"Nigeria\u2019s S&P index exit leaves investors nursing losses"

" Nigeria\u2019s S&P index exit leaves investors nursing losses \r\nInvestors in a derivative-linked \u201csynthetic\u201d exchange-traded fund have been left out of pocket after Nigeria was axed from its underlying index, according to a report by the Financial Times.\r\n\r\nThe losses may expose a hitherto unidentified weakness of the synthetic ETF structure, which relies on having a swap contract in place with a counterparty to replicate the performance of the underlying assets rather than actually owning the assets themselves, as a physically replicated ETF does.\r\n\r\nNigerian stocks accounted for 4.8 per cent of the \u00a368mn Xtrackers S&P Select Frontier Swap Ucits ETF (DX2Z) until October 31.\r\n\r\nHowever, on November 1, S&P Dow Jones Indices stripped Nigeria from the S&P Select Frontier index that the ETF tracks at a \u201czero price.\u201d As a result, this portion of the fund\u2019s portfolio has been written down to zero.\r\n\r\nIn contrast, a physical index-tracking ETF or mutual fund would\u2014in theory at least\u2014have been able to sell the Nigerian holdings and plough the proceeds back into the fund.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis can be seen as a structural disadvantage of swap-based exposures, as physical managers have more flexibility to trade around such events,\u201d said Kenneth Lamont, senior fund analyst for passive strategies at Morningstar.\r\n\r\nS&P Dow Jones removed Nigeria from the Select Frontier index due to \u201csignificant delays in capital repatriation\u201d for those selling Lagos-listed stocks.\r\n\r\nNigeria has long suffered from a scarcity of foreign exchange, with even importers of many goods barred from accessing dollars at the official exchange rate until Bola Tinubu, the current president, took over in May.\r\n\r\nThe central bank has since adopted a \u201cwilling-buyer and willing-seller\u201d model, with the Nigerian naira allowed to float more freely and the exchange rate determined by market forces.\r\n\r\nCharlie Robertson, head of macro strategy at FIM Partners, an asset manager specialising in emerging and frontier markets, said that under the old regime investors had faced barriers in repatriating money.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou could put money in easily enough, but you couldn\u2019t get it out. You might have to wait three months or longer,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nHowever, Robertson said \u201cIt looks like the FX market has now gained liquidity\u201d, with some foreign investors now putting money into Nigeria as the exchange rate has become more realistic.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat tends to suggest the blockages that made it hard to get the money out are easing,\u201d he added.\r\n\r\nGiven that liquidity in the Nigerian stock market itself has always been adequate, that suggests investors in a physically replicated ETF would not have seen their Nigerian holdings marked down to zero, even if there had been a delay in receiving the proceeds from their sale.\r\n\r\nA number of physical ETFs, such as the iShares Frontier and Select EM ETF (FM) and VanEck Africa Index ETF (AFK), happily hold fully valued Nigerian stocks in their portfolios.\r\n\r\nHowever, Lamont said that \u201cin many cases, the outcome for investors would be similar\u201d between synthetic and physical funds. He cited the example of Russian stocks being removed from emerging market benchmarks in 2022 when the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are many [physical] funds out there that still technically hold Russian equities but are unable to sell them,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nMichael Mohr, global head of Xtracker products, struck a similar note.\r\n\r\nMohr said he had seen structural market risks, as in Nigeria\u2019s case, or geopolitical risks, as with Russia, blow a hole in synthetic ETFs twice in his 25-year career, with both occurring in the past two years.\r\n\r\nPhysical ETFs do not necessarily fare better in these episodes, though, he argued.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat you have in that direct replication scenario is hope. Hope that one day tradable prices are coming back,\u201d and investors can recover at least some value from the affected securities.\r\n\r\nSynthetic ETFs account for \u20ac26bn of the \u20ac147bn ETF book of Xtrackers, the ETF arm of DWS, Germany\u2019s largest asset manager, which is majority-owned by Deutsche Bank. In total they account for \u20ac169bn, or 11 per cent, of Europe\u2019s \u20ac1.5tn ETF market, according to Morningstar Direct, down from a peak of 17.6 per cent in 2017.\r\n\r\nMohr argued that swap-based products can offer advantages, particularly in emerging markets where a fund manager would otherwise have to open securities accounts in every country in which it invests and will often face restrictions around limits on foreign ownership, a problem that can be offloaded to the swap counterparty instead.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have to balance risks against benefits,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have much better tracking [with a synthetic ETF] because you don\u2019t have the tracking risk in your fund, it\u2019s with the counterparty. You often see outperformance,\u201d Mohr added, referring to an anomaly in the Chinese market that often allows synthetic ETFs to beat their benchmarks.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have to weigh against this the risk that in these very extreme market scenarios, you may not have hope,\u201d he added.\r\n\r\nManooj Mistry, chief operating officer at white-label ETF provider HANetf, also believed there were pros and cons to an ETF\u2019s underlying structure.\r\n\r\nMistry launched Xtrackers during his time as co-head of index investing at DWS, including rolling out the S&P Select Frontier Swap Ucits ETF in 2008 as the first such vehicle in the world.\r\n\r\nWith a synthetic approach \u201cthe tracking risk is borne by the counterpart and the fund gets perfect replication. That\u2019s maybe an advantage when it comes to tracking profiles. Maybe when it comes to something like this it\u2019s a disadvantage,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nMore broadly, though, Mistry said that in frontier markets \u201cthere are always these risks anyway. I\u2019m sure most investors are aware of this risk when they go in,\u201d given that it will be outlined in the ETF\u2019s prospectus."

"Nigeria\u2019s S&P index exit leaves investors nursing losses"

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