Meanwhile, in one of the most spectacular exhibitions of incompetence I have ever seen, we have a two-part comedy from Jane Hume, the minister irresponsible for superannuation. First, she and her cronies in the government brought in new rules for super funds, ostensibly designed to weed out the serial under-performers.
These compare the overall return of each fund to a benchmark, essentially the stock index, and (a) name and shame the lowest return funds, and (b) effectively bankrupt them by banning new members joining. It sounds good, yes? But not the way they have done it.
The ACTUAL effect of their brain-dead rule is to heavily penalise under-performance in any particular short-term period - and as any successful investor ever knows, you never, ever base your long-term investment decisions on short-term market trends. You can't, repeat can't, outperform the market and bring better 30-year returns to your members unless you are happy to tolerate short-term dips along the way.
Experts are unanimous in pointing out that following the mandated passive benchmarks will take super returns straight down the road to mediocrity, make trustees risk-averse, and make investment in long-term profitable ventures like infrastructure impossible.
So the result of these incredibly stupid new rules is that no super fund anywhere can afford to or will do anything other than what they are required by law to do in order to survive: hug the index closer than a drowning man hugs a lifebuoy. Yes, this means worse returns for fund members, in the case of the best funds, much worse, but the funds do not have any choice. It's the law.
But wait ... there is more....
Having perpetrated this horrendous and sustained blunder of a policy, Jane Hume came out yesterday telling super funds "don't hug the index".
Unbloodybelievable
See
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/super-t ... 118-p56fsc (subscription required)
Disclaimer: I don't have a dog in this fight. I run my own super fund for best return, and Jane Hume can go and stick her stupidity where the sun don't shine.