In trying to yardstick my SMSF against the industry as a whole I am finding its almost impossible to compare accurately. Some of the issues I've come across:
Many funds record "absolute" performance - eg, pre - fees
valuations are done with or without inclusion of liabilities (ie, as above, ignoring tax liabilities, keeping recent sales off the books because that falls into the next reporting period, exaggerating income by various means)
"Manipulating" shares/share prices by causing spikes in SP in the short time before the market closes just before a reporting period (suddenly buying up a tranche of illiquid shares to leverage the price of existing holdings)
"Window dressing share" buying activity (Rather than reveal that it holds large positions in poorly performing companies, the manager might sell off some regrettable holdings and load up on recent market darlings to look good, even if outside portfolio guidelines).
Even fund reporting services rarely give the basis of their ranking of funds, ie, they rarely explain how they've arrived at the returns they report, suggesting they simply take the fund manager's numbers.
Does anybody know of a fund reporting service that reports believable numbers?
