Jan-March Performance 2025
As we shared last month, global markets have been very volatile over the last quarter. This means that you may notice a dip in your balance, as have investors across the world.
The good news is that your super is a long-term investment designed to weather these storms, and our investment team is working hard to protect your super from extreme impacts.
What to do when markets go down
It’s natural to feel concerned if you see your balance go down as a result of market movements. One of the hardest things about investing is riding out tough times.
But it’s really important to remember that super is designed to be a long-term investment to get you through all the decades of your working life.
Panicking when markets are down can also be a really, really bad move and can cement losses.
During the market volatility at the start of the Covid pandemic, some people decided that they would be better off not having any exposure to stock markets at all and instead moving to cash-only investment options (some super funds offer cash-only options).
Since some time has passed, we now have data on how that worked out. Unfortunately, research found that members in the averaged super balanced option who switched to cash in April 2020 would have lost up to 27% by July 2021.
How is Future Super investing in this environment?
Out investment team shifted to a more defensive stance late last year, meaning we took money out of higher-risk investments such as publicly traded stocks in US companies and put more into things like cash and bonds. This helped shield us from the full impact of the subsequent US market declines.
We have increased our scrutiny of our investment strategies to evaluate their robustness to market stress. Although expecting continued challenges the team are aware to the possibility that markets rebound rapidly, perhaps if tariff levels reduce. We want to be positioned to capitalise on that upside if markets bounce back. So we’re making sure cash is available to purchase assets in that scenario.
We carry significant funds in cash, so that when the market stabilises and looks ready to improve, the team will be able to re-invest in international equity markets to ensure members receive the growth benefits.
Markets have already started to recover, but Trump’s tariff crisis has subdued growth globally and left many sectors reeling, so we’re continuing to watch closely and remain ready to act quickly.