Investments

Whatever your goals are for your super, an understanding of where your money is invested can make a difference to both your retirement balance and peace of mind.

How much your super returns is linked to the performance of various financial markets around the world. These include share, bond and property markets which perform differently to each other. Many move in cycles and some can be volatile but in all cases, future returns are unknown.

Not knowing what the future holds makes it difficult to decide where to invest.

To help members make these decisions most members can choose from a range of highly diversified investment options. Each option has an investment objective which gives an indication of what return you can expect and how often you may experience a negative return.

Bear in mind that the longer you invest, the more chance you have to recover from negative returns. For most, superannuation is a long term investment enabling you to weather the ups and downs of market volatility.

There are other ways you can keep informed about investments. The risks of investing is a good place to start. You can research the different asset classes (the building blocks for the investment options) and keep up to date with what’s happening in investment markets by checking out the monthly market commentary.

And finally, it’s important to continually monitor your investment choice, particularly when your circumstances change.