For the third year running, investors had a surprisingly good year in 2025 thanks to moderating inflation, lower interest rates, economic growth and buoyant share markets.
Despite escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine, continuing cost-of-living pressures and fears an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven bubble was about to burst, shares streaked ahead. And as the table below shows, most major asset classes produced positive returns.
But the shooting star award for 2025 goes to gold and precious metals, thanks to the same list of geopolitical and market uncertainties.
The previous year’s stellar performer, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, plummeted despite the backing of newly minted US President, Donald Trump. As the saying goes, the higher they jump, the harder they fall.
Against this backdrop, super funds had another excellent year. Ratings group SuperRatings estimates the median Balanced option (60-76% growth assets, similar to Chant West’s Growth option) delivered a return of 9.1% to members over 2025.
Retirees did even better, with members of pension funds achieving returns of around 10%.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.