Up to date as of October 2024
We introduced a streamlined suite of investment options, available to all members from 1 July 2024. Members can choose from 15 carefully constructed investment options that cover a broad range of objectives, levels of risk and investment timeframes to suit their individual needs.
Information on how ART’s default options and all our investment options have changed, can be found here. Members in the default MySuper option under age 50 will now have their retirement savings invested in ART’s High-Growth pool, which was formerly known as ART’s Super Savings Growth option. That option has delivered very strong returns for members over many years.
Other investment option returns can be found here. The table below shows returns from the major publicly traded asset classes for periods to the end of September 2024.
| Returns to end September 2024 (pre-super tax) |
3 months % |
1 year % |
3 year % p.a. |
5 year % p.a. |
10 year % p.a. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash (Bloomberg AusBond Bank Bill) | 1.1 | 4.4 | 2.8 | 1.8 | 1.9 |
| Australian Diversified Fixed Interest (Bloomberg AusBond Composite Bond) | 3.0 | 7.1 | -1.2 | -0.4 | 2.4 |
| Global diversified fixed income (Bloomberg Barclays Global-Aggregate hedged to $A) | 4.0 | 9.1 | -1.5 | -0.4 | 2.3 |
| Australian listed property (S&P/ASX 300 A-REIT Accumulation) | 14.3 | 45.9 | 8.8 | 7.2 | 10.5 |
| Global listed property (FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Developed, hedged to $A) | 14.5 | 26.4 | -0.1 | 0.6 | 5.2 |
| Australian shares (S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation) | 7.8 | 21.7 | 8.1 | 8.3 | 8.9 |
| Developed market shares, in $A unhedged (MSCI World ex-Australia) | 2.3 | 23.5 | 10.8 | 12.8 | 13.0 |
| Developed market shares, hedged to $A (MSCI World ex-Australia) | 4.5 | 29.6 | 8.6 | 11.9 | 10.8 |
| Emerging market shares, in $A unhedged (MSCI EM) | 4.7 | 17.4 | 1.9 | 5.2 | 6.5 |
Sources: Bloomberg, Australian Retirement Trust. Past performance is not a reliable indication of future performance.
Global share markets in aggregate produced positive returns over the September quarter and very strong returns over the year to September 2024. Lower inflation, moves by the world’s central banks to lower official interest rates, and the expectation of a ‘soft landing’ for the global economy provided a positive environment for financial markets, despite ongoing geopolitical concerns.
Most major developed share markets gained over the quarter, with shares in Australia and the US outperforming those in the UK and Europe. However, Japanese shares fell over the quarter as the Bank of Japan again moved to raise official interest rates and a stronger yen weighed on the performance of Japanese exporters.
Emerging markets shares also performed well over the quarter, generally outperforming shares in the developed world. Shares in China, Argentina, the Philippines and Egypt were the best performers while share prices declined in Korea, Turkey and Poland. The entirety of the quarterly rise in Chinese share prices occurred in the final week of the quarter after the People’s Bank of China announced a series of aggressive monetary policy steps to boost China’s economy.
The Australian dollar rose in value against a range of both developed and emerging currencies over the quarter and over the year to September, detracting from unhedged international share returns.
Australian shares were among the world’s best performers over the quarter as share prices for materials and consumer discretionary companies rose strongly.
Global and Australian bonds reported good returns over the quarter and the year to September as yields fell (and bond prices rose) in most of the world’s major bond markets. Inflation pressures across much of the world have eased, allowing many central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, to lower official interest rates. However, here in Australia, progress in returning inflation to target has been somewhat slower than in other economies and the RBA has signalled that a reduction in the official cash rate is highly unlikely in the near term.
Lower bond yields helped to boost the performance of Australian and global listed real estate securities (REITs) as lower bond yields boost the relative attractiveness of the income from REITs. While Australian REITs were the best performing publicly traded asset class over the year to September, over half of the 45.9% return was accounted for by one company – Goodman Group, who continue to benefit from strong demand for industrial property.
While inflation has declined across much of the world, including here in Australia, it remains generally above central bank policy objectives. While we expect inflation rates to fall further, those falls are likely to be gradual. This is particularly as tight labour markets are continuing to put upward pressure on wages and hence labour costs in services industries where inflation rates have remained stubbornly high.
The world’s major central banks have been reducing interest rates and further reductions are likely over the coming months. However, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is likely to delay any reduction in the official cash rate until the first half of 2025, in response to a lack of adequate progress in bringing inflation down.
At ART we do not design portfolios based on our own or anyone else’s short-term economic, market or geopolitical forecasts. However, our investment team and our external investment managers do seek to capitalise on opportunities that inevitably emerge during times of heightened market volatility.
We have continued to adjust our Dynamic Asset Allocation (DAA) strategy in response to changes in relative value between asset classes over the September quarter and will continue to do so as opportunities present themselves. During the quarter, we raised our equities exposure when share markets fell sharply in August and subsequently reduced our exposure as markets recovered. Our holdings of sovereign bonds have been reduced as yields have fallen.
At the end of September 2024, our DAA strategy favoured shares over bonds. Within DAA’s shares allocation, we preferred Japanese, UK, and European shares over shares in the US and Australia. In fixed income, we remain overweight in Australia and the UK, and have an underweight position in US, European and Japanese bonds. The DAA strategy’s currency exposure favoured the Norwegian krone, the Swedish krona, the Taiwanese dollar, and the Japanese yen over the Canadian dollar and the Swiss Franc, the Czech koruna, and the euro.
ART continues to hold a substantial allocation to private assets, particularly the key unlisted asset classes – real estate, infrastructure, private equity and private debt. As a large superannuation fund, we have well-diversified portfolios of these assets that we expect will deliver strong, long-term returns, while reducing our members’ exposure to share market volatility.
During the quarter, our infrastructure team entered into agreements to sell ART’s interests in two assets: Queensland Airports Limited, which owns and operates airports in Townsville, Longreach, Mount Isa and the Gold Coast; and AirTrunk, a leading Asia-Pacific data centre business, subject to some approval processes. When settled, this will realise substantial profits for ART members.
Our private equity team made commitments to several external managers to continue building a highly diversified portfolio of global private equity companies. Commitments were made to another US based fund focusing on investments in smaller to medium sized healthcare, industrial and technology-enabled services companies as well as an Australia based buyout fund focusing on middle market investments in Australia and New Zealand. Investments were made in a range of global companies including Jinjer, a Japanese provider of cloud-based human resource management software.
Our real estate team has added to our UK aged care property exposure by committing additional capital to Elevation Healthcare Properties.
There are a number of ART investment options that give exposure to a diversified range of asset classes, including both public market and unlisted investments. In fact, ART offers members a range of 15 investment options to allow you to tailor your investments to your needs.
If you want more information or advice to decide which investment option or group of options best meets your needs, our financial advisers are here to help. Please give ART a call on 13 11 84.
Past performance is not a reliable indication of future performance. Australian Retirement Trust employees provide advice as representatives of Sunsuper Financial Services Pty Ltd (ABN 50 087 154 818 AFSL No. 227867) (SFS), which is wholly owned by the Trustee as an asset of Australian Retirement Trust Superannuation Fund (ABN 60 905 115 063). Investment returns are after investment fees and costs and taxes (where applicable). Returns cover the period up to the date of merger as Sunsuper and from date of merger up to the date listed as part of Australian Retirement Trust. To show investment performance, we’ve used Sunsuper returns up to 28 February 2022, then Australian Retirement Trust returns after that date. Members invested in the Lifecycle Investment Strategy are invested 100% in the High Growth Pool until age 50.
