Despite challenging economic and geopolitical conditions, superannuation pension funds continued their run of stellar returns in the calendar year to December 2024, with the median Growth fund (61–80% growth assets) up 12.2%. This follows the 10.8% return the previous year.
Once again, shares were the main driver of the healthy 2024 result, with international shares leading the way.
This was reflected in the outperformance of higher risk categories with a higher allocation of shares. While all risk categories were strongly positive over the year, returns ranged from 18.1% for the median All Growth option to 7.1% for the median Conservative option.
Last year’s strong positive returns mean most retirees would have seen their account balance increase even after withdrawing the mandated minimum pension income.
Pension fund categories – Conservative, Balanced, Growth, High Growth and All Growth – are the same as those for accumulation funds and, by and large, hold the same underlying investments. So, pension fund returns are driven by the same factors as accumulation fund returns.
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