Best Specialty ETFs

GOLD WINNER VANGUARD

The low-fee path into listed property promises higher returns for investors

The Vanguard Australian Property Securities ETF has won this category for the sixth consecutive year, even though A-REITs came under pressure in the past year.

The Vanguard fund gives investors a diversified range of 33 A-REITs spanning the retail, office and industrial sectors and including Scentre Group, Westfield, Goodman, Stockland and Vicinity around Australia and overseas. It tracks the S&P/ ASX 300 A-REIT Index and it had a yield of 3.83% for the year to the end of September 2017.

Vanguard reduced its investment management fee to a low 0.23%pa, or one-fifth of the cost for the average A-REIT actively managed fund of 1.25%. This lower fee means bigger returns for investors.

After some spectacular double-digit returns over the past five years, the A-REIT sector is now faced with rising interest rates in the US and jitters about the arrival of Amazon in Australia and how it will affect the likes of Westfield and Vicinity.

Second placegetter SPDR S&P/ASX 200 Listed Property tracks the S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT

Index. In third place, Magellan Infrastructure (Currency

Hedged) invests in global infrastructure such as toll roads, airports and energy infrastructure and performed better than the property trusts over the past 12 months.