The table below shows the tracking error of U.S. and international equity ETFs in 2010.
To make sure you understand these numbers in their proper context, see yesterday’s post about tracking errors on Canadian equity ETFs.
| Fund | Index | Tracking | |||
| US equity (hedged) | Ticker | return | return | error | |
| iShares S&P 500 | XSP | 13.5% | 13.5% | 0.0% | (1) |
| TD US Index Currency Neutral – e | TDB904 | 12.6% | 13.5% | -0.9% | |
| RBC US Index Currency Neutral | RBF558 | 12.6% | 15.1% | -2.5% | |
| Altamira US Index Currency Neutral | NBC856 | 13.0% | 15.1% | -2.1% | |
| Claymore US Fundamental | CLU | 16.7% | 18.3% | -1.6% | (2) |
| BMO US Equity | ZUE | 11.2% | 11.8% | -0.7% | |
| BMO Dow Jones Industrial Average | ZDJ | 11.9% | 12.8% | -0.9% | |
| Horizons S&P 500 Index | HXS | 6.7% | 6.5% | 0.2% | (3) |
| US equity (non-hedged) | |||||
| Claymore US Fundamental | CLU.C | 11.8% | 14.1% | -2.3% | |
| TD US Index – e | TDB902 | 8.4% | 9.2% | -0.8% | |
| RBC US Index | RBF557 | 8.0% | 9.2% | -1.2% | |
| Altamira US Index | NBC846 | 7.5% | 8.3% | -0.7% | |
| International equity (hedged) | |||||
| iShares MSCI EAFE | XIN | 4.6% | 4.6% | 0.0% | (4) |
| TD Int’l Index Currency Neutral – e | TDB905 | 4.0% | 4.8% | -0.8% | |
| RBC Int’l Index Currency Neutral | RBF559 | 3.3% | 4.8% | -1.5% | |
| BMO International Equity | ZDM | 1.1% | 5.7% | -4.6% | (5) |
| Claymore Japan Fundamental | CJP | -1.9% | 0.4% | -2.3% | (6) |
| International equity (non-hedged) | |||||
| Claymore International Fundamental | CIE | -0.2% | 1.9% | -2.1% | (2) |
| TD International Index – e | TDB911 | 1.7% | 2.1% | -0.4% | |
| Altamira International Index | NBC839 | 0.9% | 2.3% | -1.4% | |
| Emerging markets equity | |||||
| iShares MSCI Emerging Markets | XEM | 10.0% | 12.7% | -2.7% | |
| BMO Emerging Markets Equity | ZEM | 11.9% | 15.3% | -3.4% | (5) |
| Claymore Broad Emerging Markets | CWO | 16.2% | 19.2% | -3.1% | (7) |
| Claymore BRIC | CBQ | 8.8% | 11.6% | -2.9% | |
| Miscellaneous | |||||
| Claymore Global Advantaged Dividend | CYH | 11.1% | 13.9% | -2.8% | |
| Claymore Global Real Estate | CGR | 13.1% | 14.9% | -1.7% | |
| iShares MSCI World | XWD | 5.7% | 5.9% | -0.2% | |
Notes:
1. The first four funds in this list all track the S&P 500 with currency hedging. However, you’ll notice that the iShares S&P 500 Index Fund (XSP) and TD’s U.S. Index Currency Neutral Fund report the index return as 13.5%, while the RBC and Altamira funds measure their performance against an index return of 15.1%. Why the difference?
The S&P 500 returned earned 15.1% in US dollars last year, and the latter two funds use this benchmark. However, XSP and the TD fund track the S&P 500 Hedged to Canadian Dollars Index, which factors in the currency hedging, reset once a month. That makes it a more realistic benchmark for the fund managers.
However, as S&P explains: “It is important to remember that since only beginning-of-period balances are hedged, the index does not assume a perfect hedging of currency movements.” That means Canadian investors should not expect the same returns from the S&P 500 that US investors enjoy. Indeed, here’s how XSP performed compared with the S&P 500 in US dollars over the last six years:
| S&P 500 | XSP | ||
| in USD | in CAD | Difference | |
| 2010 | 15.1% | 13.5% | -1.6% |
| 2009 | 26.5% | 23.0% | -3.5% |
| 2008 | -37.0% | -40.3% | -3.3% |
| 2007 | 5.5% | 3.2% | -2.3% |
| 2006 | 15.8% | 14.3% | -1.5% |
| 2005 | 4.9% | 3.5% | -1.4% |
2. Claymore’s US Fundamental ETF (CLU) and International Fundamental ETF (CIE) had enormous tracking errors in 2009. Both improved greatly in 2010, but they still lagged their indexes significantly. Until recently the two funds held only a sampling of the stocks in their indexes. However, in 2010, both funds filled in those gaps, increasing their holdings from fewer than 400 stocks to about 1,000. Going forward, the tracking errors on these funds should be much smaller.
3. The Horizons S&P 500 Index ETF (HXS) was launched in late November 2010, so this tracking error covers only a few weeks. However, the structure of HXS, which uses a swap to deliver the total return of the S&P 500, hedged to Canadian dollars and with no withholding taxes, should guarantee that the tracking error will not exceed 0.5%. That takes into account its 0.17% MER and the additional cost of the swap.
4. The iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund (XIN) tracks an index that has the currency hedging strategy built in, following the same principal as XSP (see note 1). The competing international index funds from TD and RBC track the MSCI EAFE index with returns measured in their local currencies. Here XIN’s benchmark really does make more sense, since the EAFE index includes many different currencies, so no investor could possibly achieve local returns in all of them.
5. BMO’s two international equity funds (ZDM for developed markets, and ZEM for emerging markets) both used representative sampling in 2010. The managers were not very successful in this respect, and the tracking errors were large. However, this will probably improve as the fund grows in size.
6. Claymore’s Japan Fundamental ETF (CJP) returned –1.88% in terms of net asset value, but if you held this fund in your portfolio, its market price went down an alarming –5.49%. It’s unusual for these two returns to differ so widely. What happened here was that the Claymore International Fundamental ETF (CIE) used to hold CJP for its exposure to Japanese stocks. But in April 2010, CIE sold off this holding—which was over $15 million—and started buying up the individual stocks (see note 2). The market impact of this move helped drive down the price of CJP.
In addition, later in the year CJP itself increased its holdings by about 100 stocks in order to replicate its index more closely. It seems reasonable to expect the funds tracking error to improve in the future.
7. Claymore’s CWO had the highest returns of the emerging markets ETFs in 2010. However, the outperformance was due to the ETF’s unusual strategy of hedging against the US dollar in order to match the returns of Vanguard’s Emerging Markets ETF (VWO). In this respect, it underperformed by more than 3%.