Morningstar Releases KiwiSaver Performance Survey

Morningstar Releases KiwiSaver Performance Survey

Morningstar today released its KiwiSaver Performance Survey to 31 December 2011, designed to help New Zealand investors assess the performance of KiwiSaver superannuation options.

"2011 will be remembered for significant market volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and natural disasters," said Morningstar Co-Head of Fund Research Chris Douglas. "But despite these dramatic events, most investment markets either posted gains or were down only marginally over the year. This means that many KiwiSaver investors will have finished the year in more than reasonable shape."

Our KiwiSaver survey has a new look and feel from this quarter. The front page now provides a useful snapshot and some key performance statistics for the default KiwiSaver schemes and the sector overall.

Morningstar's KiwiSaver database is free for all fund managers to join, and this survey is made freely available to investors and financial services professionals alike.

Other Key Findings
• A very strong October resulted in growth assets largely outperforming income assets over the December quarter, although only marginally.
• Fidelity Kiwisaver, ASB KiwiSaver, and FC KiwiSaver Tracker were among the best-performing KiwiSaver providers during the fourth quarter of 2011. This was a reversal from the September 2011 quarter, when they were among the worst.
• The OnePath, SIL KiwiSaver, and Aon KiwiSaver options deserve mention for consistency in returns across the various multi-sector categories over the past four years.
• Milford Aggressive remains the best-performing single-sector KiwiSaver option over the past four years, and the best-performing KiwiSaver fund overall.
• We will be moving to publish a Total Expense Ratio to replace Estimated Total Fees from the March 2012 quarter. We have already collected this from the six default providers as well as Fisher Funds and Westpac, and believe that this will provide a better representation of the true cost for investors.

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