Artive Ventures Methods Note AVMN 2026/01
Measuring listed South African commerce: how the Artive Commerce Index is built
Methods note. Describes a published calculation; not investment advice.
Abstract
Artive Capital publishes six indexes of JSE-listed commerce companies, led by the Artive Commerce Index (ACI), and charts them against the JSE Top 40. This note documents how they are built: the universe of companies, the equal-weighted daily calculation, the treatment of gaps and outliers, and the known limitations. It exists so that anyone reading the indexes on capital.artive.co.za can see exactly what they measure.
1. Purpose
Broad market indexes are dominated by a few very large companies, many of which earn most of their money outside South Africa. They say little about how the businesses that depend on South African shoppers are doing. The Artive indexes follow those businesses only, and weight them equally, so that a mid-sized grocer counts as much as a large one.
2. The universe
The indexes draw on 56 JSE-listed companies that make their money when South Africans shop, sell or pay, grouped into 12 segments: grocers; food, drink and household brands; restaurants; hotels, casinos and leisure; fashion; platforms; pharmacy and health; home and building; motor retail; shopping centres; logistics; and payments. The six indexes are subsets of this list:
| Index | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Artive Commerce Index (ACI) | Every company on the list |
| SA Shopper | Companies that live on South African household spending |
| Needs | Grocers, the brands on their shelves and pharmacies |
| Wants | Fashion, eating out, hotels and casinos, home improvement and cars |
| Rate Sensitive | Companies whose customers borrow to buy, or whose value rides on interest rates |
| Digital Commerce | Platforms, payments and the networks that carry them |
3. Calculation
Each index starts at 100 on the first day of the chosen window (six months, one year, two years or five years). On each following trading day it moves by the simple average of the daily returns of its members:
- Index today = index yesterday × (1 + average daily return of members that traded on both days)
This is an equal-weighted index rebalanced daily. A company that did not trade on either day is left out of that day’s average, so a gap in the data does not move the index, and a new listing joins from its first day. The JSE Top 40 is shown rebased to 100 on the same first day, with gaps carried forward, for comparison.
4. Data and outliers
Daily closing prices come from Yahoo Finance and are delayed; the five-year view uses weekly closes, so each step there is a week’s move rather than a day’s. JSE shares quoted in cents are converted to rand. A daily move larger than 35% in either direction is treated as a data error and left out of that day’s average, since genuine moves of that size are rare and usually follow corporate actions that the price feed does not adjust for.
5. Limitations
- Equal weighting gives small companies the same influence as large ones, so the indexes are more volatile than a market-value index of the same shares.
- The universe is today’s list. Companies that delisted in the past are not included, which can flatter long-run performance (survivorship bias).
- Prices exclude dividends, so the indexes measure price, not total return.
- The 35% outlier rule may occasionally remove a genuine move.
The indexes are research tools for following a sector. They are not investable products, and nothing in them is investment advice.
References
- Artive Capital (2026). Artive indexes. https://capital.artive.co.za/indexes/