Super funds finish the year flat despite coronavirus chaos – The New Daily

Superannuation funds have weathered the pandemic storm with balanced funds finishing the financial year roughly where they started.
Some big industry funds even managed a slightly positive return for their balanced or growth options, in which most Australians have their retirement savings invested.
The nation’s largest fund, $180 billion AustralianSuper, turned in a 0.52 per cent return for the financial year while $54 billion building industry fund Cbus managed to make members 0.75 per cent.
And that’s despite the local sharemarket suffering its worst annual result since the global financial crisis falling 11 per cent over the year.
Remarkable performance
“We have been through an extraordinary health and economic crisis that severely affected domestic and global markets,” said AustralianSuper chief investment officer Mark Delaney.
“To arrive at the end of the financial year with a positive result given the turmoil we have seen is a very good outcome for members.”
SuperRatings measured returns across all balanced funds and found the median return was down slightly, at minus 1.2 per cent for the financial year, while growth funds fell 1.6 per cent and capital stable allocations increased 0.4 per cent.
SuperRatings executive director Kirby Rappell said that in June stronger markets had seen the median balanced fund rise 0.8 per cent.
“Super funds made a strong comeback in the June quarter, but the market remains challenging due to the degree of uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Mr Rappell.
“While markets have shown signs of stabilising, which is good news for members, we dont want to get ahead of ourselves.”
Balanced funds in pension mode, shown above, slightly outperformed funds in accumulation mode because they have marginally more conservative investments.
Different research houses had slightly different results for the median growth allocation.
Rainmaker CEO Alex Dunnin said “we think the median MySuper balanced option has returned a positive 0.5 per cent”, while Chant West researcher Mano Mohankumar said he expected to see “a very small negative return”.
The recent sharemarket strength stands in stark contrast to the state of the economy with unemployment spiking.
“Financial markets make no sense in terms of the real economy but that’s how they function,” Mr Donnin said.
Better than GFC
“While there has been a slight fall in super returns in some funds, the result stands in stark contrast to the experience during the global financial crisis

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