It is ten years to the day since the first exchange-traded fund, XACT OMXS30(TM), was listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. Since then, the turnover in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has increased a hundredfold. ETFs have gone from being a cost-effective tool for a few professional investors to good value-for-money favourites for a growing number of private investors.
"I think we're just at the beginning. With a growing supply of ETFs with differing investment profiles, creating greater opportunities, I believe that more and more investors will choose ETFs as part of their investment strategy." So said Henrik Norén, managing director of XACT Fonder AB when the company's first ETF, XACT OMXS30(TM), celebrated 10 years on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm (the Stockholm stock exchange).
"The growing interest in ETFs is reflected, among other things, in the inflow we have seen to XACT OMXS30(TM) over the past three years," continues Henrik Norén. "Assets under management have increased by just over 100 percent, despite a slight downturn in stock market performance."
Since the launch, trading in ETFs has rocketed, from a turnover of just under SEK 1.8 billion in 2001 to just over SEK 210 billion last year.
"An exchange-traded fund is a simple, cheap way of tracking the performance of a given market, such as the stock market, which has helped ETFs to become more popular with small private savers, too," says Jenny Rosberg, SVP of NASDAQ OMX Nordic.
Since the launch, the Swedish stock market and XACT OMXS30(TM), which tracks the performance of the 30 most traded shares on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, have had a dramatic journey. It began during the long market downturn in the wake of the IT bubble and has included terrorist attacks and the financial crisis of 2008 - a bumpy ride, but after ten years, the fund is up by 25 percent. The change in the index is a historical reflection of the performance of the 30 largest Swedish companies during that period. At the fund's launch in October 2000, the Ericsson share had the largest weight in the index, with almost one-third, followed by AstraZeneca and Nordea. Today, H&M is the largest, followed by Nordea and TeliaSonera.
For further information, please contact:
Henrik Norén, managing director, XACT Fonder. Tel +46 8 701 1222
XACT is the Nordic region's largest issuer of ETFs and currently manages assets of just over SEK 19 billion spread over 21 ETFs. XACT Fonder was formed in 2000 by the then OM Gruppen AB (now NASDAQ OMX AB), the same year as the first ETF was launched in Europe. In 2004, the company was acquired by Handelsbanken, and since then it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Handelsbanken. XACT became the first player in the world to offer leveraged ETFs, when XACT Bull and XACT Bear were launched in 2005. The average daily turnover for XACT's ETFs is around SEK 1.2 billion.
Past returns are no guarantee of future returns. Investments made in the funds can rise or fall in value, and it is not certain that you will get back all the amount you have
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Source: XACT Fonder AB via Thomson Reuters ONE
