Super fund performance over 27 financial years (to June 2019)

Note: Growth funds have a 61-80% allocation to growth assets and are the investment option that most Australians are invested in.

Chant West senior investment manager, Mano Mohankumar says: “While this year’s result hasn’t reached the heights of some recent years, the average return over the past 10 financial years (including this one) has been 8.8% per annum. That’s a tremendous run, but we should remember that it partly represents the recovery from the GFC.

“By all means look at what your fund delivered over the year, but it’s even more important to know what the long-term objectives are and whether it’s achieving them. Most growth funds aim to beat inflation by 3% to 4% a year. We now have data going back 27 years to July 1992, the start of compulsory super. Over that period, the annualised return is 8.3% and the annual CPI increase is 2.5%, giving a real return of 5.8% per annum – well above that 3% to 4% target.

“Returns are important but so is risk, and most funds also set themselves a risk objective. Risk is normally expressed as the chance of a negative return, and typically a growth fund would aim to post no more than one negative return in five years on average.”

The table and chart below show the annual financial year performance of the median growth fund over the 27 financial years since the introduction of compulsory super. It is inevitable that growth funds would have some years with negative returns. You would expect no more than five negative years over 27 years, but there have been only three.

Super fund performance – Financial years (1992/1993 to 2018/2019)

Source: Chant West. Performance is shown net of investment fees and tax, and before administration and adviser commissions.

Mano continues, “Over the longest period we can measure Australia’s major super funds have delivered on their promises to members, growing their wealth in real terms while protecting them from undue risk. That’s an achievement the funds should be proud of, and they should be making sure their members are aware of it, too.”

The following table shows the super performance across various timeframes for five investment categories to 30 June 2019.

Super fund performance (Results to 30 June 2019)

Source: Chant West. Performance is shown net of investment fees and tax, and before administration and adviser commissions.

To see super performance across for the past 4 financial and calendar years across various timeframes and for five investment categories, see SuperGuide’s Annual super fund performance Reckoner.

To learn about super investing strategies, see the following SuperGuide articles: