How ActiveETFs works

ActiveETFs (activeetfs.com.au) is a table of Active ETFs, Complex ETFs and Smart Beta ETFs listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Active ETFsComplex ETFsSmart Beta ETFs

ActiveETFs is an information site. It earns no revenue: there is no advertising, no affiliate links, and nothing to buy. Funds are listed and ranked on published performance data only. Everything here is general information, not personal financial advice.

General information only, not personal financial advice. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Read the disclaimer.

What is on the site

Active ETFs, where a manager can change the holdings. Complex ETFs, which carry that name label when the strategy goes beyond simple long-only holdings. Smart Beta ETFs that follow a published factor or rules-based index such as quality, value, momentum or equal weight.

ASIC Regulatory Guide 282 describes smart beta and similar rules-based funds as often combining elements of index tracking and active management. Where the product tracks a published index, the guide says it is labelled as an ETF without the Active secondary label.

Why the table includes these three types

The main table on ActiveETFs is designed as a broad illustration of professional fund managers' ability to deliver returns for investors. It excludes plain index-tracking ETFs, and the leveraged and inverse funds built on them, because their results are set by the index they track and the fee they charge, not by an investment team's judgement. A leveraged or inverse fund only magnifies or reverses that index return, so the same applies.

Every active, complex and smart beta ETF on this site relies on some form of human judgement.

In an active or complex ETF, a manager selects the securities, whether shares or derivatives. In a smart beta ETF, the judgement sits in the construction of the index methodology (a systematic expression of a view on which fundamentals matter, how to weight them and when to rebalance).

In each case the outcome depends on decisions someone made, and the table shows the results of those decisions.

What is not on the site

Vanilla market-cap index ETFs such as VAS or VGS.

A fund stays off the site when its holdings are a published index, bond benchmark or currency and the only extra is a geared or inverse multiple. A fund stays on when a manager selects the securities, or when it follows a published Smart Beta rule without that wrapper. Funds left off under this rule: GEAR, BEAR, BBOZ, BBUS, LNAS, SNAS, GGUS, GHHF, GGBL, GNDQ, G200, GMVW, BBAB, GGAB, BBFD, GGFD, AUDS, YANK and ECRD.

What is a Complex ETF?

On the ASX, "Complex ETF" is a name label. ASIC Regulatory Guide 282 (November 2025) describes Complex ETFs as funds that may use strategies beyond simply holding securities, bonds or other assets long only. The guide says the Complex label applies where the strategy:

• uses debt or leverage
• uses short selling
• uses derivatives, other than disclosed hedging of exchange rate or interest rate risk, where that use is material to the strategy or creates a net leveraged or net inverse position
• or meets the hedge fund criteria in ASIC Regulatory Guide 240

Where a fund would qualify for both the Active label and the Complex label, the guide says only Complex is used in the trading name.

The label is meant to help investors notice strategies that may be harder to understand. ASIC states that it is not, by itself, a measure of the product's risk, though complex strategies often involve more risk.

The ASX article "What an ETF's name tells you" (9 January 2026) explains the same groups: index tracking, active, smart beta and complex. It says ASIC introduced the complex label in 2022, and that listed funds which did not fit the framework had changed their names by April 2025. The article gives borrowing, short selling and derivatives as examples of complex strategies.

This site includes Complex ETFs in its table where a manager selects the securities, such as LEVR, including funds that use gearing, short selling or options inside an actively managed portfolio.

This is general information about product labels, not a description of any particular fund.

Sources: ASIC Regulatory Guide 282 and ASX, What an ETF's name tells you (9 January 2026).

How returns are calculated

Returns use ASX closing prices with each distribution reinvested on its ex-date, so distributions paid count as if reinvested. Year-to-date and 1 year figures are the change over that window. Columns labelled p.a. are annualised yearly averages. That is why a three-year figure on this site can look smaller than a Yahoo Finance 3-year tile that shows the lump-sum total.

Each fund's price history starts on its ASX listing date, taken from the Cboe Australian Funds Market Report, which lists every quoted fund with its listing exchange and date. Prices from before that date, such as an older security that used the same ticker or the history of an unlisted version of the fund, are left out. Inception p.a. starts from the listing date and is only shown after at least one year of listed history.

A fund that did not trade on the latest day keeps its last traded price, is marked “last traded” with that date, and shows n/a for the day's change.

Distribution amounts and corrections

Distribution amounts come from the EODHD dividend feed. A feed can miss a distribution, record one twice, or keep an issuer's estimate after the final amount is announced, so every night the record is checked: the price fall on each ex-date, any large fall with no distribution recorded, and the provider's own adjusted prices. Each month, every fund's distributions over 12 months are also compared with the distribution yield in the ASX Investment Products report.

Where a record is missing or wrong, the amount in the issuer's notice is used instead. These are the corrections so far.

How funds are compared

Each fund is compared with one broad, low-cost index ETF for its asset class: what an investor could have bought instead. Both sides are total returns from ASX closing prices with distributions reinvested, after fees, so both are measured on the same basis. Market indices such as the S&P/ASX 200 leave out dividends, so they are not used for this.

On the homepage, “Beats the market” means a fund's return for the selected period is above the index ETF for its asset class, with dividends included on both sides. Each fund row names that index ETF as “vs” and its ticker.

• Global Shares: VGS; currency-hedged funds use VGAD
• Australian Shares: VAS
• Australian Small & Mid Cap Shares: VSO
• Asia Shares: VAE
• Emerging Markets Shares: VGE
• Listed Infrastructure: VBLD; currency-hedged funds use IFRA
• Listed Real Estate: DJRE; currency-hedged funds use REIT
• Fixed Income: VAF; global bond funds use VBND
• Cash: AAA
• Multi Asset: VDBA; growth funds use VDGR and high growth funds VDHG

The yardstick is a published reference, not the benchmark each manager chooses. A fund's own benchmark is named in its PDS and can differ. A fund that beats the market over one period can trail it over another.

When the data updates

Prices refresh on weeknights after the ASX close. The product list is checked against the ASX Investment Products monthly report so new Active and Complex listings can be added.

Questions

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