Absa HPI
Absa's House Price Index, designed to provide an indication of house price movements in South Africa.

Alpha
That part of a fund's performance which can be attributed to the fund itself rather than 'the market'.

Alsi
The JSE All Share index, made up of approximately the largest (by market capitalisation) 160 shares listed on the JSE.

Alsi40
A JSE index representing the forty largest shares listed on the exchange.

Annuity
A regular monthly payment.

Beta
The volatility of a fund (or other security) relative to a specified benchmark (often the JSE All Share index in SA).

Class
A subdivision of the units issued by a fund, where the A class is usually the retail class and the B class is usually an institutional class (ie, only available for large bulk orders).

CPI
Consumer Price Index, the underlying data used to calculate the inflation rate.

CPIX
The Consumer Price Index excluding certain factors (such as mortgage repayments) which are included in CPI.

Cum div
Including a dividend payable (cum is Latin for 'with').

Dividend
An amount paid out to investors by a fund or company. In South Africa the word distribution is often used because amounts paid out by funds often contain both a dividend portion (from equities in the fund) and an interest portion.

ETF
Exchange Traded Fund. An ETF is a tracker fund which is listed on a stock exchange and can be traded like a share. In South Africa the vast majority of ETFs are also collective investment schemes, meaning they are doubly regulated and can be bought through a stockbroker or via the management company. The stock market price of an ETF may differ slightly from the NAV but will be very close due to arbitrage.

ETN
Exchange Traded Note. Like an ETF, an exchange traded note (ETN) is an exchange traded product (ETP). From the investor's point of view, an ETN looks very much like an ETF: it typically tracks an index, forex rate or commodity price, and it can be traded on the stock exchange like a share. The key difference between ETFs and ETNs is that with ETNs the underlying assets do not belong to the investors. Technically, an ETN is not a collective investment scheme but a debt instrument - a promise made by an underwriting bank to pay to the holder of the ETN an amount equivalent to the movement in the reference index, rate or price, less fees. ETNs are therefore subject to credit risk (ie, the risk of default). A major advantage of ETNs is that they offer retail investors access to otherwise inaccessible asset categories (such as specific commodities and frontier markets). They also offer a low tracking error (ie, the issuer undertakes to match the movement in the underlying security, so that before the deduction of fees the tracking error is zero).
(from Profile's Unit Trusts & Collective Investments)

Ex div
Excluding a dividend payable.

FoF
Abbreviation for Fund of Funds.

FSP
Financial Services Provider, usually in the sense of a financial intermediary.

FSPR
A Financial Services Provider Representative, as in the employee of a registered FSP.

Large Cap
A listed share which ranks among the larger listed companies by market capitalisation.

LISP
Linked Investment Service Provider, a company which provides access to a range of funds from a number of different management companies.

Lump sum
A single amount invested into a fund, as opposed to a regular monthly amount (annuity) paid by debit order.

Max Drawdown
A measure of downside risk based on the largest continuous price fall (from a peak to a trough) within a certain defined time-frame. Click here for more information.

ManCo
Short for 'Management Company', being the entity that sets up a fund and arranges the fund management and administrative services on behalf of unitholders.

MEV
Maximum Entry Value, a proxy price calculated by ProfileData to reflect all entry costs levied by a management company when units are purchased in a fund.

NAV
Net Asset Value, the price at which units are issued or redeemed by a fund. The NAV is net of annual management fees and portfolio charges, but is before deduction of initial charges (where applicable) and FSP commissions and charges (if applicable).

Quartile
A method of ranking funds by dividing them into four quarters by performance, eg, a top quartile fund is one which is in the top 25% of funds in its sector by performance.

Reg 28
Regulation 28 of the Pensions Funds Act which sets out prudential investment guidelines to which regulated retirement vehicles must adhere. The Reg 28 rules place limits on exposure to equities, second-tier debt instruments, property and commodities in an effort to reduce risk for investors

Repo Rate
The interest rate set by the South African central bank (the SA Reserve Bank, or SARB) for lending money to the major commercial banks. It sets the base for interest rates in the market.

Rm
Rand (ZAR) millions.

Sharpe
A ratio designed to show how well a fund compensates an investor for the level of risk in the fund. Click here for more information.

Sortino
A statistic designed to show the risk-adjusted performance of a fund against a defined benchmark (such as a market index or interest rate). Click here for more information.

Std Dev
Standard Deviation. A measure of the degree to which a set of data fluctuate around their average.

TER
Total Expense Ratio, the total expenses per annum incurred by the manager in running a fund including the annual management fee, expressed as a percentage of assets under management.

TRI
Total Return Index, a time-series representation of a fund's performance including both price movements and re-investment of distributions. The beauty of a TRI is that it allows you to draw a graph representing the full performance (ie, including both price gains and reinvested dividends).

Volatility
A measure of the riskiness of a fund, usually calculated as the standard deviation of the monthly returns over 36 months. Click here for more information.

Yield
In unit trust statistics, yield usually means the historic distribution (dividend) yield of a fund, expressed as annual distributions against the latest price (NAV).