Latest / The Money Puzzle / ETFs: Just when you thought you understood them, they've changed
Transcript
- 0:12Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
- 0:15Speaker 1: James Kirby, the wealth editor at The Australian. Welcome aboard, everybody.
- 0:20Speaker 1: Just before we start today's show, I want to just
- 0:23Speaker 1: deal with something. Thank you, everybody, who contacted us through
- 0:29Speaker 1: the email, themoneypuzzle at theaustralian.com.au in the last few days
- 0:34Speaker 1: about the FIRE movement. I knew there would be a response.
- 0:37Speaker 1: It's funny. It took a week or two rather than
- 0:39Speaker 1: a day or two, but here they come. And lots
- 0:42Speaker 1: of correspondence and questions about the FIRE movement. And fair enough,
- 0:47Speaker 1: a few people saying, well, you know, James Gerrard was
- 0:51Speaker 1: on basically offering a critique of the FIRE movement and
- 0:54Speaker 1: the FIRE movement, Financial Independence Retire Early movement. They should
- 0:58Speaker 1: have the right to come on and give their side
- 1:01Speaker 1: of the story, which they certainly do. And I will
- 1:04Speaker 1: do that. Just give me a chance to... There's two things.
- 1:06Speaker 1: First of all, I've got to find some time to
- 1:08Speaker 1: get them on the show, and I have to choose
- 1:10Speaker 1: who the spokesman, the most appropriate spokesperson, might be for
- 1:14Speaker 1: the fire movement. So we will sort that out. ASAP.
- 1:17Speaker 1: All right. Okay. Speaking about the email box. Every day,
- 1:21Speaker 1: without fail, there are questions about exchange-traded funds, ETFs. It's
- 1:25Speaker 1: easily the top subject, and I'm not surprised because exchange-traded
- 1:30Speaker 1: funds have become a gateway to the market. particularly for
- 1:34Speaker 1: people who are starting investing, early investors. But just as easily,
- 1:39Speaker 1: they are very popular with, can I call them sophisticated investors,
- 1:43Speaker 1: experienced investors who have a kind of what they call
- 1:45Speaker 1: a core and satellite approach. So they have ETFs to
- 1:49Speaker 1: cover off certain areas of investing. It might be the
- 1:54Speaker 1: American share market or it might be bonds or it
- 1:57Speaker 1: might be emerging markets or whatever. And they have become
- 2:01Speaker 1: so popular, of course, Understandably, just as I'm starting to
- 2:05Speaker 1: understand them and just as I think I've imparted what
- 2:07Speaker 1: you need to know about them, of course, they're shifting.
- 2:10Speaker 1: GoPosts are shifting as to what they actually are. So
- 2:14Speaker 1: I've had a few people on the show before about ETFs,
- 2:16Speaker 1: always to good response. So we've had Robin Bowerman from Vanguard.
- 2:21Speaker 1: We've had David Bassanese from BetaShares. And today my guest
- 2:25Speaker 1: is from the Global X Group. Global X, you may
- 2:28Speaker 1: not know, but once upon a time they were called ETF.
- 2:30Speaker 1: And That was an organization which launched the first, the
- 2:36Speaker 1: original of the species, the first ever ETF in Australia,
- 2:40Speaker 1: which I remember reporting upon at the time. I think
- 2:42Speaker 1: it was 1997. And it was a gold ETF, which
- 2:45Speaker 1: remains the biggest gold ETF in the market, about three
- 2:48Speaker 1: and a half billion in the market today. Looking over
- 2:51Speaker 1: all that is Mark Jokum. He is at the Global
- 2:57Speaker 1: X Group. He's an investment strategist there. How are you, Mark?
- 3:00Speaker 2: Hi, James. Thanks so much for having me on the show.
- 3:01Speaker 2: Really looking forward to it.
- 3:03Speaker 1: Did I get the history right there? Was it 97?
- 3:05Speaker 3: So we launched the first gold ETF in 2003. But
- 3:08Speaker 3: we started looking at the first ETF came in 1991
- 3:13Speaker 3: in Canada. But yes, as you alluded to, Australia, we
- 3:16Speaker 3: were the first country to launch a gold exchange traded product.
- 3:20Speaker 3: And we've seen a range of gold ETFs come after that.
- 3:22Speaker 3: But yeah, we were the first. And yeah, we're now
- 3:25Speaker 3: recording this 2024. So yeah, 21 years we've been in
- 3:28Speaker 3: the market with it.
- 3:29Speaker 1: And money pouring into that one at the moment, I expect.
- 3:33Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we've seen a lot of interest within
- 3:35Speaker 3: gold exchange traded funds, in particular around geopolitical risk. There
- 3:39Speaker 3: was inflation, obviously, and also with interest rates coming down,
- 3:42Speaker 3: that usually bodes quite well for the yellow metal. So
- 3:46Speaker 3: the last few months have been successive inflows into ETFs,
- 3:49Speaker 3: which contradicts the last 12 to 18 months, which is actually,
- 3:52Speaker 3: funnily enough, been outflows. So it just shows that even
- 3:55Speaker 3: investors are investing into gold at their all-time highs at
- 3:58Speaker 3: the moment because they want it for that defensive capability.
- 4:01Speaker 1: Yes, just to use that as a sort of proxy
- 4:04Speaker 1: for the whole area. So, I mean, ETFs are very
- 4:07Speaker 1: useful anyway, folks, because you can buy, as I say,
- 4:09Speaker 1: you can buy the American share market or you can
- 4:11Speaker 1: buy the European share market. You can buy emerging markets
- 4:16Speaker 1: or bonds. What it does, it gives access to people.
- 4:20Speaker 1: Most people still never buy bonds, but it was a
- 4:23Speaker 1: way in. I don't know if it's the best way in.
- 4:25Speaker 1: We haven't time to talk about that, but it's a
- 4:27Speaker 1: way in. And similarly with gold. I mean, really, people
- 4:31Speaker 1: who were gold investors, they had gold bars, and they
- 4:34Speaker 1: had them in vaults, and they paid an awful lot
- 4:37Speaker 1: to keep those bars insured and all that sort of thing.
- 4:42Speaker 1: And it was very difficult, and you really had to
- 4:43Speaker 1: be either a bit obsessional or very wealthy to have
- 4:46Speaker 1: gold up until this ETF was launched. So it's a
- 4:49Speaker 1: good example, really, of how they did change everything. I'm
- 4:52Speaker 1: going to begin with something. I'm going to begin by
- 4:55Speaker 1: giving you a free kick mark, but it's worth introducing
- 4:58Speaker 1: to people why ETFs have been successful. And we know
- 5:03Speaker 1: that they are, at their best, they're simple and low fee.
- 5:07Speaker 1: But also, there was a habit. Once upon a time,
- 5:13Speaker 1: you could only buy, an Australian investor, everyday investor, could
- 5:16Speaker 1: only buy funds in the way of managed funds. And
- 5:19Speaker 1: there was big fund houses, Platinum and Perpetual and Magellan.
- 5:23Speaker 1: And they were all big names and they have all,
- 5:25Speaker 1: in various ways, faded rapidly and shrunk. And one of
- 5:29Speaker 1: the reasons you've put to me is what they call
- 5:32Speaker 1: closet indexing. Explain what that is and the critique that
- 5:37Speaker 1: your industry, the ETF industry, has about closet indexing.
- 5:42Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really interesting phenomenon, James, where you've got
- 5:45Speaker 3: this idea of closet indexing, which is just another way
- 5:48Speaker 3: to describe fund managers who are masquerading themselves as active
- 5:53Speaker 3: fund managers, but their portfolios closely resemble index funds. And
- 5:58Speaker 3: I think that's really important now with the proliferation of
- 6:01Speaker 3: ETFs that investors actually look under the hood of their
- 6:05Speaker 3: active manager to see what are the underlying holdings. Are
- 6:08Speaker 3: they traditionally different from a benchmark or an index ETF?
- 6:13Speaker 3: Because if you look at some of the top fund
- 6:15Speaker 3: managers out there, a lot of them have very similar
- 6:19Speaker 3: holdings in terms of, you know, when you look at
- 6:21Speaker 3: the top 10 holdings to a low cost index ETF,
- 6:24Speaker 3: the only difference with them is they charge significantly higher fees.
- 6:27Speaker 3: And usually just the simple arithmetic of the share market
- 6:31Speaker 3: is they normally underperform by the amount of their fees.
- 6:35Speaker 3: So I think not necessarily saying that the likes of
- 6:37Speaker 3: Magellan and Perpetual were closet indexes per se, but I
- 6:41Speaker 3: think the key push is that investors really push for
- 6:44Speaker 3: greater transparency from their fund managers.
- 6:47Speaker 1: So what you're saying is that once upon a time,
- 6:49Speaker 1: or still, I go and I buy a fund. It's
- 6:52Speaker 1: called the Australian Share Fund. It's from white box managers. And-
- 6:57Speaker 1: It's a managed fund. And when I look inside, I
- 6:59Speaker 1: find that the top stocks are the four banks, the
- 7:02Speaker 1: big two miners, Coles and Woolworths, etc. And then you're
- 7:06Speaker 1: saying to me, why didn't you just buy an ETF
- 7:08Speaker 1: on the Australian share market? It's got much lower fees.
- 7:12Speaker 1: It's going to outperform active managers invariably. That is, it's
- 7:16Speaker 1: going to do better anyway, nine times out of 10.
- 7:19Speaker 1: And on top of that, if you look inside the ETF,
- 7:21Speaker 1: it's going to have the big four banks, the big
- 7:24Speaker 1: two miners. And the big two supermarkets. So why bother
- 7:27Speaker 1: go to the active person if they're not being active?
- 7:29Speaker 1: Is this the point? Okay, that's the point you're making. Now,
- 7:32Speaker 1: here's the thing. That's all fine. And I don't disagree
- 7:34Speaker 1: with it for one minute. More recently, do you at GlobalX,
- 7:39Speaker 1: do you offer active ETFs?
- 7:41Speaker 3: So within our Australian business, no, we don't offer active ETFs.
- 7:45Speaker 3: We have traditionally been index-based ETFs. And all that is
- 7:49Speaker 3: it follows just a rules-based methodology to classify a particular investment.
- 7:54Speaker 3: That being said, we have seen a range of different
- 7:56Speaker 3: active ETFs come to the market as well, which I'm
- 7:58Speaker 3: happy to dive into as well.
- 8:00Speaker 1: So just to clear the air for everybody. So for
- 8:03Speaker 1: a long time, an ETF was always the same thing.
- 8:09Speaker 1: It was an index. So if you bought the Vanguard
- 8:13Speaker 1: or BellaShares or GlobalX American Wall Street S & P
- 8:18Speaker 1: Index Fund, you were buying the S & P index.
- 8:21Speaker 1: Every single stock in it was represented in that fund
- 8:24Speaker 1: proportionately as they are on the actual market. It's very
- 8:28Speaker 1: easy to understand, and it acted in a certain way. Now,
- 8:31Speaker 1: more recently, I'm sure you're not going to rule out
- 8:34Speaker 1: doing active ETFs anyway, and a lot of your competitors
- 8:37Speaker 1: already offer them. James Gerrard, who already triggered the debate
- 8:42Speaker 1: on the FIRE movement a few weeks ago, also said,
- 8:44Speaker 1: possibly on that same show, that I found this really interesting,
- 8:49Speaker 1: that the new style active ETFs Where an ETF, for instance,
- 8:55Speaker 1: we give a good easy example, electric car ETF, right?
- 8:58Speaker 1: Where they simply say, we're going to buy a bunch
- 8:59Speaker 1: of electric car stocks, choose them for you, and then
- 9:02Speaker 1: we're going to let that run. And you can see
- 9:05Speaker 1: how it goes. He said that traditional ETFs, like you've
- 9:09Speaker 1: just been talking about, that dominate your company and your offerings,
- 9:13Speaker 1: that they beat active ETFs just like they beat active
- 9:17Speaker 1: fund managers. Is that the case?
- 9:21Speaker 3: I think when it comes to this whole active versus passive,
- 9:24Speaker 3: it really depends on, one, an investor's timeframe. Because the
- 9:28Speaker 3: one thing you see, James, is some active fund managers
- 9:30Speaker 3: can be passive over the short term.
- 9:33Speaker 2: But over the long term, it's a really different story.
- 9:35Speaker 1: But do you know, do active ETFs, are they beaten
- 9:39Speaker 1: by passive ETFs? Is there any data to suggest that?
- 9:43Speaker 2: Yeah, majority of the time they are.
- 9:45Speaker 1: Okay, just hold that thought. Why do they offer active
- 9:48Speaker 1: ETFs if the industry knows that passive ETFs will beat them?
- 9:52Speaker 2: It's about distribution at the end of the day, James.
- 9:54Speaker 3: So a lot of active ETFs have seen, or active
- 9:57Speaker 3: managers have seen the flight of money that's leaving unlisted
- 10:00Speaker 3: managed funds and going into the ETF wrapper. So for them,
- 10:04Speaker 3: it's really about distribution because people want the transparency of
- 10:07Speaker 3: an ETF. They want the liquidity of the ETF and
- 10:10Speaker 3: they want the tax efficiency of an ETF. They've seen
- 10:12Speaker 3: a lot of success, particularly the Australian active fund managers
- 10:15Speaker 3: have seen the success of the US and their ETF market.
- 10:18Speaker 2: Where around about a third of.
- 10:19Speaker 3: The flows in the US ETF market are going to
- 10:22Speaker 3: active funds. But just because it looks like an ETF
- 10:26Speaker 3: and it acts like an ETF doesn't mean that naturally
- 10:29Speaker 3: money's going to go towards it. And you've actually seen
- 10:31Speaker 3: outflows come from active ETFs.
- 10:34Speaker 2: So you're right.
- 10:34Speaker 3: There has been a barrage of new ETFs. In fact,
- 10:37Speaker 3: last year, over half of the new ETFs were active ETFs.
- 10:41Speaker 3: They account for around about 30% of the market, but
- 10:44Speaker 3: they're not seeing the same level of flows, which is
- 10:46Speaker 3: really interesting.
- 10:48Speaker 1: Okay, so you're saying it was a response basically to
- 10:51Speaker 1: customer demand that this was offered by the industry. But
- 10:55Speaker 1: having said that, it's really worth hearing this, folks. Active
- 10:59Speaker 1: ETFs are beaten by passive ETFs. I have to say
- 11:03Speaker 1: that I don't know why I certainly would ever buy
- 11:05Speaker 1: an active ETF ever if they are beaten by passive ETFs.
- 11:09Speaker 1: I just don't see why you would. Tell me I'm wrong.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Let's hear from you. I can be intellectually seduced by arguments,
- 11:17Speaker 1: you know. about various market weighted ETFs, etc, etc. But
- 11:21Speaker 1: in the end, aren't you being seduced by the old
- 11:23Speaker 1: fashioned notion that someone is going to be smarter than
- 11:27Speaker 1: the market?
- 11:27Speaker 3: But the harsh reality is of the fund managers who
- 11:30Speaker 3: can actively outperform, you know, very few can do it.
- 11:33Speaker 3: And over a long period of time, only one to 2%
- 11:35Speaker 3: of them can do it for multiple periods. So even
- 11:38Speaker 3: if you can pick the active fund manager in one year,
- 11:40Speaker 3: doesn't mean that they can necessarily going to perform in
- 11:42Speaker 3: the other year. And, you know, 2023 was a great
- 11:45Speaker 3: year when, you know, there was meant to be market volatility,
- 11:48Speaker 3: which seemed favorable for active managers. And funnily enough, research
- 11:51Speaker 3: actually indicates that the optimal conditions for their outperformance is
- 11:55Speaker 3: actually low volatility, which is contrary to belief, high correlations,
- 12:00Speaker 3: and there's high stocks dispersions. But that only occurs around
- 12:03Speaker 3: about 2% of the time when it comes to markets.
- 12:06Speaker 3: So you really got to be quite, pick that right
- 12:08Speaker 3: point in time and also pick the right fund manager
- 12:11Speaker 3: because And the harsh evidence says that index-based investing has
- 12:13Speaker 3: outperformed active, but investors do want that active piece, particularly
- 12:18Speaker 3: for funds that have high active share, just to add
- 12:20Speaker 3: a bit of spice to the portfolio.
- 12:22Speaker 2: So that's where a lot of people are seeing the
- 12:24Speaker 2: use of it.
- 12:24Speaker 1: To kind of back their own hunch or back their
- 12:27Speaker 1: own instincts or whatever when that comes up. Okay, very interesting.
- 12:29Speaker 1: We're going to take a break and we'll come back
- 12:31Speaker 1: and we'll talk to Mark about the ETF scene and
- 12:34Speaker 1: how it's unfolding, where most people put their money and
- 12:37Speaker 1: what sort of trends he's starting to distinguish in our
- 12:40Speaker 1: market here in the Australian scene. Okay, back in a moment.
- 12:56Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to the Australian's Money Puzzle. I'm
- 12:58Speaker 1: James Kirby and I'm talking to Mark Jokum of the
- 13:02Speaker 1: Global X Index Funds and ETF Group, one of the
- 13:05Speaker 1: big operators in the local market for ETFs. Mark, tell me,
- 13:10Speaker 1: I look at the figures, it seems to me most people,
- 13:13Speaker 1: once they've bought their Australian share market ETF, what happens
- 13:17Speaker 1: after that? What does the data tell you? What do
- 13:20Speaker 1: most people do after that?
- 13:22Speaker 3: Well, funnily enough, this year, James, it's really been about
- 13:24Speaker 3: global shares. And I think that's the great use of
- 13:26Speaker 3: exchange traded funds is, you know, you can buy your
- 13:29Speaker 3: Aussie stocks, you can buy your Aussie ETFs, but global
- 13:32Speaker 3: shares have actually really opened up access for investors to
- 13:35Speaker 3: gain access to leading global companies using a low cost
- 13:38Speaker 3: wrapper like an ETF. And you've seen gradually over time,
- 13:42Speaker 3: you know, if I go back to when the ETF
- 13:44Speaker 3: market first started, It was really dominated by Aussie shares
- 13:47Speaker 3: and commodities, gold being one of them that we spoke
- 13:50Speaker 3: about earlier. But now the majority of the actual ETF
- 13:53Speaker 3: market is global shares. And that's because ETFs are used
- 13:57Speaker 3: as that vehicle for accessing these international opportunities. So far
- 14:00Speaker 3: this year, it's been very much a risk on sentiment, James,
- 14:03Speaker 3: where we've seen a lot of money coming out of
- 14:05Speaker 3: areas like cash and going into areas like global shares
- 14:09Speaker 3: because we've seen the rise of the dominance of some
- 14:11Speaker 3: of these developed markets like the U.S., Last year was
- 14:14Speaker 3: a little bit different where we saw a lot more
- 14:16Speaker 3: flows going into bond ETFs, particularly within things like floating
- 14:20Speaker 3: rate notes.
- 14:20Speaker 2: And I think that's your point, James. The beautiful thing
- 14:22Speaker 2: about an ETF.
- 14:24Speaker 3: Is your listeners and investors can access all these different
- 14:27Speaker 3: asset classes that were once cumbersome or hard to get
- 14:30Speaker 3: exposure to via a low cost ETF to provide that
- 14:34Speaker 3: access point.
- 14:35Speaker 1: Cumbersome. The perfect word. I should have thought of that earlier.
- 14:38Speaker 1: That's right. When you're talking about the gold, like that
- 14:41Speaker 1: was cumbersome. That's for sure. Or as for buying bonds,
- 14:44Speaker 1: I mean, really, where would you start and how many
- 14:47Speaker 1: would you have? And you try to have a ladder
- 14:48Speaker 1: of maturities and, you know, you always had to do
- 14:51Speaker 1: a short course about how to even start. Okay, talking
- 14:55Speaker 1: then about this area of offshore. So you're telling me
- 14:58Speaker 1: that the big trend among Australian investors in their use
- 15:03Speaker 1: of index funds and ETFs is to buy global markets. Okay,
- 15:08Speaker 1: what did they buy? I'm guessing Wall Street, NASDAQ, And
- 15:13Speaker 1: then maybe a global fund, but the global funds are
- 15:15Speaker 1: going to be 70% Wall Street anyway, aren't they?
- 15:18Speaker 2: Exactly.
- 15:19Speaker 3: And that's why a lot of you're seeing a lot
- 15:20Speaker 3: more this year is just going towards your general broad market,
- 15:23Speaker 3: low cost ETFs. So you think about your entire world
- 15:28Speaker 3: access products, but also some countries are becoming a bit
- 15:31Speaker 3: more popular. US is one area that a lot of
- 15:33Speaker 3: people want exposure to due to the Magnificent Seven stocks.
- 15:37Speaker 3: But there's other regional pockets, like we're seeing a bit
- 15:39Speaker 3: of interest in Europe. We're seeing a lot more in India.
- 15:42Speaker 3: India is a very interesting one because it's almost going
- 15:44Speaker 3: to take over the lead of China in the Emerging
- 15:47Speaker 3: Markets Index. Most of the flows are still going towards
- 15:49Speaker 3: your broad-based diversified ETFs covering very broad market exposure. And
- 15:54Speaker 3: I think that's a very sensible way for a majority
- 15:56Speaker 3: of people to invest. But then they can take a
- 15:58Speaker 3: bit more tactical views. If you want to go into
- 16:01Speaker 3: a particular country, a particular style, a particular thematic, a
- 16:05Speaker 3: lot of people have been talking about investing in things
- 16:08Speaker 3: like copper, uranium. You can get very esoteric investment at
- 16:13Speaker 3: exposure via an ETF, which is such a great way
- 16:15Speaker 3: for investors, instead of having to worry about pick all
- 16:18Speaker 3: these stocks, especially if you're trading international stocks, you don't
- 16:21Speaker 3: want to have to open up a brokerage account, change
- 16:23Speaker 3: your Aussie dollars into US dollars, handle all the paperwork,
- 16:26Speaker 3: an ETF really jumpler.
- 16:28Speaker 1: Give us an example of what in terms of those
- 16:30Speaker 1: thematic ETFs or specialized ETFs, is there one in particular
- 16:35Speaker 1: that's getting inflows at the moment?
- 16:39Speaker 3: Yeah, we're seeing a lot of interest within our copper
- 16:41Speaker 3: miners ETF. The ticket code for that is WIRE, W-I-R-E.
- 16:45Speaker 3: The reason for that, James, is everyone knows copper is
- 16:48Speaker 3: an incredibly.
- 16:49Speaker 2: Important part of the global economy.
- 16:52Speaker 3: It used to be a bit of a proxy for
- 16:53Speaker 3: what's going on with economic activity, but it's slowly transitioning.
- 16:57Speaker 1: Dr. Copper.
- 16:59Speaker 2: Yeah, Dr.
- 16:59Speaker 3: Copper, as they called it. It's slowly transitioning into this
- 17:03Speaker 3: secular economy. commodity that's going to be driven by electrification
- 17:07Speaker 3: urbanization the rise of artificial intelligence because copper is used
- 17:11Speaker 3: in a lot of things when you talk about renewable
- 17:13Speaker 3: energy it's used in building things like wind turbines solar
- 17:17Speaker 3: panels if you look at data centers which are powering
- 17:20Speaker 3: this ai revolution they require per gigawatt of data they
- 17:24Speaker 3: require 65 000 tons of copper So if you're talking
- 17:28Speaker 3: about the use of AI.
- 17:30Speaker 1: And the electric cars, of course.
- 17:32Speaker 2: Exactly. So electric cars is.
- 17:33Speaker 3: A good example where compared to an internal combustion engine,
- 17:36Speaker 3: it requires four times the amount of copper to use.
- 17:39Speaker 3: So people are starting to understand this broad case for copper.
- 17:43Speaker 3: And it's predicted to be in deficit for over the
- 17:46Speaker 3: medium term as well, which bodes quite well for the price.
- 17:48Speaker 3: And a lot of Aussies wanting to get exposure to
- 17:50Speaker 3: copper tend to invest just in the Australian miners. And
- 17:54Speaker 3: we've seen the likes of BHP. They had a bid
- 17:57Speaker 3: when it came to some of the global companies. They've
- 17:59Speaker 3: just set up a joint venture with London, which is
- 18:01Speaker 3: a company that's in our Y ETF. But there's a
- 18:04Speaker 3: global range of companies that investors may be missing out on.
- 18:07Speaker 1: The BHP in there was clearly shifting towards copper, as
- 18:13Speaker 1: you say, the commodity of the future. Okay. Can I
- 18:16Speaker 1: just ask you, though, about the ETFs, whether they're specialized
- 18:19Speaker 1: or whether they're broad brush? So whether you're talking about
- 18:22Speaker 1: a copper ETF? or an electric car ETF, or a
- 18:26Speaker 1: Wall Street ETF. One of the things that's a criticism
- 18:30Speaker 1: of ETFs, and I'm not talking about some of the
- 18:34Speaker 1: more sort of arcane things that come up, but a
- 18:36Speaker 1: very simple one is that in buying everything, you buy
- 18:40Speaker 1: all the rubbish, and you buy all the bad stuff,
- 18:43Speaker 1: and you buy all the nasties, you buy all the
- 18:46Speaker 1: ethically questionable, if not downright dreadful companies, because if I
- 18:51Speaker 1: go and buy a copper ETF, and it has 87
- 18:56Speaker 1: or 870 copper mining companies in there, and it must
- 19:01Speaker 1: buy everything that's on the market by definition, it promises
- 19:06Speaker 1: to buy everything, so it must buy everything. And that
- 19:08Speaker 1: means it must also buy some pretty bad companies that
- 19:10Speaker 1: you would never buy, ever. But you must because it's
- 19:14Speaker 1: an ETF. Is that a failing of ETFs?
- 19:19Speaker 3: I think so, but I don't know if it's more
- 19:21Speaker 3: a bug or a feature, James, because the good thing
- 19:24Speaker 3: about an ETF is you're expressing the view of that
- 19:28Speaker 3: intellectual humility that you don't really know who are going
- 19:30Speaker 3: to be the winners and losers. Naturally, particularly the ETFs
- 19:34Speaker 3: that weight the stocks by size or by market cap,
- 19:37Speaker 3: the market does a pretty good job at distilling all
- 19:41Speaker 3: the information out in the market to accurately price these
- 19:45Speaker 3: particular securities. And I think it's actually quite good to
- 19:48Speaker 3: get exposure, even though you're right, there are a bunch
- 19:50Speaker 3: of junk stocks that can come into an index. But naturally,
- 19:54Speaker 3: the bigger players are going to have a larger weight
- 19:56Speaker 3: in your portfolio. So if you didn't have exposure to
- 19:59Speaker 3: some of the Magnificent Seven stocks, you probably would have
- 20:02Speaker 3: underperformed the market. And the harsh reality is 67% of
- 20:06Speaker 3: stocks underperform a basic market index.
- 20:10Speaker 1: Indisputably, that's an argument, a very strong argument on the
- 20:13Speaker 1: basis of price. But is there any ethical dimension here? Like,
- 20:16Speaker 1: for instance, do you think ETFs should have more of
- 20:18Speaker 1: a role in voting, etc.
- 20:21Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that gets into the political nature around ETFs,
- 20:24Speaker 3: and they are becoming a greater part of the global
- 20:28Speaker 3: share market. You're seeing that companies in the US, ETF
- 20:32Speaker 3: issuers are starting to think about, well, how can they
- 20:34Speaker 3: actually outsource the proxy voting to all their individual investors?
- 20:38Speaker 2: Which is a very.
- 20:39Speaker 3: Interesting topic because when you invest in an ETF, you're
- 20:42Speaker 3: really outsourcing that to the ETF managers who use as
- 20:45Speaker 3: an investment steward to vote on shareholders' behalf. That being said,
- 20:50Speaker 3: I don't know how many people actually do want to
- 20:52Speaker 3: vote when they go to the meeting of a particular company.
- 20:54Speaker 3: And especially if you're owning a broad market ETF that
- 20:56Speaker 3: holds hundreds of companies going to all the individual meetings
- 20:59Speaker 3: and voting on them, some people will, especially some that
- 21:03Speaker 3: have strong, pretty strong for instance, sustainability views, ESG views.
- 21:08Speaker 3: But for the vast majority, they just want low-cost exposure.
- 21:11Speaker 3: But I do see that as a way of innovating
- 21:13Speaker 3: in terms of ETFs providing more access, more choice. And
- 21:16Speaker 3: proxy voting is particularly an area that could see some
- 21:19Speaker 3: development in the ETF market.
- 21:22Speaker 1: All right, we'll leave it at that. We will be
- 21:23Speaker 1: back in a moment, folks. I have pre-selected, curated a
- 21:28Speaker 1: couple of questions strictly from our audience, strictly on ETFs.
- 21:34Speaker 1: So perhaps we will get through some of the questions
- 21:37Speaker 1: that have been boiling up at the Money Puzzle in
- 21:39Speaker 1: recent times. OK, back in a moment. Hello and welcome
- 21:50Speaker 1: back to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby
- 21:54Speaker 1: with Mark Jochum of the Global X Group. He's the
- 21:58Speaker 1: investment strategist there. Now, Mark, these questions are, several of
- 22:03Speaker 1: them willfully break our golden rule of keeping questions short.
- 22:07Speaker 1: I don't know how I can shorten some of them,
- 22:11Speaker 1: but if you bear with me, I'll just try and
- 22:13Speaker 1: go through them and I'll try and paraphrase to the
- 22:16Speaker 1: extent I can without losing the nature of the question.
- 22:20Speaker 1: I'll just take an easy one first from Adam. Dear James,
- 22:23Speaker 1: can you outline what is meant by an open-ended ETF?
- 22:26Speaker 1: How do such open-ended ETFs adjust their prices to reflect
- 22:30Speaker 1: underlying assets? And is there such a thing as a
- 22:33Speaker 1: closed-end ETF? Okay, Mark Jochum, investment strategist, what's an open-ended
- 22:38Speaker 1: ETF and is there a closed-ended one?
- 22:42Speaker 2: Yeah, so great question, Adam.
- 22:43Speaker 3: Very simply, open-ended just means that units can be created
- 22:47Speaker 3: or destroyed based on the underlying demand. So when there's
- 22:50Speaker 3: demand for a particular product, the fact that it's open-ended
- 22:52Speaker 3: means that these market makers or authorized participants can come
- 22:56Speaker 3: in and either create new units or end up redeeming units.
- 23:00Speaker 3: And the reason why open-ended is important is because, and
- 23:03Speaker 3: your other question was around how it's reflected based on
- 23:05Speaker 3: the NAV, is that the price of the ETF will
- 23:08Speaker 3: track very closely to the net asset value, the NAV
- 23:11Speaker 3: or the NAV, due to the actions of these big
- 23:13Speaker 3: banks and these market makers and authorised participants. Because if
- 23:16Speaker 3: there's a difference between the price of an ETF and
- 23:19Speaker 3: the NAV of an ETF, the net asset value, That's
- 23:22Speaker 3: an arbitrage opportunity for these very smart institutions to actually
- 23:25Speaker 3: make some money in terms of either buying or selling
- 23:28Speaker 3: the underlying ETF versus the security. So if an ETF
- 23:31Speaker 3: price trades at a discount to its net asset value,
- 23:34Speaker 3: the market maker will go in, buy the ETF and
- 23:37Speaker 3: then sell the underlying to profit the difference. And that
- 23:39Speaker 3: way it tracks close to NAV. And then your other
- 23:42Speaker 3: question was around, are they closed ended ETFs? The answer
- 23:45Speaker 3: is yes, they are, but they're not called ETFs. They're
- 23:48Speaker 3: called listed investment companies or LICs. So these are different
- 23:51Speaker 3: where these are similar in terms of the fact that
- 23:53Speaker 3: they do expose to a broad asset class.
- 23:55Speaker 1: I don't want to go down this kind of rabbit hole,
- 23:57Speaker 1: but the LIC isn't identical to an ETF. I mean,
- 24:00Speaker 1: they select the shares they wish. Isn't that right? While
- 24:02Speaker 1: the ETF doesn't select them. It literally takes what's on
- 24:05Speaker 1: the board.
- 24:05Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think the main one is around the
- 24:08Speaker 3: structure of them. There's only a fixed pool of capital.
- 24:11Speaker 3: So there's only a fixed amount of shares out there.
- 24:12Speaker 3: The reason that some of them trade at a large
- 24:15Speaker 3: discount to their NTA or sometimes they trade at a
- 24:18Speaker 3: premium is is because there is no market maker, there
- 24:20Speaker 3: is no authorized participants that are creating and redeeming these shares.
- 24:24Speaker 3: And I think that managers don't really have an incentive
- 24:26Speaker 3: to close that discount because at the end of the day,
- 24:28Speaker 3: it's a closed pool of capital.
- 24:30Speaker 2: They collect the fees. So why would they want to
- 24:31Speaker 2: close the discount?
- 24:32Speaker 1: Okay, we're very popular and remain popular. But there was
- 24:36Speaker 1: a period where the LIC was the nearest thing in
- 24:38Speaker 1: some ways to they were more than a managed fund.
- 24:41Speaker 1: And they were invented way back. And some very big
- 24:45Speaker 1: ones still in the market, AFIC and Argo out of Adelaide,
- 24:48Speaker 1: which was once connected with Sir Don Brandman. And he
- 24:51Speaker 1: was on the board of Argo. They tell us about
- 24:53Speaker 1: that every time we talk to them. And they remain popular.
- 24:57Speaker 1: Some people see them as a useful. The Wilson Group
- 25:00Speaker 1: has some. They remain an interesting variation on the managed
- 25:06Speaker 1: fund where you are. using the brainpower of some leading
- 25:10Speaker 1: managers to pick stocks, but then the vehicle is a
- 25:14Speaker 1: bit more useful than some straight managed funds. Okay, we'll
- 25:17Speaker 1: leave that to one side for the moment. I think
- 25:19Speaker 1: that answers your question, Adam. That's open-ended ETFs. That's basically
- 25:23Speaker 1: how they work. That was the part of the magic
- 25:26Speaker 1: of these products that were all created once upon a time.
- 25:30Speaker 1: Go back to a man called Jack Bogle, B-O-G-L-E, who
- 25:34Speaker 1: was the sort of godfather of all this and created
- 25:36Speaker 1: the Vanguard Group. And you can read all about it,
- 25:39Speaker 1: I'm sure, somewhere. All right, question from Yogesh, Y-O-G-E-S-H. While
- 25:46Speaker 1: looking in ETFs, I came across a geared ETF. I'm
- 25:51Speaker 1: unable to understand how they work. Are you able to
- 25:53Speaker 1: give that common understanding? Yes, of course. I'm sure Mark
- 25:58Speaker 1: Jokom would do that for you, Yogesh. A geared, just
- 26:01Speaker 1: to make it easy, folks, is a course. It's an
- 26:04Speaker 1: index fund, just like we're talking about. But they borrow,
- 26:07Speaker 1: that's all. You don't get the negative gearing. That's the thing,
- 26:09Speaker 1: of course. If you borrowed and bought the ETF, you'd
- 26:12Speaker 1: get negative gearing. So you don't get it. So maybe
- 26:14Speaker 1: Mark will tell us all about that. Okay. Would you
- 26:17Speaker 1: illuminate us there, Mark?
- 26:20Speaker 3: Yeah, you're exactly right, James. And thanks, Yogesh, for the question.
- 26:23Speaker 3: Geared ETFs pretty much use internal borrowing. Saves you from
- 26:26Speaker 3: having to go out to get a margin loan, to
- 26:29Speaker 3: borrow to invest money. sometimes the ETF wrapper will do
- 26:31Speaker 3: it for you. And the fund manager is able to
- 26:34Speaker 3: go out and get an institutional rate from some of
- 26:36Speaker 3: the large banks. They can get a loan and they
- 26:39Speaker 3: handle all the gearing process for you. There is a
- 26:41Speaker 3: difference with leverage ETFs, even though they may seem one
- 26:44Speaker 3: in the same, where leverage ETFs use a bit more
- 26:47Speaker 3: financial magic by using derivatives like futures contract to get
- 26:51Speaker 3: magnified exposure. And that's what people who invest in geared
- 26:55Speaker 3: or leverage ETFs want. You want exposure that provides more
- 26:58Speaker 3: to the market or less to the market as well.
- 27:00Speaker 3: So currently there's ETFs out there that provide as little
- 27:03Speaker 3: as about 1.4 times the daily price of the actual index.
- 27:07Speaker 3: But there's some that are a little bit up the
- 27:09Speaker 3: risk curve that provide up to 2.7 times the exposure
- 27:13Speaker 3: to the particular market. Good alternative for people who want
- 27:16Speaker 3: exposure to the market but in a magnified way and
- 27:20Speaker 3: not having to realize going to go get a margin
- 27:22Speaker 3: loan and they can access lower borrowing by going through
- 27:24Speaker 3: a geared or leveraged ETF.
- 27:26Speaker 1: And what could go wrong with the leveraged ETF compared
- 27:30Speaker 1: to a standard ETF?
- 27:31Speaker 3: Yes, so they are very risky, just pointing out there,
- 27:34Speaker 3: because they are really designed to achieve this multiple on
- 27:37Speaker 3: a daily basis. which means over the long term, even
- 27:40Speaker 3: though share markets go up, because of this idea of
- 27:42Speaker 3: daily movements and daily rebalancing, it actually could, if the
- 27:46Speaker 3: gearing ratio does fall outside that particular range, can be
- 27:50Speaker 3: quite detrimental to investors. And I think that this idea
- 27:53Speaker 3: of this compounding effect of daily rebalancing can sometimes cause
- 27:57Speaker 3: people's representation of what the ETF.
- 28:00Speaker 2: Might do over the long term.
- 28:02Speaker 3: As an example, if you're invested in a two times,
- 28:04Speaker 3: let's use a simple example, two times leverage ETF.
- 28:07Speaker 1: Just to explain, Mark, two times, that means for every
- 28:09Speaker 1: dollar you put in, they borrow a dollar.
- 28:11Speaker 3: Exactly.
- 28:11Speaker 2: So that's double the exposure.
- 28:13Speaker 3: So if the index is down 5%, your ETF will
- 28:16Speaker 3: probably be down 10% on that day.
- 28:18Speaker 1: So everything's magnified.
- 28:20Speaker 2: Exactly. Your $ 100 is now $ 90.
- 28:22Speaker 3: And let's say the market's up the next day, because
- 28:26Speaker 3: that's generally what happens. Large fall days are accompanied by
- 28:29Speaker 3: large up days. So if the index goes up 5%,
- 28:33Speaker 3: that means, again, the ETF will go up 10% that day.
- 28:36Speaker 3: But if you think about it, that $ 90 going up 10%
- 28:39Speaker 3: is now $ 99. So you're still down a dollar overall.
- 28:42Speaker 3: And this is this whole arithmetic is that over time
- 28:45Speaker 3: in a volatile market, these small differences can lead to
- 28:47Speaker 3: larger deviations, particularly magnified when you have leveraged ETFs. So
- 28:52Speaker 3: our view is they should be short-term trading tools and
- 28:54Speaker 3: also keep an eye on the borrowing. Ask your fund
- 28:57Speaker 3: manager what the borrowing cost is versus the return on
- 28:59Speaker 3: the shares.
- 28:59Speaker 1: You're of the view they should be short-term tactical products
- 29:03Speaker 1: as opposed to a long-term... I'm geared to 30% into
- 29:07Speaker 1: the market forever.
- 29:08Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 29:09Speaker 1: Okay. Very interesting. We'll just leave it at that. Thank you.
- 29:12Speaker 1: And I'm sure that was very useful to you, Yogesh. Okay.
- 29:16Speaker 1: Declan says, on a number of occasions recently, you have
- 29:20Speaker 1: suggested there is an inherent contradiction in investing in private
- 29:23Speaker 1: credit and private equity via the ASX or listed markets.
- 29:27Speaker 1: There isn't. Okay. Just a context there. I continually say,
- 29:31Speaker 1: and I'm sorry, Declan, I'm going to say it continually,
- 29:34Speaker 1: that accessing unlisted assets through a listed vehicle, which can
- 29:40Speaker 1: crash with a share market crash, I find contradictory. But
- 29:43Speaker 1: I'm happy to hear new views. So Declan says, additionally,
- 29:48Speaker 1: ETFs themselves can invest in unlisted assets, including real estate,
- 29:53Speaker 1: private equity, gold, and so on. There you are. He
- 29:56Speaker 1: says there's no contradiction there. Now, that's good. I'm interested
- 30:01Speaker 1: in what he says there. It is testing my bias,
- 30:06Speaker 1: if you like, because the gold ETF from anybody, including
- 30:11Speaker 1: the original one, which was created by, it just so happens,
- 30:14Speaker 1: GlobalX and Marx from them, it allows you to buy
- 30:18Speaker 1: a physical asset in paper form. So let's just test this.
- 30:22Speaker 1: But let's say there was a crash, an almighty crash.
- 30:28Speaker 1: 1929-like share market crash. And everything crashed with it, including
- 30:32Speaker 1: gold ETFs. And then everybody wanted to get their money
- 30:36Speaker 1: out at the same time from the gold ETF. Could the...
- 30:41Speaker 1: I'm not talking about you, Mark. I'm just talking about
- 30:43Speaker 1: the ETF industry. Could it produce... Could it get the
- 30:50Speaker 1: gold and sell the gold dollar for dollar that's represented
- 30:54Speaker 1: by every piece of paper out there on listed ETFs?
- 30:58Speaker 3: Yes.
- 30:58Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's a great question, James.
- 31:00Speaker 1: Was that yes, they can or yes, it's a good question?
- 31:03Speaker 3: No, it is a good question because at the end
- 31:05Speaker 3: of the day, ETFs only account for a small part
- 31:07Speaker 3: of the overall market. It is growing. So, if there
- 31:10Speaker 3: is going to be a crash, it's not just going
- 31:12Speaker 3: to be the ETFs that are selling. It's going to
- 31:13Speaker 3: be active fund managers selling, institutions selling. Gold is quite
- 31:16Speaker 3: interesting because gold isn't just speculators or investors using gold.
- 31:21Speaker 3: A lot of people use gold for industrial use. Central
- 31:23Speaker 3: banks use them for their reserves. So, there could be
- 31:26Speaker 3: buyers on the other side. But the great thing about
- 31:29Speaker 3: an ETF is if people do want to sell, well,
- 31:31Speaker 3: you've got that liquidity over there, even though it is
- 31:33Speaker 3: considered to be an unlisted asset. It's a highly liquid market.
- 31:37Speaker 3: So there's always buyers and sellers. And in fact, the
- 31:39Speaker 3: gold market is actually a lot more liquid than some
- 31:41Speaker 3: share markets out there because it's so heavily traded globally.
- 31:44Speaker 1: That's why I think it probably does test the bias
- 31:48Speaker 1: that unlisted assets are sort of uncomfortably placed sometimes in
- 31:53Speaker 1: listed markets.
- 31:55Speaker 3: And I think, James, your point around the unlisted assets,
- 31:57Speaker 3: particularly Declan mentioned around private assets or private credit, private equity,
- 32:02Speaker 3: we haven't seen a lot of private credit going through
- 32:05Speaker 3: a default cycle because a lot of them came during,
- 32:08Speaker 3: were pretty much post the 2008, 2009 GFC because banks
- 32:12Speaker 3: refused or pretty much shut the doors to a lot
- 32:15Speaker 3: of lending to risky borrowers. So it'll be very interesting
- 32:18Speaker 3: to see how these private creditors managers go during a
- 32:21Speaker 3: financial crisis. What happens if investors run for the exit? Yeah,
- 32:25Speaker 3: I'm very interested to watch that.
- 32:26Speaker 1: Do I recall in the GSC that there was some
- 32:29Speaker 1: strain on gold ETFs and their ability to actually achieve liquidity?
- 32:36Speaker 2: Not entirely.
- 32:36Speaker 3: If anything, you saw a lot more buying within gold
- 32:38Speaker 3: ETFs during times of market turmoil. And that's because gold
- 32:41Speaker 3: has a bit more of a defensive capability to it.
- 32:44Speaker 2: Same with COVID as well.
- 32:45Speaker 3: There was no issues around buying into gold products. So yeah,
- 32:49Speaker 3: it's got that defensive characteristics to cushion share market volatility.
- 32:52Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Thank you for that, Declan. Do appreciate the
- 32:55Speaker 1: correspondence and the points you make. It's certainly an area
- 32:59Speaker 1: where there's two sides. Okay. Final question from David. I
- 33:04Speaker 1: have a question I was hoping you could answer on
- 33:05Speaker 1: the podcast in relation to a couple borrowing to invest
- 33:08Speaker 1: in ETFs. If a couple are both borrowing separately in
- 33:12Speaker 1: their own names to invest in a diversified portfolio of
- 33:15Speaker 1: passive ETFs, what are the considerations for deciding who should
- 33:18Speaker 1: invest in Australian ETFs for the frankie and who should
- 33:22Speaker 1: invest in global ETFs? Because they don't have frankie. That's
- 33:26Speaker 1: the sort of question you're going to say, speak to
- 33:29Speaker 1: a financial advisor. I wouldn't blame you if you gave
- 33:31Speaker 1: that answer straight away, Mark. But I imagine it happens,
- 33:34Speaker 1: does it, when people come in buying ETFs? They can't
- 33:36Speaker 1: help it. They start asking questions like this.
- 33:38Speaker 2: They do.
- 33:39Speaker 3: I would not say to speak to a financial advisor.
- 33:41Speaker 3: I'd say to speak to a tax accountant because they are.
- 33:42Speaker 2: The professional when it comes to tax.
- 33:44Speaker 3: That being said, I would say that a lot of
- 33:46Speaker 3: people use ETFs for its tax efficiency, right? When it
- 33:50Speaker 3: comes to high income versus medium income earners, again, I'm
- 33:53Speaker 3: not giving tax advice, but you're right. Who answered the
- 33:56Speaker 3: question around Australian versus global shares. If you invest in
- 33:59Speaker 3: Australian shares, they do have a lot more distributions that
- 34:02Speaker 3: are treated as dividends, which means that, you know, they
- 34:05Speaker 3: can use the franking credits to offset their tax liability
- 34:08Speaker 3: and But tax should never be a reason to invest.
- 34:10Speaker 2: It's more byproduct.
- 34:11Speaker 3: And keep in mind that if you're investing in global shares,
- 34:14Speaker 3: they have more capital growth potential versus the Australian market,
- 34:18Speaker 3: which has dividends. But the thing about an ETF is
- 34:20Speaker 3: that the ETF packages those capital gains when it rebalances
- 34:24Speaker 3: and distributes it as an income, right? As a similar
- 34:27Speaker 3: to a dividend, but it forms part of a distribution.
- 34:29Speaker 3: So that will still be treated as income for that investor.
- 34:32Speaker 3: So it's always hard whether you're high income versus medium
- 34:35Speaker 3: income owner to be deciding what to do. But yes,
- 34:38Speaker 3: if you are a high income earner and you want
- 34:40Speaker 3: those franking credits to offset that tax liability, then it
- 34:43Speaker 3: can make sense to be more heavily weighted to Australian shares.
- 34:46Speaker 3: Just keep in mind to be diversified and there are
- 34:48Speaker 3: capital gains implications from the global share component too.
- 34:52Speaker 1: Okay, terrific. Really good answer. Thank you. And remember, none
- 34:55Speaker 1: of this is ever advice. This is information only as
- 34:57Speaker 1: you all know by now, but I must say it
- 35:00Speaker 1: every week. Okay, very good. Hey, Mark Jochum from GlobalX,
- 35:04Speaker 1: the ETF house. Thank you very much for coming on
- 35:06Speaker 1: the show.
- 35:07Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, James. Really appreciate it.
- 35:09Speaker 1: Great to have you on the show. We'll have you again.
- 35:11Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming on. Okay, everybody. Now,
- 35:14Speaker 1: a few things. If you would, it would be really
- 35:17Speaker 1: good if you would mention us to someone you know
- 35:20Speaker 1: about the show. We'd love that. You can drop a
- 35:22Speaker 1: Google review, too, if you'd like. That would be very nice.
- 35:25Speaker 1: And the email, I have mentioned it more than once,
- 35:28Speaker 1: but here it is once more, themoneypuzzle at theaustralian.com.au. Today's
- 35:33Speaker 1: show was produced by Leah Simangalu. Talk to you soon.
- 35:41Speaker 1: Thank you.