in 2023 which has taken valuations back into the expensive zone. The price-to-earnings ratio for the MSCI World Index has moved from 14.9 to 16.9 in 2023.2 A move from the 50th percentile to the 85th percentile based on valuation levels of the last 20 years. At the same time the earnings trend has been subdued at only +1%3, leading economic indicators continue to point lower, and the risks of a global economic slowdown or recession remain ever present.
On the 22 June 2023, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) hit a low of 12.9, down -40% from the start of the year when it was trading at 21.7.1 The VIX is a measure of investors expectation of volatility based on S&P 500 Index options. It is a commonly accepted measure of investor fear (or in this case lack of fear). The recent decline may be suggesting investor complacency. This is important because equity markets are more vulnerable to shocks when they are not expected. Figure 1 below highlights the recent fall in the VIX. At these low levels the VIX now sits below the 25th percentile.
The possible complacency has coincided with exuberant equity markets in 2023 which has taken valuations back into the expensive zone. The price-to-earnings ratio for the MSCI World Index has moved from 14.9 to 16.9 in 2023.2 A move from the 50th percentile to the 85th percentile based on valuation levels of the last 20 years. At the same time the earnings trend has been subdued at only +1%3, leading economic indicators continue to point lower, and the risks of a global economic slowdown or recession remain ever present.
After a period of resilience, Australian earnings trends have declined in-line with global earnings trends in 2023. Figure 1 provides a 20 year perspective on the relationship between Australian and global earnings1 . The global and Australian earnings cycles are closely linked to global economic trends. The sometimes unfortunate truth for Australia is that by having an open economy with many global linkages, we can do little to avoid being impacted by these global trends. As an example, in early 2008 (highlighted in Figure 1) we observed a similar disconnect when Australian mining companies continued to see upgrades and the domestic banking sector initially appeared resilient, before surrendering to global influences.
The right hand side of Figure 1 highlights the recent changes. For most of 2022 the Australian equity market proved resilient to the earnings per share (EPS) slowdown in the developed world, maintaining EPS growth of approximately 20%. In 2022, the Australian companies exposure to iron ore, copper, oil and gas and our domestic economy were more resilient. In 2023, the outlook for financials, energy and materials has deteriorated and the 12-month EPS trend has declined to -1% as at 19 May 2023.
So far the Australian equity market has been one of the best performing markets in the world and has been reasonably insulated from global markets. Figure 2 highlights the almost flat performance of the Australian S&P/ASX 300 Index, down only -0.3% compared to the MSCI World Index (-11%). It also highlights the underperformance of the US banks, the relative outperformance of the Australian banks and the positive +9% return from iron ore and steel stocks. The Australian equity market has a large concentrated weight to both iron ore and steel companies as well as the banks.
The S&P/ASX 300 Index has also given up ground in February. We have seen Australian investors favour companies with lower volatility, better valuations, higher quality and larger capitalization. Figure 3 below reports the quintile spread returns for several standard company characteristics for the S&P ASX 300 universe of stocks in February so far.
In the last 20 years the best place to be for smaller companies has been global not local. The MSCI World Small Cap Index has generated 8.25% p.a. and has outperformed the MSCI World Index by 2.56% p.a. as well as Australian smaller companies by +2.76%.1 The index has been associated with earnings growth of 6.2% an average yield of 2.2% and an average multiple of 16.9 since Jan 2001.1 Smaller companies are known to be more volatile than larger capitalised stocks and this can be seen in both the annualized volatility and the beta of the smaller capitalized companies.
As shown in figure 2 below the MSCI World small capitalised stocks outperform the most during bull markets and underperform the most during market corrections. The cycles of both outperformance and under performance are usually a function of changing investor risk appetites as well as liquidity effects.
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