Global markets recorded positive gains in the 2018 Financial Year, continuing their march forward in what is becoming one of the longest bull markets in history. This all occurred in the wake of rising global interest rates, US trade pressures with China and the unravelling of Bitcoin mania. The Australian market ended the financial year up a respectable 12.5% including dividends, with global markets up around 15%. The period was free of any major volatilty, with no large drops recorded. As we wrote in our end of 2017 wrap up, volatility continues to be amazingly low in global markets.

Below we have listed the performance of all of the ETFs and LICs that we follow at ETF Watch. Only funds which were available on 1 uly 2017 have been included, which means the 34 ETFs and LICs launched in the last 12 months are not included.

After a long period of being on the nose, resources rose to the top this year, with the top performing fund being Betashares Crude Oil Index ETF (OOO), an ETF which tracks oil markets. The SPDR S&P/ASX 200 Resources Fund (OZR), BetaShares S&P/ASX 200 Resources Sector ETF (QRE) and VanEck Vectors Australian Resources ETF (MVR) came in at 3, 4 & 7 respectrively.

It was another good year for tech stocks with both Betashares NASDAQ 100 (NDQ) and new entrant ETFS Morningstar Global Technology ETF (TECH) landing in the top 10.

On the LIC front, little know LIC NGE Capital (NGE) was the top performing fund, as it began to reign in its large discount to Net Asset Value (NAV) on the back of a successful bet on vacuum cleaner retailer Godfreys, who recently got bought out by their 99 year old founder John Hardy. Next up, landing 5th in performance overall was Contrarian Value Fund (CVF), a fund until recently known as Arowana Australasian Value Opportunities Fund. Global focused MFF Capital Investments (MFF) and small cap focused Acorn Capital Investment Fund (ACQ) round out the top 10.

At the rear of the field predicably are the inverse index funds (which bet on markets falling) and some poor performing LICs, including scandal ridden Blue Sky Alternative Access Fund (BAF), who were accused by US Hedge fund of falsifying their underlying asset values, and Aurora Global Income Trust (AIB) who have had an ex staff member steal from the trust. Last year’s performance winner Henry Morgan Limited (HML) remains suspended, over a year later, as the ASX continues to investigate their myriad of related party interests, a sure sign that elusive free lunch does not exist when it comes to investing.

83% of funds recorded positive performance in the period, up from 76% in the same period last year. Full performance figures can be found in the table below.

* Income yield has been calculated based on income divided by closing price on 29 June 2018. Total performance has been calculated by simply adding the performance and the yield (ignoring the timing of dividend payments). Whilst the franked component of income payments has been calculated, the income payment has not been grossed up by the franking credits. All performance is based on closing share prices rather than underlying Net Tangible Assets. As usual, past performance should not be used as an indication of possible future returns, and we recommend this data not be used to support investment decisions.