About Smartshares

The easy way into the sharemarket

Smartshares are exchange traded funds (ETFs) that can be bought and sold through an NZX Advisor just like shares, or you can buy Smartshares using the Cash Application facility. Smartshares are baskets of shares designed to mirror a particular sharemarket index. Each Smartshare contains shares of the companies that make up that index. For example, SmartTENZ is a basket of shares that mirrors the NZX 10 Index which tracks the performance of New Zealand's top 10 listed companies. This means investors get returns that are very similar to those of the index.

In order to mirror an index, Smartshares hold shares in the same proportions as if they owned all the shares in the index. This means the manager buys and sells shares only when the make-up of the index changes, for example such as when a company enters or leaves the index. Because the manager does not make any active investment decisions, Smartshares are referred to as “passive funds”.

The unit prices of Smartshares are recorded in the sharemarket tables in the daily newspaper along with the other ETFs listed on the NZSX Market.

Smartshares Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of NZX) manages five ETFs under the Smartshares brand: SmartFONZ (NZX 50 Portfolio Fund), SmartTENZ (NZX 10 Fund), SmartMIDZ (NZX MidCap Index Fund), SmartMOZY (NZX Australian MidCap Index Fund) and SmartOZZY (NZX 20 Australian Leaders Index Fund). These five Smartshares offer an easy way to create a diversified investment in both the New Zealand and Australian sharemarkets, in large companies that historically pay high dividends or medium sized companies that typically offer strong growth in value.