The sector average during this time period was 31.7%.
Despite the sharp market sell-off in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all of the top funds along with the sector average have managed to regain losses.
Top five performing mixed asset balanced super funds over the five years to 31 January 2021
Source: FE Analytics
However, the start of 2021 looked difference with the top-performing fund for the sector being OnePath Integra Super Schroders Balanced at 1.36%.
This was followed by Crescent Wealth Super Balanced Option (1.19%), Crescent Wealth Balanced Global Option (0.99%), Hostplus Conservative Balanced (0.89%), and Commonwealth Select Personal Superannuation Multi Manager Moderate (0.88%).
The sector average during the first month of the year was 0.36%.
Source: FE Analytics
All of the average Asia Pacific ex Japan funds also managed to recover the March sell-off losses and continued to deliver returns while the average Australian equity fund did not recover losses.
The top-performing Asia Pacific ex Japan fund was ANZ ASA BT Wholesale Asian Share Manager with a return of 25.85%.
This was followed by MLC MK Business Super Platinum Asia at 25.37%, CFS FC W PersonalSuper Platinum Wholesale Asia at 24.55%, CFS Platinum Asia Select at 24.4%, and CFS FC PersonalSuper Platinum Asia at 24.16%.
Top-performing Asia Pacific ex Japan equity super funds v sector in 2020
Source: FE Analytics
At the other end of the scale the poorest performing fund was AMP Flex LifetimeSuper and CustomSuper Future Directions Asian Share at 5.97%, which still beat the average Australian equity fund.
Only 18 out of 110 Australian property super funds made a return in 2020, with only one managing to recover losses from the COVID-19 sell-off, according to data.
The sector average for Australian equity superannuation funds was 2.21% during 2020 compared to global equity super funds that returned 5.4%, according to data.
“China equity funds recorded their 30th consecutive retail inflow despite last week’s institutional exodus. Institutional investors were net redeemers for the second straight week as they looked to sidestep any fallout from official efforts to keep the COVID-19 pandemic contained going into the Chinese New Year, usually a period when millions of people travel within the country,” EPFR said.
EPFR found that Israel’s aggressive vaccination rollout program and its reputation in the cybersecurity space attracted investors looking at Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) markets and flows into Israel equity funds were the largest since Q2 of 2008.