WEALTH WATCH
STEPHEN CRANSTON: Best and worst of equity funds
It is that time of year when the matric results are released and we become obsessed with passing and failing. What is a passing grade for a unit trust? It only makes sense to buy an active fund if it beats the index. And, like certain matric papers, it would have been relatively easy for an equity fund to "pass" against the main indices, whether it was the 3% for the shareholder weighted index (Swix) — conveniently accessed through the Sygnia SWIX Index Fund — or the 1.98% from the all share index (Alsi), accessed through Satrix. A lot depends on which index is chosen, and over time, the Swix and Alsi diverge far more than this. Amazingly, in the FundsData ranking 104 funds and fund classes were ahead of the Alsi and 104 below. Given a matric-style pass mark of 30%, the bottom 60 funds are fails. It also happens that these 60 funds all lost money for their clients. Bottom of the class with losses of more than 12% was Contego. Their funds have always been incomprehensible. The firm i...
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