A comparative analysis of the performance of Islamic mutual fund and ethical fund in Nigeria

Abstract

Islamic financial products in Nigeria is still relatively new, while the Islamic banking aspect is quite popular and doing well, the awareness and acceptance of Non-interest capital market (NICM) products is low. With the intervention of the regulators to increase NICM to 25% of the total market capitalization, Islamic Mutual fund is one of the product introduced few years back to help attract investors who are which to assess the capital market through long term investment that is as well Shari’ah compliant. The Islamic mutual funds industry is quite small in size and scope, hence the need to evaluate its performance and find ways for it improve and increase its participation. This research compares the Islamic mutual funds to ethical funds operating in Nigeria in order to ascertain whether there is a difference in their performance. These two group of mutual funds differs from the other even though they share few similarities. The risk-return performance of two Islamic mutual funds and two ethical funds for the period of 2012- 2016 were using popular performance measures. Findings shows that Islamic mutual funds are more risky than ethical funds and although ethical funds tends to be more responsive to changes in the market, however there is no significant difference in their risk and return.