Investment insights: December 2023 quarter
Qantas Super had a strong end to the 2023 calendar year, with each of our investment options posting strong gains over the December quarter.
Following a strong start to 2020, Qantas Super’s investment options experienced volatility over the March quarter as a result of countries around the world enforcing lockdowns to contain the spread of COVID‑19.
While falls in share markets globally dominated the headlines, Qantas Super investment manager Chris Grogan said a range of so-called “safe haven” assets, such as government bonds and high quality credit investments, performed well.
This result underscores the importance of building well diversified portfolios with investments that complement one another. Qantas Super’s investment options (excluding the Cash option) are invested in over 5,000 investments globally, which in addition to shares, also includes property, infrastructure, timberland, agriculture, a variety of bonds, and cash.
Having your super spread across these different types of investments helps smooth the ups and downs that may be experienced by any one type of investment and helps your super to perform over the long-term.
As at 31 March 2020 – all returns and objectives are per annum and after investment fees.
Investment option | Return objective | Actual return | Return objective | Difference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Glidepath: Take-off | CPI +5% p.a. over 10 years | 4.1% (3 year p.a. return) | 6.7% | -2.6% |
Glidepath: Altitude | CPI +4% p.a. over 7 years | 3.9% (3 year p.a. return) | 5.8% | -1.9% |
Glidepath: Cruising | CPI +3.5% p.a. over 6 years | 3.9% (3 year p.a. return) | 5.3% | -1.4% |
Glidepath: Destination | CPI +3% p.a. over 5 years | 3.7% (3 year p.a. return) | 4.8% | -1.1% |
Aggressive | CPI +5% p.a. over 10 years | 6.5% (10 year p.a. return) | 6.7% | -0.2% |
Growth | CPI +4% p.a. over 7 years | 5.9% (7 year p.a. return) | 5.8% | +0.1% |
Balanced | CPI +3% p.a. over 5 years | 3.4% (5 year p.a. return) | 4.8% | -1.4% |
Conservative | CPI +2% p.a. over 3 years | 3.4% (3 year p.a. return) | 3.8% | -0.4% |
Cash | Bloomberg AusBond Bank Bill over 1 year | 1.5% (1 year p.a. return) | 1.2% | +0.3% |
As Glidepath was established on 1 October 2015, only three year returns are shown for these options. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
While the volatility in financial markets over the last quarter has seen most of our investment options fall behind their long-term return objectives, it’s important to remember that they are just that: long-term objectives.
Each option is designed to deliver on its objectives over a particular period of time, and because volatility is a normal part of investing for the long term, negative returns are expected from time to time.
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Qantas Super had a strong end to the 2023 calendar year, with each of our investment options posting strong gains over the December quarter.
Markets kicked off the 2023 calendar year on a positive note, with each investment option almost doubling their return for the year to date from the December 2022 quarter to the end of March 2023.
After several years of volatility in investment markets, with returns swinging from negative to record highs, and back to the low single-digits, the 2022/23 financial year has seen a return to what we could consider more ‘normal’ numbers, with Qantas Super delivering strong absolute returns across all investment options.