Super returns to recover from November dip with ‘healthy’ year-end

Yasmine Raso

Senior Journalist, Financial Newswire

19 December 2025

Chant West has confirmed it expects superannuation funds to round out the year with “healthy” returns, after a small dip in November brought an end to the seven consecutive months of positive activity.

According to the data and forecasts for market movements over the month of December, the median growth fund is expected to report calendar year returns of 8.5 per cent.

Chant West’s Head of Superannuation Investment, Mano Mohankumar, said a result like this would be “excellent” given the economic uncertainty and geopolitical volatility that has rocked markets over the past 12 months.

“International share markets, which account for just over 30% of growth fund allocations on average, have been the primary driver of the strong CY25 performance to date, delivering over 17% so far this year,” he said.

“It’s also helped that all major asset classes have produced positive returns for the year to date. Given the strength of international share markets, super fund members who were invested in higher risk portfolios would have naturally experienced even stronger outcomes. 

“This year’s result would build on the strong returns of 9.9% in CY23 and 11.4% in CY24, bringing total gains to about 33% over the past three years. While the calendar year performance often attracts the most attention at this time of year, it’s important to remember that long-term performance remains the key measure for super outcomes.”

The data also shows that the median growth fund has managed to exceed its 3.5 per cent returns target since the introduction of compulsory super in July 1992, maintaining consistently positive returns of eight per cent with a real return of 5.3 per cent p.a. given the annual CPI increase over the same period was 2.7 per cent.

Even considering just the last two decades – which have encompassed three major market downturns including the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2007 to 2009, COVID-19 in 2020, and rising interest rates in 2022 – super funds have still managed to generate returns of seven per cent per annum, well above their “typical” target.

“On the risk side, there have only been five negative years over the entire period, which translates to less than one year in every six,” Mohankumar said.

“Again, funds have done better than their typical long-term risk objective, which is one negative return in every five years, on average.”

According to Chant West’s data as of 30 November 2025 for the calendar year-to-date, the median all growth option returned 11.2 per cent, followed by high growth (9.8 per cent), growth (8.8 per cent), balanced (7.4 per cent) and conservative (6.1 per cent).

“For most of the time since compulsory super, the median growth fund has exceeded its return objective over rolling 10-year periods, which is a commonly used timeframe consistent with the long-term focus of super,” Chant West’s data said.

“The exceptions are two periods between mid-2008 and late-2017, when it fell behind. This is because of the devastating impact of the 16-month GFC period (end-October 2007 to end-February 2009) during which growth funds lost about 26% on average.”