Market Slice: Mutual Funds in November 2020

Market slice is a monthly summary of mutual funds on Cowrywise and key money news. This jargon-free report is shared on the 3rd of every month. Share lessons on Mutual Funds in November 2020 using the hashtag: #MarketSlice

? Ding!

It’s the final month in this decade of years wrapped into one. Some things have made me happy this month so far, we finally have an approved vaccine for COVID-19 and more people seem to be getting jobs. The good news extends to mutual funds also, the returns have been great! ?

How Mutual Funds Performed in November 2020

This table focuses on medium (balanced) and high-risk (aggressive) funds. The performances of these two funds are usually based on price changes. I’ll use an example to explain this. Assume you own 10 units of a mutual fund. If the selling price of each unit was ₦100 on September 1 and ₦105 on September 30, you have gained 5%. That is because ₦5 is 5% of ₦100, and each unit now costs ₦5 extra. Now to the money moves in November.

Learn More: How mutual funds work?

? The Record-Breaking Stock Market

On the 12th of November, 2020, Bloomberg released an article with the headline: “Nigerian Stocks Surge Most Since 2015, Trigger Circuit Breaker”. What does this mean? There was a shocking amount of trades on the stock exchange that day. So much that the market had to take a break.

There is a daily measure to track the performance of the stock market–the All Share Index. Every day this measure gives a final figure. If trading on the next day boosts or reduces that figure by 5%, between 10:15 AM and 1:45 PM, the market takes a 30-minute break.

For clarity, a 5% spike or decline is agreed to mean an abnormal activity in the market. This break helps adjust the abnormality. On that record-breaking day, there was a 5% spike! A possible explainer is that more people are moving from other investment options to stocks–for better returns.

Quick Takes ?

• One of the best ways to invest in stocks is with equity mutual funds.
• Equity funds are high-risk and can lose money. So, they are better for long-term investments.
• On the 12th of November, 2020, the Nigerian stock market was the best performing globally amongst 93 markets tracked by Bloomberg.
• Equity mutual funds have been in the positive region for 3 months now.

Get ARM Mutual Funds on Cowrywise ✅

In the last week of November, we added 6 new mutual funds from ARM–Nigeria’s largest non-bank financial institution. That brings the number of mutual funds on Cowrywise to 19! This further deepens our position as the provider with the largest pool of mutual funds in Nigeria.

» Learn More: ARM Funds on Cowrywise

Quick Takes ?

• A couple of ARM funds use YTD returns. This shows how much the fund has earned from January to date.
• YTD stands for year to date. Though an indicator of past performance, it doesn’t assure what will happen in the future.

Treasury Bills ? Low Returns

Earlier, I stated that there has been a rush for stocks due to low returns on treasury bills. Generally, treasury bills are low risk and tend to pay out lower returns on average. However, they have gotten really low this year. But that isn’t the big news. In November, treasury bills reported negative returns. That is, they paid the government to borrow money from them (about 1% of invested cash). You find that funny too, right? ?

Quick Takes ?

• Money market mutual funds invest majorly in treasury bills. But they aren’t churning out negative returns ?.
• Treasury bills present the safest forms of investment.
• Despite the negative rates in November, people still invested in them because they are assured of getting their capital back.

? Data snap of the month

If all air pods sold by Apple were made into citizens of a country, it will be the 13th largest country in the world. That is, between 2016 and now Apple has sold over 110 million air pods.

Your favourite advisor,
Ope ?