SMSF investing: 20 most popular Australian shares

Domestic shares remain the preferred asset class for SMSF investors. More than 56% of Class SMSFs hold direct Australian shares, representing 26.4% of their assets, the largest single allocation.

The next largest asset class by value among Class SMSFs is direct property (21.1%), followed by cash and term deposits (15.1%). 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 38.5% 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.

For all these reasons, direct holdings in Australian shares are the most popular investments among SMSFs (excluding cash and term deposits), with 56.5% of Class funds holding them, down 1.9 percentage points over the year. Many Class funds also hold shares via managed funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), one of only two asset classes to gain popularity in the 2026 financial year, with 35.5% of funds now holding them, up from 34.9%.

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 2026, 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.

The 20 most popular Australian shares invested in by SMSFs

Source: Class. Data as at 30 June 2026. Data derived from 198,898 SMSFs that use Class software.

Direct investment by SMSFs is concentrated in the big four banks, which take out four of the top six spots, with Macquarie Group also in the top 10. Mining heavyweight BHP retained its position as the most popular Aussie stock, with almost half of all Class SMSFs with domestic shares holding the Big Australian in their portfolios, although its share slipped from 49.0% to 46.6%.

National Australia Bank moved up from fourth to third, narrowly ahead of Westpac. The only change to the line-up was packaging group Amcor, which returned to the list in 18th spot, replacing retail and hospitality group Endeavour.

While some companies have shuffled positions, the top 20 have been remarkably stable for several years. What has changed is how much of SMSF share money they hold. The top 20 accounted for 41.3% of all SMSF investment in direct Australian shares, down from 43.5% a year earlier, and the big four banks made up 38.5% of the top 20 by market value, down from 43.5%.