Rolle im Portfolio
This fund is best suited as a core building block for a portfolio, providing broad exposure to many of the largest companies in the world’s biggest economy. With 500 large cap constituents, the S&P 500 Index covers three-quarters of the U.S. equity market and is well diversified by sector and security. Increasingly, the underlying companies themselves are becoming geographically diversified, getting more and more of their revenue from outside the United States.
U.S. equities comprise a large portion of many global equity indices, making up almost 55% of the MSCI World Index. So combining this fund with a global product might result in an overweight to U.S. equities. It would therefore work better in conjunction with a Europe, Australia and Far East (EAFE) or World ex-U.S. exposure.
The fund does not distribute any of the dividends therefore this product may not suit an investor looking for regular investment income.
Fundamentale Analyse
Over six years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the U.S. economy has taken the lead of countries on the path to economic recovery. With the main US equity benchmarks reaching their all-time highs in late 2014, the financial market nosedive in 2008 and the subsequent Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which bailed out AIG, Bank of America and Citigroup and rescued the automotive industry giants, seem like a distant memory.
Economic growth has had a 3% average annualised pace over the last 30 years but is expected to remain lower in 2015. The US is in the midst of its longest— and slowest— economic expansionary period since World War II. But the expansion doesn’t show signs of stopping in the short-term, with unemployment staying comfortably under the Federal Open Market Committee’s 6.5% target, and inflation remaining below the Fed’s 2% target.
The housing market continued its upward climb with improved home sales throughout 2014, all the while home prices have continued to rise year-on-year. The S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index 20-city composite rose 4.6% in the 12 months through the end of December 2014.
Improved economic conditions led the Federal Reserve to announce it will likely raise interest rates later in 2015. Janet Yellen, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, indicated interest rates would only be increased in small increments, not necessarily on any type of fixed schedule, and all changes would be data-driven, not automatic.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is in the early stages of a potentially game-changing energy revolution. The U.S. has become the world’s biggest gas producer, and the economy stands to benefit from a competitive advantage that follows the development of hydraulic fracturing technology, also known as fracking.
Indexkonstruktion
The S&P 500 Index is a free float capitalisation-weighted portfolio of 500 large, United States domiciled stocks. To join the index, constituents must meet minimum liquidity requirements, have a public float greater than 50% of the value of their stock and have market capitalisations above $4 billion. A committee maintains the index and meets regularly to review its underlying components, making changes on an as-needed basis. If a constituent falls out of line with any of the index’s entrance criteria, the committee can use its discretion to keep it in the index if the change is deemed temporary. New entrants to the index are also meant to contribute to its overall sector balance, as measured using the Global Industry Classification Standards (GICS®). The most significant sector exposures are information technology (18-21%), financials (15-17%) and health care (13-15%). Portfolio concentration is limited, with the top ten stocks in the index making up just 17-19% of its total. Top constituents are Apple, Exxon Mobil and Microsoft, with a 2-4% weight each. The median market capitalisation of constituents is about $19 billion.
Fondskonstruktion
The fund uses full physical replication to try to capture the performance of its benchmark, owning—to the extent possible and efficient—shares in all of the underlying constituents in the same weights as those of the index. The fund uses futures for cash equitisation purposes, which helps to limit tracking error. The fund engages in securities lending to enhance returns but at the time of writing iShares did not provide any details related to lending activity. The amount of securities that can be lent is capped to 50% per fund. BlackRock, iShares’ parent company and lending agent, passes 62.5% of the gross securities lending revenue to the fund and keeps the remaining 37.5% for itself, out of which amount it will pay the associated costs of the activity. Lending operations are hedged by taking UCITS-approved collateral greater than the loan value and by revaluing loans and collateral on a daily basis. The collateral is held in a ring-fenced account by a third party custodian. The degree of overcollateralisation is a function of the assets provided as collateral, but typically ranges from 102.5% to 112%.
Gebühren
The fund’s total expense ratio is 0.07%. Other costs potentially carried by the unitholder but not included in the total expense ratio include transaction costs on the infrequent occasions when the underlying holdings change, and bid-ask spreads and brokerage fees when buy and sell orders are placed for ETF shares.
Alternativen
Many providers offer ETFs tracking the S&P 500 Index, including ComStage, db x-trackers, HSBC, Lyxor, Source, Amundi, SPDR, Vanguard and UBS. The products with the lowest fees are the Source and UBS (SF) funds, with a TER of 0.05%.
Beyond the S&P 500, there are a number of index alternatives for the U.S. equity market, including the MSCI USA index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is price weighted and more concentrated in its holdings, and the technology-heavy NASDAQ.
For alternatives to market capitalisation-weighted exposure to U.S. equities, there are also Ossiam ETF US Minimum Variance NR, db x-trackers S&P 500 Equal Weight and PowerShares Dynamic US Market Fund.
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