Death and Taxes, page-15

Here's a comparison using my total return NTA pre-tax calculation (franking and discount to NTA not considered).

Since January 1999 the monthly returns have averaged

ASX200 0.72% (the early numbers were pre S&P takeover)
ARG 0.73%
AFI 0.81%
WAM 0.94%
MLT 0.80%
DJW 0.57% (yuck)

If you are wondering about volatility, the standard deviation for ASX200 is 0.037 and AFI is 0.034. Remember you cannot buy the ASX200, an ETF has small management fees and small tracking errors and no ETFs were around in 1999.

So not only is AFI less volatile, if you take the franking into consideration you would be miles in front of an ETF. Of course WAM is the best with even lower volatility (sd=0.029) but that's only in hind site because they had only just listed at the time I started collected data from market announcements.

Nothing wrong with AFI, though I am mainly in Wilson and other funds because they had a good discount to NTA when I invested.

These are my own figures typed in from market releases. I probably have made mistakes over the last 16 years so do your own research.