Susan
Edmunds, Money Correspondent
Volatile oil
prices have helped clean energy KiwiSaver funds shine in the
early months of this year.
Morningstar has released
its latest KiwiSaver survey, which shows the first quarter
of this year was a tough one for KiwiSaver funds, but over a
year they are still performing strongly.
Conservative
funds had a peer group return of -1 percent in the quarter
but returned 4.5 percent in the year. ASB had the strongest
return over the year, up 6.5 percent.
Default funds
were down 2.7 percent in the quarter and up 8.8 percent in a
year. Fisher Funds was the strongest default fund over a
year, at 10.1 percent.
Moderate funds were down 1.8
percent in the quarter but up 5.4 percent in the year. ASB
was top over one year, at 8.1 percent.
Balanced funds
were down 2.6 percent over three months but up 8.5 percent
over a year. Pie was first, up 12.3 percent over a
year.
Growth funds were down 3.5 percent in the
quarter and up 9 percent in a year. Pie was up 15.5 percent,
in first place.
Aggressive funds were down 4 percent
in the quarter and up 12.1 percent over 12 months. The
strongest aggressive result was Kernel’s High Growth, up
17.6 percent. That fund was also top over three years and
three months.
Over a 10-year period aggressive funds
have the highest return, at 8.9 percent per annum.
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But
Milford has the highest growth over 10 years in its active
growth fund, at 9.8 percent a year, a return that was equal
to the top aggressive fund, Booster.
Koura KiwiSaver
founder Rupert Carlyon said the report did not capture the
rebound at the end of the March quarter.
“The S&P
500 returned to a new record last week, which would have
dealt with most of it. The only stock market that’s not
doing well is actually New Zealand.”
He said markets
around the world had taken the view that conflict in Iran
did not really matter.
“To a certain extent, Jerome
Powell said that on Friday morning as well, when he gave a
speech when the US Fed announced it would keep rates on
hold.
“He said that the US consumer is still strong.
We would have expected consumer spending to weaken, but
we’ve seen no evidence of that… Oil
prices are high, but they’re only as high as where they
were back in 2022.
“We’re finding alternative
supplies. It’s kind of working. And we know Trump is
desperately looking
for an off-ramp.”
He said growth
in AI was also helping.
“The AI story has got so
much stronger in the last six to 12 weeks following the
launch of Claude Code.”
He said a global recession had
been forecast four times since 2020 and had never
happened.
“So that’s my very long way of saying, do we
expect it to be another double-digit year? Probably not. But
is there a reason why markets are about to fall another 10,
20 percent? Not really.”
The top fund over a year was
Kernel’s Global Clean Energy Fund with 87.9 percent. Over
three months that fund was up 16.8 percent. Koura’s was up
59.3 percent over a year.
Carlyon said that had been
something that people had written off in the past.
“It
was one of the few positive funds over the last quarter. And
the reason for that’s pretty simple, right?
“Clean
energy goes into data centres, a lot of semiconductors, a
lot of that technology base and rare earth metals and all of
that.”
Kernel founder Dean Anderson was celebrating
Kernel’s strong results in the latest update.
“That’s
the pay-off of a data-led, low-fee, index-based approach
showing up in the numbers KiwiSaver’s actually care about.
Fair to say, Kernel is shaking things up and we’re very
proud of the outcomes we’ve been providing
investors.”
He said rising oil prices had helped the
clean energy fund.
“Every spike in fossil fuel prices
strengthens the economic case for solar, wind and storage.
[It’s] worth noting it’s a thematic fund and a small slice
of what we do, less than 1 percent of Kernel’s [funds under
management]. Most of our KiwiSaver members sit in the
diversified funds, which is exactly how it should be,
despite the fact Kernel does offer the ability to fully
personalise your KiwiSaver with us.”
Koura’s bitcoin
fund was bottom of the table, down 21.8 percent in the
quarter and 18.9 percent over a year. Its results tend to be
very volatile as the currency moves in
value.
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