Investment update to 31 March 2025
24 April 2025
In March 2025, global markets weakened amid uncertainty over new US economic policies. Despite the volatility, Brighter Super’s diversified portfolio remained resilient, continuing to deliver competitive returns for members.
Superannuation is designed for long-term growth, and while short-term market movements can be unsettling, history shows that markets recover from policy and economic shifts.
Brighter Super takes a diversified, long-term approach to investing. We spread investments across a broad mix of asset classes, sectors, regions and fund managers to reduce risk and smooth returns over time. This helps reduce the impact of market swings while supporting steady, long-term growth.
Our guidance remains clear: stay calm, stay the course, and trust in a strategy designed to weather uncertainty and deliver over the long term.
Read our latest articles for guidance on navigating market volatility:
You can also watch a recording of our Market Update Webinar on 15 April 2025, featuring insights from Chief Investment Officer Mark Rider.
How our diversified options performed
Below are the returns for Brighter Super’s diversified investment options for periods ended 31 March 20251.
| Investment option |
Returns for periods ended 31 March 20251 |
| 1 year |
3 years |
5 years |
7 years |
| Accumulation accounts |
| Growth |
5.14% |
7.84% |
11.32% |
9.64% |
| Balanced |
4.92% |
6.80% |
9.45% |
8.41% |
| MySuper |
5.88% |
6.58% |
8.23% |
6.72% |
| Indexed Balanced |
6.19% |
7.36% |
9.78% |
- |
| Conservative Balanced |
4.48% |
5.29% |
6.94% |
6.45% |
| Stable |
4.12% |
4.16% |
4.86% |
4.75% |
| Secure |
3.44% |
3.42% |
2.42% |
2.72% |
| Pension accounts |
| Growth |
5.56% |
8.71% |
12.73% |
10.82% |
| Balanced |
5.18% |
7.55% |
10.59% |
9.33% |
| Indexed Balanced |
6.53% |
8.10% |
11.01% |
- |
| Conservative Balanced |
4.92% |
5.97% |
7.79% |
7.21% |
| Stable |
4.59% |
4.78% |
5.52% |
5.40% |
| Secure |
3.91% |
3.74% |
2.40% |
2.88% |
High rankings in a volatile market
Despite ongoing volatility in global markets, Brighter Super’s diversified portfolio continues to deliver strong, competitive returns for our members.
According to the latest SuperRatings survey (March 2025), the majority of Brighter Super's diversified investment options delivered top quartile returns over 3, 5 and 7 years ended 31 March 20252.
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
31 March 2025 |
5 years ended
31 March 2025 |
7 years ended
31 March 2025 |
| Growth (Accumulation) |
2 |
9 |
1 |
| Growth (Pension) |
2 |
5 |
1 |
| Balanced (Accumulation) |
5 |
8 |
1 |
| Balanced (Pension) |
4 |
6 |
2 |
Brighter Super’s default MySuper option delivered top quartile returns for 3 years to 31 March 2025, climbing to #2 in the SR50 MySuper Index.
Looking back: global market trends in March 2025
Markets grew increasingly worried about the impact of new US economic policies during March 2025, with share markets generally weaker during the month. The MSCI World (hedged into AUD) returned -5% over March.
The S&P 500 underperformed Developed Market shares in March 2025, returning -5.6%.
The US Federal Reserve held rates steady at 4.5% and marginally lowered its expectation for economic growth for the year.
In Asia, there was reasonable dispersion across major share market performance. While Chinese shares delivered a 2% return (in local currency), Taiwanese equities were materially weaker, returning -10.4%. Concerns about semiconductor maker TSMC were the key driver, as the potential impact of tariffs weighed on investor sentiment.
European shares generally outperformed the US market for the second consecutive month, including returns for major European indices (UK, Germany, France). The European Central Bank reduced key interest rates by 0.25%, reflecting ongoing progress in bringing inflation back to target.
Australian shares returned -3.3% in March, although they did outperform Global Developed Markets on a relative basis. All sectors delivered negative returns, except for Utilities (1.5%). The worst-performing sector was Information Technology, returning -9.1%. The release of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for the December 2024 quarter showed that GDP growth had improved and the ‘per capita recession’ had ended.
Australian and Overseas bond performances were fairly flat, returning 0.2% and -0.4% respectively. Despite some volatility, yields on Australian and US 10 year bonds moved slightly during the month. US bond yields dropped more materially over the previous quarter, possibly due to growing uncertainty about the US economic outlook.
The Australian dollar changed little against the US dollar over the month, returning 0.2%. Other major currencies, particularly the euro, strengthened against the US dollar. However, the Australian dollar lost ground against most of its other major trading partners.
- SuperRatings Fund Crediting Rate Survey, March 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 22 April 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, March 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.
