2 ETFs for investing in Australian shares: A200 & VAP

What are top Australian shares ETFs for 2021? We think the Vanguard Australian Property Securities Index ETF (ASX: VAP) and Betashares Australia 200 ETF (ASX: A200) ASX ETFs could be worthy of closer inspection. Here’s why…

Popping the hood on these 2 ETFs

The Vanguard VAP ETF provides investors with low-cost exposure to listed Australian property companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs).

The Betashares A200 ETF provides exposure to the largest 200 Australian companies, based on market capitalisation. Unlike many other Australian shares ETFs, A200 uses the Solactive Australia 200 Index. This is virtually the same thing as the indices provided by S&P/ASX, as it also uses a market capitalisation weighting.

Keep learning about the A200 ETF on our free report page. See the ASX A200 review.

a gif of 4 etf reports

In addition to using our years of experience analysing ETFs, there are simple tricks any investor can use to compare similar ETFs.

The first is fees. Our team uses quant methods to score ETFs based on its fees and costs, then we slice and dice across sectors, strategy types and providers.

We’ll keep it easy and just study the fees. Based on our data for July 2021, the VAP ETF has a management expense ratio (MER) of 0.23% while the A200 ETF’s yearly fee was 0.07%. Therefore, A200 wins on this one. That said, a more useful metric to know is the fee quartiles that these ETFs find themselves in (note: quartile 1 is best). For example, any ETF which has a fee below 0.3% would be considered in our first (best) quartile.

How do they perform?

Performance matters. Keep in mind, performance isn’t everything — and past performance is not indicative of future performance. It’s just one part of a much bigger picture. The reason we say performance is not everything is because of volatility of financial markets and the economy from one year to the next. Some ETFs and funds can put in a solid return one year just to generate lacking returns the next time around. That’s why we prefer three-year or seven-year track records over one-year track records. It can smooth out the temporary performances caused by external factors. Both ETFs have achieved our three-year performance hurdle. As of July 2021, the VAP ETF had an average annual return of 10.59%. During the same time, the A200 ETF returned 13.40%.

Too long, didn’t read (TL;DR)

Did you know we have free reports? View our ASX VAP review and ASX A200 review today.

For us, the VAP ETF ranks positively for our internal scoring methodology but not by much.

We hope this article helped you analyse ETFs. Don’t forget, there’s a lot more to investing well than what we just outlined (risks, diversification, other potentially better ETFs, etc.). Our analyst team at Rask Australia spends months looking at new ASX investments (it’s our day job!). To make your life easier, you can get the name of our team’s top ETF pick for 2021 in a free report. Keep reading to find out how to get our analyst’s report emailed to you right now…

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