EasyCompare Glossary

Helping you understand all the ETF lingo

1M RTN

1M RTN stands for one-month return, which is how much money you made or lost from an investment in one month. It helps investors compare the performance of different investments that they have owned for one month.

It is calculated by dividing the change in the value of your investment by the initial value and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.

Absolute Return

Absolute return is how much money you made or lost from an investment, without comparing it to anything else.

It helps you see how well your investment did on its own, regardless of the market or other factors.

It is calculated by dividing the change in the value of your investment by the original value and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.

Actively Managed

The amount by which an investment beats or outperforms an index or benchmark, typically applied to managed funds or other ‘active’ investments.

Alpha

The amount by which an investment beats or outperforms an index or benchmark, typically applied to managed funds or other ‘active’ investments.

Annual Management Fee

A management fee is a charge levied by an investment manager for managing an investment fund.

Source: Investopedia

Ask price

The lowest price a seller is willing to accept to sell a security.

Asset Allocation

Asset allocation is one of the single most important ways of managing the risk and reward of your overall investment. By spreading your portfolio across different assets, say stocks, bonds, property and cash, you can achieve different levels of risk and potential return. How you asset allocation will depend on what you want – seeking high short-term gains will mean you will need to take more risk than if seeking steady returns over a long time.

Asset Class

are subject to the same laws and regulations. Asset classes are made up of instruments that often behave similarly to one another in the marketplace.

Source: Investopedia

Available in TFSA

This indicates whether a fund is available in your Tax-Free Savings Account.

Beta

This is the return of an investment relative to a market index. An investment with a beta of 1 moves up and down the same amount as the market. Most ETFs are ‘beta’ funds, designed to track the return of an index.

Bid Price

The highest price a buyer is willing to accept to purchase a security.

Bid-Ask Spread

The difference or spread between the bid and ask prices.

Classification

The classification of stocks is primarily based on ownership rules, market capitalization, dividend payments, fundamentals, risk, and price trends.

Collective Investment Schemes

The definition of a collective investment scheme is a 'scheme, in whatever form, including an open-ended investment company where members of the public are invited to invest money or other assets in a portfolio, and in terms of which two or more investors contribute money and hold a participatory interest in a portfolio of the scheme through shares, units or any other form of participatory interest. The investors share the risk and the benefit of investment in proportion to their participatory interest in a portfolio of a scheme or on any other basis determined in the deed'.

Source: PSG

Daily Change

This is the difference, in Rands and percentages, between a stock's current price and its price as of market close on the prior trading da

Source: Morningstar

Daily Risk

Risk often refers to the chance an outcome or investment's actual gains will differ from an expected outcome or return. Risk includes the possibility of losing some or all of an original investment.

Source: Investopedia

Diversification

Diversification, while similar in concept to asset allocation, goes further in balancing risk and return. Asset allocation gives you some basic diversification by determining how much of your portfolio to invest in stocks, bonds, property etc. Deciding which specific stocks and bonds to invest in and by how much gives you further diversification.

The net result is if one of your investments isn’t tracking well, having a diversified portfolio potentially means the gains from your other investments may offset this. Diversification can be a way to seek to build an efficient investment portfolio that meets both your appetite for risk and return.

Dividend Frequency

Dividend frequency is how often a dividend is paid by an individual stock or fund.

Source: Investopedia

Dividends

A dividend is the distribution of reward from a portion of the company's earnings and is paid to a class of its shareholders.

Source: Investopedia

Dividends

“Pays Dividends” indicates that dividends get paid out into the client's account.

Domestic

investment in the companies and products of someone's own country rather than in those of foreign countries.

Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Exchange Traded Note (ETN)

A type of unsecured, unsubordinated debt security that was first issued by Barclays Bank PLC. This type of debt security differs from other types of bonds and notes because ETN returns are based upon the performance of a market index minus applicable fees, no period coupon payments are distributed and no principal protections exist.

Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)

A basket of stocks that tracks an underlying index, commodity or currency. ETFs are traded like stocks: daily, and on an exchange.

Foreign

investment in shares and other assets of another country.

Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Fund Expense Ratio

The expense ratio (ER) measures how much of a fund's assets are used for administrative and other operating expenses.

Source: Investopedia

Fund Size

A fund size refers to the value of the assets in the fund plus the amount of un-invested capital.

Fund Strategy

The particular strategy that the fund is following.

Fund Type

An investment fund is a supply of capital belonging to numerous investors used to collectively purchase securities while each investor retains ownership and control of his own shares. An investment fund provides a broader selection of investment opportunities, greater management expertise, and lower investment fees than investors might be able to obtain on their own. Types of investment funds include mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, money market funds, and hedge funds.

Source: Investopedia

Geo Focus

The specified geographical area on which a fund focuses.

Inception Date

The date on which the fund began its operations.

Source: Morningstar

Index

An index is a basket of securities representing a whole market or a submarket. It tracks the performance of this market and serves as a benchmark for investors or fund managers. Some common indexes include S&P500 index, the Straits Times index in Singapore or the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong.

Index Tracked

An index is like a ruler. It is a way of measuring the performance, or price movement, of just about anything. In the financial world, indexes are created to track items such as publicly traded stocks, bonds, and consumer prices for common goods and services.

Source: thebalance

Index Weighting

A market index is a hypothetical portfolio of investment holdings that represents a segment of the financial market. The calculation of the index value comes from the prices of the underlying holdings. Weighting is a method of adjusting the individual impact of items in an index.

Source: Investopedia

Institution

An established organisation or corporation. In this case, the company or provider that runs the fund.

Source: Merriam-webster

JSE Code

This is the unique code associated with the fund on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Also called a stock symbol or ticker.

Last Payable Amount

This is the last amount the dividend paid out, this occurred on the last payable date.

Last Payable Date

The payable date refers to the date that any declared stock dividends are due to be paid out. The last payable date refers to the previous date the fund paid out dividends.

LDT

Last Day to Trade for the ETF to be eligible for the Distribution

Liquidity

Liquidity is simply how quickly an asset can be converted into cash. Basically, it is how the asset or security can be bought or sold without affecting the asset’s price. Knowing how ‘liquid’ the asset is will help you choose where to invest. The higher the liquidity, the easier and more cost effective it will be to trade. If it has low liquidity, this could indicate higher trading costs and potential difficultly in buying or selling.

Managed Fund

A managed fund is where your money is pooled with other investors and managed by a third-party investment manager who buys and sells stocks and assets on your behalf. Also known as mutual funds in other parts of the world, they are actively managed by the investment manager who is tasked to deliver returns that beat the index.

Maximum Drawdown

A maximum drawdown (MDD) is the maximum observed loss from a peak to a trough of a portfolio before a new peak is attained. Maximum drawdown is an indicator of downside risk over a specified period.

Source: Investopedia

Monthly Risk

Risk often refers to the chance an outcome or investment's actual gains will differ from an expected outcome or return. Risk includes the possibility of losing some or all of an original investment.

Source: Investopedia

Next Payable Amount

This is the next dividend amount the fund will be paying out.

Next Payable Date

This is the next date the fund will pay a dividend.

Performance Fee

A performance fee is a payment made to an investment manager for generating positive returns.

Source: Investopedia

Physical ETF

A physical ETF tracks the target index by holding all or substantially all of the underlying assets of the index. For example, a STI ETF will give you access to either all of the stocks traded on the STI, or at least a core basket of those stocks. Physical ETFs are more commonly available, and are usually lower risk compared to, for example, synthetic ETFs.

Reinvests Dividends

These ETFs accumulate dividends, which are automatically re-invested back into the ETF. These ETFs do not pay out any distributions.

Risk Profile

A risk profile is an evaluation of an individual's willingness and ability to take risks.

Source: Investopedia

Sharpe

The Sharpe ratio is used to help investors understand the return of an investment compared to its risk. The ratio is the average return earned in excess of the risk-free rate per unit of volatility or total risk.

Source: Investopedia

Sortino

The Sortino ratio takes an asset or portfolio's return and subtracts the risk-free rate, and then divides that amount by the asset's downside deviation; this is done to evaluate an investment's return for a given level of bad risk.

Source: Investopedia

Standard Deviation

Standard deviation is a statistical measurement in finance that, when applied to the annual rate of return of an investment, sheds light on the historical volatility of that investment.

Source: Investopedia

Synthetic ETF

A synthetic ETF does not invest in assets directly. For example, instead of owning barrels of crude oil, a synthetic ETF tracking oil will hold a series of oil futures contracts. These agreements are set up with a third party, often an investment bank, who promises to pay back an agreed level of return when oil reaches a certain price. Because synthetic ETFs use derivative products they can come with greater risk. But you get access to assets normally out of reach, while also getting liquidity through the ability to trade at any time during the ETFs trading day.

TER

The total expense ratio (TER) is a measure of the total costs associated with managing and operating an investment fund. These costs consist primarily of management fees and additional expenses, such as trading fees, legal fees, auditor fees, and other operational expenses.

Source: Investopedia

TFSA

A tax-free savings account (TFSA) is an account in which contributions, interest earned, dividends, and capital gains are not taxed, and can be withdrawn tax-free.

Source: Investopedia

Timeline

a line that shows the time and the order in which events have happened

Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Transaction Cost

Transaction costs are expenses incurred when buying or selling a good or service.

Source: Investopedia

YTD

Year-to-date (YTD) refers to the period beginning the first day of the current calendar year or fiscal year up to the current date. YTD information is useful for analysing business trends over time or comparing performance data to competitors or peers in the same industry.

Source: Investopedia