For the first time since the beginning of the year, the Israeli study funds showed a positive return following the rises experienced by the US and Israeli stock markets that month, breaking the trend of losses in the first two months of the year. And by about 3.4%, respectively, during March, and the selected indices on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, such as Tel Aviv 35 and Tel Aviv 125, rose by about 2.4% and about 2%, respectively, for that period.
This is despite the fact that the Russo-Ukrainian war continued (and still continues) at that time, inflation was (and remains) high, and expectations of rising interest rates remained strong, as did the remnants of the corona, which continued to be present. All these, as stated, did not interfere with the rises of the markets. The average return presented by the ten study funds in the general track examined by Walla! Money and the business section of Maariv stood at 0.74% last March, reducing the average negative return that the funds have recorded for their colleagues since the beginning of the year to 1.49%.
The one that managed to achieve the highest return among the study funds examined in the table is the fund of the Yellin Lapidot Investment House, which is mainly exposed to the equity channel, and it concluded last March with a 0.89% return. In this way, Yellin’s continuing education fund reduced its negative return from the beginning of the year to 2.13%. This is the second highest negative return among the study funds examined in the table.
Second from the bottom in the negative return column in the table is the General Training Fund of Altshuler Investment House, which has been at a rate of 2.36% since the beginning of the year, after concluding March with a return of 0.85%. Yellin Lapidot Omer Degani, VP of Marketing at the investment house, explained: “The parameters that positively affected our return on the general track during March were the scattering of shares abroad alongside investment in indices, which recorded higher returns than the rest of the market.”
He added: “The selection of shares we made on the Israel Stock Exchange allowed us to present a higher return than the indices and the rest of the market. He added: “We also conclude March by leading the equity track (an investment track that is mostly biased towards equities), whose popularity is gaining momentum.
“However, it is important to remember that provident and pension investment portfolios are long-term financial products, so returns should be looked at in long-term terms, and the various players (financial product marketers) should be examined in the long-term axis.” The study fund in the Yellin Lapidot stock track concluded a return of 1.85% last March, thus reducing its negative return from the beginning of the year to a rate of 2.99%. Its cumulative return for five years stands at 73.02%.
The one who summarizes from below the table of the ten study funds that we examined is that of the Phoenix-Excellence insurance company with a return of 0.39% last March, which highlights a gap of 0.5% from the leader of the table. The March return reduced the latter’s negative return to 1.46%, which is close to the average of all the funds examined. Sources in the capital market estimate that most of the gap created in the March summary between Phoenix and the other large study funds is due to Phoenix’s lower holding in tradable shares, which is more biased towards Israel than abroad.
The study fund in the Phoenix stock track ended March with a 1.11% return, which reduced its negative return from the beginning of the year to a rate of 1.74%. The fund’s cumulative return on this five-year track stands at 71.08%.