The Morningstar Australian Superannuation Survey saw individual results that ranged from a high of 1.7 per cent to a low of zero per cent.
Longer-term annualised median returns were 13.7 per cent for the year to 31 March 2014; 8.7 per cent for three years; 10.7 per cent for five years; and 6.8 per cent for 10 years.
Among the best performing ‘growth’ superannuation funds over the year to 31 March were Legg Mason Growth (19.7 per cent), REST Super Diversified (16.2 per cent and Legg Mason Balanced (15.9 per cent).
The best ‘balanced’ (40 to 60 per cent growth assets) were REST Super Balanced (11.8 per cent), State Super Balanced (11.3 per cent), and Care Super Conservative Balanced (10.8 per cent).
As for the performance of individual assets during the period, the Morningstar Institutional Sector Survey found Australian shares outperformed international shares over the first quarter of 2014.
“The S&P/ASX 300 Index was up 1.99 per cent over these three months compared to a fall of 2.40 per cent for the MSCI World ex-Australia NR Index,” said Morningstar.
“The top-performing Australian sharemarket sectors over the quarter included utilities (4.2 per cent), information technology (4.1 per cent), and financials (3.7 per cent). Poorer-performing sectors included resources (-0.8 per cent), consumer staples (-0.7 per cent), and materials (-0.3 per cent).
“Value stocks (2.5 per cent) outperformed their growth counterparts (1.7 per cent) over the quarter,” said Morningstar.
