Superannuation funds focused on geared Australian equities have performed the best over the last five years to 30 September, 2020, with an average return of 55.66%, according to data.
According to FE Analytics, when it came to super funds focused on a specific equity class, geared Australian equities was followed by small/mid cap Australian equities (52.01%), Asia Pacific ex Japan (50.16%), global equities (45.21%), and global hedged equities (45.05%).
On the other end of the scale, it was global property that performed the worst at 7.36% followed by Australian property at 23.59%, and infrastructure equities at 27.7%.
Performance of superannuation equity sectors over the five years to 30 September 2020
Source: FE Analytics
While the Australian geared equity sector had performed the best over the five years to 30 September, 2020, it still had not recovered losses induced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At its peak, the sector returned 125.9% since 30 September 2015 to 20 February 2020. However, the sector was currently still down 31.1% since the February peak.
CFS geared Australian equity funds dominated the charts as the top five performing funds in the sector were all CFS funds.
The top performers were Commonwealth Select Personal Supa - Colonial First State Wholesale Geared Share at 119.27%, CFS FC PSup Colonial First State Wholesale Geared Share at 99.41%, CFS Colonial First State Geared Share Select at 97.27%, CFS Geared Share ROSCO at 90.55%, and CFS FC Psup Colonial First State Geared Share at 89.52%.
The top five holdings for the Colonial First State Wholesale Geared Share were CSL, BHP Group, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Woolworths Group, and National Australia Bank.
None of the top-performing funds had recovered losses from the sell-off earlier this year induced by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Commonwealth Select Personal Supa Colonial First State Wholesale Geared Share is still down 24.53% from its peak on 20 February, 2020 at 190.54%.
Top five performing geared Australian equity superannuation funds v sector over the five years to 30 September 2020
Source: FE Analytics
On the other end, it was two Perpetual funds that were the bottom performers.
Perpetual WF Super Perpetual Geared Australian returned 9.32%, followed by Perpetual Select Super Geared Australian Share Investment Option (18.56%), CFS FC Psup FirstChoice Geared Australian Share (33.29%), AMP FLS and CS Future Directions Geared Australian Share (34.15%) and AMP Flexible Super Super Future Directions Geared Australian Share (37.36%).
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