Investment update to 30 April 2025
23 May 2025
Global markets faced renewed uncertainty in April 2025, as escalating trade tensions between the US and China led to increased volatility. Despite this, Brighter Super’s investment options remained competitive compared to peers, according to the latest SuperRatings survey1.
Many of our options, including Growth and Balanced, ranked in the top quartile of their SuperRatings categories over multiple timeframes. These results reflect the consistency of Brighter Super’s investment strategy through varying market conditions.
Focusing on long-term growth
By design, Australia’s superannuation system focuses on long-term growth. While market volatility can be unsettling, long-term trends show that markets recover from short-term economic shocks.
Brighter Super follows a long-term, diversified investment strategy designed to navigate market ups and downs and support steady growth. By allocating funds across a broad mix of asset classes, sectors, regions and investment managers, we aim to reduce risk and deliver strong, consistent returns over time.
Our message to members remains the same – stay calm, stay focused on your long-term goals, and trust in a strategy built to navigate uncertainty and deliver results over time.
For more guidance on navigating market volatility, explore our latest insights:
Performance of diversified investment options
The table below shows returns for Brighter Super’s diversified investment options for periods ended 30 April 20251.
| Investment option |
Returns for periods ended 30 April 20251 |
| 1 year |
3 years |
5 years |
7 years |
| Accumulation accounts |
| Growth |
8.97% |
8.61% |
10.70% |
9.31% |
| Balanced |
8.48% |
7.57% |
9.04% |
8.13% |
| MySuper |
8.65% |
7.13% |
8.00% |
6.59% |
| Indexed Balanced |
9.66% |
8.16% |
9.07% |
- |
| Conservative Balanced |
7.62% |
6.06% |
6.73% |
6.30% |
| Stable |
6.80% |
4.92% |
4.71% |
4.70% |
| Secure |
5.62% |
3.66% |
2.61% |
2.80% |
| Pension accounts |
| Growth |
9.81% |
9.57% |
11.97% |
10.45% |
| Balanced |
9.14% |
8.39% |
10.02% |
9.02% |
| Indexed Balanced |
10.43% |
9.11% |
10.18% |
|
| Conservative Balanced |
8.43% |
6.82% |
7.47% |
7.03% |
| Stable |
7.61% |
5.62% |
5.31% |
5.33% |
| Secure |
6.36% |
4.07% |
2.62% |
2.98% |
Consistent performance through changing markets
Despite ongoing global market volatility, Brighter Super’s diversified options have continued to deliver strong, competitive returns. According to the latest SuperRatings survey (April 2025), most of our diversified investment options ranked in the top-quartile over 3, 5 and 7 years ended 30 April 2025 2.
Our Growth and Balanced options maintained their high rankings in their respective SR50 Index (Accumulation) and SRP50 Index (Pension), which track Australia’s 50 largest super funds – as shown in the table below.
| Option |
Ranking in respective SuperRatings SR50 and SRP50 index2 |
| 3 years ended 30 April 2025 |
5 years ended 30 April 2025 |
7 years ended 30 April 2025 |
| Accumulation accounts |
| Growth |
2 |
6 |
1 |
| Balanced |
4 |
7 |
1 |
| Pension accounts |
| Growth |
2 |
5 |
1 |
| Balanced |
3 |
8 |
2 |
Brighter Super’s default MySuper option also performed strongly, achieving top-quartile returns in the SR50 MySuper Index for 3 years to 30 April 2025 (ranked 5th).
Looking back: global market trends in April 2025
Uncertainty about US trade policy surged globally in April 2025, with volatility rising in the face of new tariff announcements. Early in the month, the US announced a range of ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on its major trading partners. Tariff rates varied, with countries such as China and Vietnam facing much higher rates than other countries such as Australia.
By month end, escalating trade tensions between the US and China saw proposed tariffs between the two countries exceed 100%.
Share markets were initially volatile following the tariff announcements but recovered over the month after the US introduced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for countries who had not yet retaliated. The MSCI World (hedged into AUD) was down 0.4% over April, paring significant losses earlier in the month.
Share market volatility was most pronounced in the US, where the S&P500 returned -0.7% in April and was more than 10% down at one stage. After month end, the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady at 4.5%, referencing rising uncertainty in the economic outlook due to rising inflation and unemployment in April.
In Asia, both Chinese and Taiwanese share markets were weaker, weighed down by concerns about the high level of retaliatory tariffs. Concerns grew that a sharp drop in trade between China and the USA would impact China’s export-heavy economy.
After month end, a 90-day pause in retaliatory tariffs between China and the US was announced, bringing tariffs on Chinese imports closer to around 30%.
European shares were also weaker in April, driven by similar concerns about new US trade policies. Business activity indicators across services and manufacturing in the Eurozone weakened during the month.
Australian shares finished the month stronger, returning 3.6% in April and outperforming Developed Market equities. All sectors except Energy provided positive returns, with Real Estate Investment Trusts and Information Technology leading the gains. After a sharp 6% decline in April, consumer sentiment partially rebounded by 2.2% in May. However, surveys of business activity remained relatively subdued.
Australian bond returns were quite strong, returning 1.7% for the month. Global bond returns were also positive, returning 0.9%. While global bonds initially weakened following the announcement of tariffs in early April, they recovered as the month progressed. The Australian 10 year yield finished the month at 4.12%.
Most major currencies strengthened against the US dollar in April, including the Australian dollar, which gained 2.7%. However, the Australian dollar weakened against the currencies of most of its major trading partners.
- SuperRatings Fund Crediting Rate Survey, April 2025. Refer to superratings.com.au for further information about these results. The information is current as at the date of the SuperRatings Survey (released on 20 May 2025). Investment returns are only one factor to be considered when deciding whether to invest. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
Returns are based on daily unit pricing valuations and are net of external investment manager fees, net of taxes and gross of all Brighter Super administration fees for all performance periods.
- Brighter Super options referenced in this article were ranked in the following SuperRatings indices, as published in the SuperRatings Fund Crediting Rate Survey, April 2025: the Growth option is ranked in the SR50 Growth (77-90) Index for Accumulation accounts and the SRP50 Growth (77-90) Index for Pension accounts; the Balanced option is ranked in the SR50 Balanced (60-76) Index for Accumulation accounts and the SRP50 Balanced (60-76) Index for Pension accounts; the MySuper option is ranked in the SR50 MySuper Index.
