Mutual Funds are a great form of investing especially if you are a passive investor. According to data from the Security and Exchange Commission, Nigeria has about 107 Mutual Funds cut across several Fund Types. Here is a breakdown of the Fund Types available for investors according to SEC.

To determine the best performing Funds, we looked at the Fund Prices as of the last business day in December 2019 and compared to the fund prices as of the last trading day of June 2020. These are the top 5. We also included profiles of the funds as described in their websites.

New Gold ETF

Vetiva’s The NewGold Exchange Traded Fund (NewGold) is an Exchange Traded Fund that was listed on The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in December 2011. It tracks the price of gold and offers institutional and retail investors the opportunity to invest in a listed instrument (structured as a debenture) that is fully backed by gold bullion. Each NewGold security is equivalent to approximately 1/100 ounces of real gold bullion held in a secured stockpile of gold bullion. All gold is kept in the form of London Gold Delivery Bars and Good Delivery Standards are prescribed by LBMA.

December 27th

Fund Price – N5,220

June 26th

Fund Price – N8,000

Return –  53.3%

Ranking – First

Commentary: Gold prices have been on the up since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of the global economy. Investors are uncertain and as history shows gold prices are always up during market uncertainty. If you are looking for protective investment in times of uncertainty then this is the best performing fund so far.

FBN Nigeria Smart Beta Equity Fund

FBNH owned The FBN Nigeria Smart Beta Equity Fund is a pure equity fund that invests money predominantly in a portfolio of Nigerian companies, using a rigorous, research-based and tested evaluation system.

The fund provides long-term capital preservation by investing at least 75% of the fund’s assets (excluding cash and cash equivalents) in a diversified portfolio of high-quality companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. In order to manage liquidity, the fund may also invest up to 25% in short-term money market instruments and deposits with financial institutions.

December 27th

Fund Price – N129.17

June 26th

Fund Price – N197.29

Return –  52.7%

Ranking – Second

Commentary: For a fund that is predominantly focused on equities, this a pretty much impressive performance by all standards. For example, the NSE All-Share Index is down 9.8% year to date. If you are worried about investing in stocks and don’t have the heart for it and you are looking for a mutual fund, then this is the best performing fund out there.

Vantage Balanced Fund

Investment One’s Vantage Balance Fund (launched in 2002) is a fund focused on long term capital appreciation, which is achieved by maintaining a flexible diversified portfolio of equities, fixed income, money market, and real estate investments. Assets are high-quality equity instruments quoted on The NSE while the bond issuers have an investment-grade rating from a credit rating agency registered by SEC.

December 27th

Fund Price – N2.21

June 26th

Fund Price – N2.87

Return –  29.9%

Ranking – Third

Commentary: This is a Mixed fund as it invests in a diverse pool of assets. Interesting to note that the managers of this fund also have an Equity-Based Fund, a Dollar Fund, and a Fixed Income Fund. But none of them come close to the Balanced Fund. If you are looking for a portfolio with a good mix of investment assets then this is the best performing as of June 2020.

Legacy USD Bond Fund

FCMB Asset Management Owned Legacy USD Bond Fund (launched in 2018) is a SEC-registered US Dollar-denominated Collective Investment Scheme, structured as a high-yield mutual fund. The Fund seeks to generate stable income over the long-term. Legacy USD Bond Fund invests in credit-rated US Dollar-denominated fixed income securities issued by the Nigerian Government, Supranational bodies, and Corporate entities.

December 27th

Fund Price – N306.5

June 26th

Fund Price – N360.5

Return –  24.4%

Ranking – Fourth

Commentary: The Legacy Bond Fund is the best performing mutual fund if you are looking for dollar-denominated fixed-income debt securities like Eurobonds. At 24.4% they seem to be holding bonds with good yields and market values respectively. Apart from the Bond Fund, managers of the Legacy Bond Fund also manage a Fixed Income Fund, a Money Market Fund and an Equity Fund. If you are looking to invest in Eurobonds then this mutual fund is the best performing.

Vantage Dollar Fund

Investment One’s Vantage Dollar Fund (launched in 2018) is a SEC registered open-ended Unit Trust Scheme in Nigeria. The Fund seeks to provide investors with a bias for Dollar-denominated securities access to such securities, which ordinarily would be inaccessible to them by virtue of the minimum amount typically required to make such investments. It will invest primarily in Corporate and Sovereign Eurobonds.

December 27th

Fund Price – N401.02

June 26th

Fund Price – N469.2

Return –  17.0%

Ranking – Fifth

Commentary: This is the second dollar mutual fund on the list and the second from Investment One to make the list of best 5. It appears they have a hang on fund management. Dollar Mutual funds are a great source of investments and it is great to see another in the top 5. Thus, if you want another option, then this is one you can also go for. 

Bubbling Under: The following funds make up the rest of the top 5 on our list and in descending order.

6. AIICO Balanced Fund
7. VI ETF
8. Coronation Fixed Income Fund
9. CEAT Fixed Income Fund
10. United Capital Euro Bond Fund

Crude oil prices dropped on Monday morning at London’s trading session, as oil traders placed their focus on an OPEC technical meeting scheduled to hold on Wednesday. The meeting is expected to recommend an easing in the curb on oil production that has helped rally crude oil prices in recent months.

Brent Crude lost about 0.62% to trade at $42.94 a barrel, at 6.05 am Nigerian time, also the American benchmark for crude, WTI, lost about 0.72% to trade at $40.26.

Crude oil prices remained relatively unchanged in the previous week as the resurgence of COVID-19 caseloads soared in the world’s largest oil-consuming economy, and the plan to impose travel restrictions in some global economies. These factors could most likely trigger a decline in the demand for oil.

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Quick Fact: Brent crude is the leading global benchmark for Atlantic basin crude oil. The international benchmark is used to set the price of about two-thirds of the world’s traded crude oil including Nigeria’s crude.

The importance of crude can’t be ignored; it is used mainly in fueling aircraft, vehicles, and trucks that facilitate economic lifestyles and activities in the modern world. Derivatives from refined crude are used in the production of polymers, as well as the production of waxes, tars asphalts, and lubricants.

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Stephen Innes, Chief Global Market Strategist at AxiCorp in a note to Nairametrics explained the macros, which oil traders are presently monitoring. He said:

“The recent surge in coronavirus infection numbers in the US and elsewhere have brought demand risk back into focus.

“The planned easing of OPEC+ production cuts next month after a one-month extension of the initial phase of the production cut plan and a potential rebound in US production could add pressure on the supply side of the equation.

“And factor in Libya lifting the force majeure, it adds another unwanted level of supply-side uncertainty at an extremely critical point in the oil price recovery phase.

READ ALSO: Global oil prices drop after reports of unexpected inventory build

“While the evidence suggests we are past the trough for oil and that supply and demand are rebalancing, near-term headwinds remain as the short-term fundamentals are about as muddy as possible.”

However, crude oil prices rallied more than 2% on Friday after an upward forecast by the IEA in its 2020 oil demand by 400,000 barrels per day.

The Nigeria Stock Exchange recently announced that the Index Governance Committee of the Exchange “has reviewed the eligibility criteria for the NSE Pension Index (“The Index”) in line with changes in the regulatory and market requirements”.

According to the chairman of the committee, Mr. Abimbola Abdulazeez Babalola, “The review of the Index was made imperative by the need to ensure that it continues to represent the appropriate benchmark for evaluating the Pension Fund Assets equity portfolios and remain suitable for all market stakeholders. The review further takes into consideration the changes in guidelines as specified in the Pension Reform Act 2014 and Amended Regulation on Investment of Pension Fund Assets as advised by the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) as well as market requirements in the amendments”

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About NSE Pension Index

According to the Nigeria Stock Exchange, “The Nigerian Stock Exchange in order to deepen the market introduced the Pension Index and exposed to the investing public in 2015. The creation of the NSE Pension Index has provided benchmarks tracking mechanisms for Pension Fund Administrators and other Users that follow the PENCOM guidelines. The NSE pension tracks the top 40 companies in terms of market capitalization and liquidity. It is a total return index and is weighted by adjusted market capitalization, a capping factor, and a free-float factor”

Appropriateness of the NSE Pension Index

As noted already and as avowed by the chairman of the Index Governance Committee, “The review of the Index was made imperative by the need to ensure that it continues to represent the appropriate benchmark for evaluating the Pension Fund Assets equity portfolios”, however, the question that comes to mind is to what extent is the NSE Pension Index, as constituted, an appropriate benchmark for evaluating pension fund portfolios? To answer this question, I will be looking at what an appropriate benchmark should be and take a look into the constituents of the NSE Pension Index in comparison to the asset allocation of pension funds in Nigeria.

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What is a good Benchmark?

According to the CFA Institute, for a benchmark to be a valid and effective tool for measuring manager performance it has to be unambiguous, investible, measurable, appropriate, reflective of current opinions, and specified in advance. Without delving into the meaning and implications of all the qualities of a good benchmark noted above, I will be dwelling on the appropriateness of a benchmark. For a benchmark to be appropriate, it has to be in line with and account for the investment style or style characteristics of the fund or manager whose performance is to be evaluated by the benchmark. What that means is that, if a fund or manager invests in small-cap growth stocks, then the benchmark should be made up of small-cap growth funds. A benchmark that does not take into consideration the investment style of the manager or fund, will remain ambiguous when it comes to whether the fund or manager out or underperforms the index or benchmark.

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How to test a Benchmark for appropriateness

The taste of the pudding is in the eating, the saying goes, in the same way, a good benchmark can be tested by performing a correlation analysis of the bench mark’s return versus the return of the fund or manager’s return. The higher the correlation, the better the benchmark.  Analysts at Quantitative Financial Analytics carried out a correlation analysis of Nigerian pension funds and the NSE Pensions Index using beta, as a measure of correlation and the result is startling. The result indicates that there is very low correlation between pension funds and the NSE Pensions Index. The three pension funds with over 10% correlation coefficient happen to be those with the highest exposure to equities in their portfolio asset allocation.

Conclusion

The NSE Pension Index is made up of the top 40 companies and these companies full into the asset class of equities. However, 100% of the pension fund in Nigeria allocate less than 10% of their asset to equities and 90% to treasury bills and other fixed-income securities, therefore, using an index that is 100% equity-based to evaluate funds with less than 10% exposure to equities, is in my opinion inappropriate. It is akin to comparing apples and oranges. The NSE should come up with a customized index or Benchmark that lines up with the asset allocation or investment style of pension fund managers, otherwise, those fund managers will be charging pension funds for outperforming an index (especially during bad times for the stock market).