Remplacer OPCVM par ETF : mode d'emploi

[Ultra]

Même si les ETF ne sont pas magiques, leurs performances sont en général meilleures que celles des OPCVM activement gérés. Quelle est la marche à suivre pour remplacer les Sicav et FCP de votre portefeuille titres par des ETF ?

Un article du Wall Street Journal de ce jour nous donne des éléments de réponse :

Many financial advisers and do-it-yourself investors feel like they have taken a double whammy: Not only have they been hit by the sliding market, but the stock pickers who run many of their mutual funds woefully underperformed the broader market.

Actively managed mutual funds have provided little shelter from the bear market that began in October 2007.
The Journal Report

* See the complete Investing in Funds: A Quarterly Analysis report.

Stock pickers in seven of nine U.S.-stock categories have trailed the corresponding Standard & Poor's indexes, investment researcher Morningstar Inc. found in a recent analysis of results through the end of January.

For those small investors who are vowing to give up trying to beat the market, that can mean turning to exchange-traded funds, investment vehicles that track designated benchmark indexes at some of the lowest investing costs around.

Yet switching to ETFs is easier said than done. About 700 U.S.- and international-stock ETFs jumble various sectors, strategies and styles. Even within a specific group -- large-company "growth" stocks, say -- ETFs aren't created equal. Complicating matters are "fundamental" ETFs, which blend elements of active management with conventional indexing methods.
[MarketWatch]

How do you go about making a change?

One useful tool is available at Morningstar's Web site, Morningstar.com. Enter your existing funds' names or tickers, then click on the "Risk Measures" tab. The "Best Fit Index" is a handy yardstick to measure a comparable ETF.

For instance, Dodge & Cox Stock Fund is a popular offering that lost 45.2% in the 12 months through March 31. According to the Morningstar site, the large-cap fund's characteristics closely match the Russell 1000 Index. In that case, a representative ETF would be iShares Russell 1000 Index Fund, which was down 38.2% over the same period.

Another fallen star is Legg Mason Value Trust ( LMVTX), run by veteran manager Bill Miller. The fund, down 50.5% over the 12 months through March 31, mirrors the big-company Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Candidates for Mr. Miller's fund or another diversified U.S. large-cap portfolio include SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), iShares Dow Jones U.S. Index Fund (IYY), and the broad-market iShares Russell 3000 Index Fund (IWV).

Similarly, an exit strategy from Putnam Vista A ( PVISX) would point to iShares Russell Midcap Growth Index Fund (IWP), which culls from the Russell Midcap Index, while refugees from Dreyfus Small Cap Value A ( DSVAX) could find shelter in iShares Russell 2000 Value Index Fund (IWN). (Value stocks are sometimes referred to as diamonds in the rough, deemed cheap on the basis of such measures as share price to earnings per share. Growth stocks are those of companies with earnings growing at above-industry-average rates.)

And disgruntled investors in dividend-oriented funds, such as Fidelity Equity-Income ( FEQIX), could look to Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG), iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index Fund (DVY) or PowerShares Dividend Achievers (PFM).
Feeling 'Let Down'

"A lot of investors felt let down last year by active managers," says Paul Justice, an ETF analyst at Morningstar. "Maybe they anticipated they would shield them from losses. Instead we saw they were just as, if not more, subject to market perils as a passive [index] approach."

Among Morningstar's favorite ETFs are three Vanguard offerings that Mr. Justice praises for "rock-bottom" investment-management fees: Vanguard Mega Cap 300 ETF (MGC) for exposure to U.S. multinational giants and S&P 500-like performance; Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO) and Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB).

International markets are often seen as areas where research-driven managers can add value. But according to a Morningstar analysis, the average actively managed international fund lost a bit more than the overseas MSCI EAFE Index in 2008, 45.7% versus 43.4%.

For his model portfolios, investment adviser Tom Lydon, editor of ETFtrends.com, likes iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund (EFA), iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (EEM) and Claymore/BNY Mellon BRIC ETF (EEB), which focuses on Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"Expenses are low, you know what you're buying, and from a diversification standpoint you should benefit over time," Mr. Lydon says.
Newfangled ETFs

Suppose you can't bring yourself to quit active management cold turkey. You might consider ETFs that put a twist on traditional index standards.

Index-tracking funds typically are populated according to market capitalization, or "cap-weighted," so the most highly valued stocks will be the biggest pieces of the pie. Exxon Mobil Corp., Procter & Gamble Co. and AT&T Inc. were recently the top three stocks by market cap in the S&P 500, for example.

The downside of cap-weighted indexes is that they can become overly concentrated at times when momentum rules, which happened to the S&P 500 in the late 1990s technology-stock boom. At the peak, tech stocks represented almost 35% of the benchmark. When the tech bubble burst, so did the S&P 500 and funds tied to it.

"Fundamental" ETFs were created largely in response to that boom-and-bust debacle. Instead of mimicking a cap-weighted index, stocks are ranked on measures such as book value, cash flow, sales and dividends -- qualities that guide bargain-minded value-stock buyers and would seemingly provide downside protection. A good example is PowerShares FTSE RAFI US 1000 Portfolio (PRF), a large-cap ETF whose top three stocks recently were Exxon Mobil, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Jury Still Out

But these newfangled ETFs haven't quite lived up to their billing. The FTSE RAFI US 1000 Portfolio lost an average of about 15.9% a year over the past three years through March 31, while the comparable cap-weighted iShares Russell 1000 Index ETF was down 13.3% a year over the same period.

"The jury is still out on these fundamentally indexed portfolios," says Mark Salzinger, editor of the Investor's ETF Report newsletter. "Their performance has not been that good, and their expenses are higher."

The poor showing has much to do with "value" investing being out of favor for the past couple of years, says Rob Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, which developed fundamental index products for PowerShares.

"Fundamental index portfolios have a value tilt, and that's going to help you when value wins and hurt you when it loses," he says. "Has it lived up to people's expectations? No. A lot of folks heard what they wanted to hear -- long-term value added -- and assumed that meant all of the time. That's just not realistic."
Settling for Average?

Still, both types of ETFs can edge most active managers on longer-term performance. That contradicts a common belief that index-fund investors must settle for average. In truth, most active funds fail to beat their benchmark in a given year, so index funds by nature tend to land in the upper half of their categories over long periods.

For instance, iShares Dow Jones U.S. Index is in the top 42% of its peer group of large-blend funds over the past year, the top 56% over three years and the top 39% over five years, according to Morningstar.

"Indexes aren't average," says financial adviser Harold Evensky of Evensky & Katz in Coral Gables, Fla., who switched to ETFs years ago and nowadays favors iShares Russell 3000 Value and iShares S&P MidCap 400 Value Index Fund (IJJ) as the centerpieces of a diversified portfolio.

"If you've got 100 managers all playing in the same sandbox, the index fund has to be in the top half because it has less expenses," he says. "And since the active managers in the top half don't stay there all the time, the index over time gradually moves up.

"If I can be guaranteed funds that are always in the top half, that's pretty good," he adds, "as opposed to trying to pick one that's going to be on top but may also end up on the bottom."

Since most ETF portfolios are based on published indexes, asset allocation -- which many financial advisers say accounts for most of an investor's return -- isn't such a guessing game. Says Kevin Ellman, head of financial-advisory firm Wealth Preservation Solutions in Ridgewood, N.J., who uses ETFs almost exclusively in client portfolios: "We're more convinced than ever that active management is not worth the expense."
—Mr. Burton is assistant personal- finance editor for Market

[Herve]

En fait, c'est ce que je fais pour remplacer mes fonds ... je recherche l'index qu'il tente de surperformer, puis je recherche un ETF (assez costaud) qui le reproduit. C'est pas toujours évident et je n'arrive pas à trouver l'utilitaire sur morningstar dont il est question dans l'article. Si jamais qqn connait un indice comparable aux investissements réalisés par le fond FORTIS L Fund Equity Finance World, je suis preneur.

D'avance merci pour vos réponses.