This article lists the 20 most popular Australian shares invested in by SMSFs as of 30 June 2025. We thank Class, an SMSF administration software company, for providing the data used in this article.
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Despite heightened geopolitical tensions, US President Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil and ongoing volatility, Australian shares delivered for investors in the year to June 2025, with the benchmark ASX 200 index up 10%.
That was sure to keep SMSF investors happy, as domestic shares remain their preferred asset class. Over 59% of Class SMSFs hold direct Australian shares, representing 27.5% of their assets.
The next largest asset class by value among Class SMSFs is direct property (21%), followed by cash and term deposits (about 15%). Cash holdings are relatively high because every SMSF must have a bank account.
The most popular stocks among SMSFs are household names Australians have grown up with – think the big four banks (representing 43.5% of the top 20 by market value), mining heavyweights BHP and Woodside, Telstra and the big retailers Wesfarmers, Coles and Woolworths. They offer investors an opportunity to buy shares directly in companies they believe will deliver long-term returns.
Buying shares directly also allows individual investors to build their own diversified portfolio across a range of industries according to their own needs for long-term growth, create a sustainable income stream from dividends and reap the tax advantages of dividend franking credits.
The average dividend yield of Australian shares was around 3% in June 2025, or close to 4% when franking is included, although many shares in the top 20 yield significantly more. Yields fell over the year due to the rise in share prices (yields rise when prices fall).
For all these reasons, direct holdings in Australian shares are the most popular investments among SMSFs (excluding cash and term deposits), with 59.1% of Class funds holding them. Many Class funds also hold shares via managed funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the only asset class to gain popularity in the 2025 financial year, with 34.1% of funds now holding them, up from 32.8% previously.
Of course, picking shares and monitoring them takes time and effort, but it does have the potential to grow wealth in the long run. And because all earnings on investments in your super fund must be preserved until you retire or reach another condition of release, capital gains and dividend income must be reinvested within your fund, where they compound over time.
According to Class data, as of 30 June 2025, direct investment by SMSFs in domestic listed securities is heavily concentrated in blue chip stocks that tend to mirror the ASX top 20 listed companies.
The top 20 list below is ranked by popularity (the percentage of SMSFs that hold these shares), rather than the percentage value of assets that all SMSFs have invested in those shares, although both figures are provided in the table.
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