ANZ Default KiwiSaver Scheme Balanced Growth Fund

Performance is after the annual fund charge and before tax. Rates, fees and agreements.

• International shares had a stellar first quarter of the year, with several share markets in the US, Europe and Asia reaching record highs. The market continued to react enthusiastically to positive financial reports from many information technology and consumer services heavyweights, with the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) being a core theme for investors.
• In the US, the S&P 500 Index rose 10.6%, but the European and Japanese markets were standout performers. The Euro Stoxx 50 Index rose 12.8%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index rose 21.5%, helped by a revitalisation of its economy, which has been stuck in a deflationary spiral for the last decade.
  
• Meanwhile, international bond markets were unchanged, as expectations for early interest rate cuts were pushed back to later in the year given resilient economic data and signs of sticky inflation in some countries.
  
• New Zealand bonds also experienced volatility and ended the quarter lower. Initial weakness was driven by domestic employment data, which showed the labour market remained tight, therefore underpinning wage (and inflationary) pressures. However, bond prices rose in the latter stages of the quarter, after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand left interest rates unchanged and as economic growth data revealed the country fell into recession in the second half of last year.
  
• Although the fund delivered a positive return over the quarter, its tactical positioning held back performance, as it was overweight to weaker-performing bonds, and underweight to stronger-performing international shares.
  
• It was also a challenging period for our underlying international share managers, with three out of four of them underperforming the market. An underweight to the information technology and communications services sectors was particularly detrimental, given strong performances from some of the companies within these sectors. However, strong company selection within both our New Zealand share and international listed property holdings were positive factors.
  
• We maintain our underweight to international shares, and overweight to domestic and international fixed interest. This reflects our belief that the global economy will continue to slow in the coming months, dragged down by the flow-on effect of high interest rates. While the resilience of the US economic may mean it’s able to push out a recession – or avoid one altogether – our view is other regions will continue to slow, and so we remain defensively positioned.
  

The fund aims to achieve (after the fund charge and before tax) over the long term moderate to high returns, allowing for moderate to large ups and downs in value.

The graph below shows the value of a $1,000 investment made at the time the fund launched.

Performance is after the annual fund charge and before tax. Rates, fees and agreements.

The fund invests mainly in growth assets (equities, listed property and listed infrastructure), with some exposure to income assets (cash and cash equivalents and fixed interest). The fund may also invest in alternative assets.

This chart shows the mix of assets that the fund generally intends to invest in.