How much super have you got floating around

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Permalink Reply by Manish Dev on July 24, 2008 at 12:54

In doing more research, I should also add that there are many companies out there who say that they will find your super for you. Beware that they charge you for this, so it may not be worth it.

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Permalink Reply by Warren on August 2, 2008 at 11:46

Hi Manish, this is great info! If anyone has lost super, please follow Manish's links.

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Permalink Reply by Bytta on July 30, 2008 at 21:31

Only have one super and mostly because i've only been in 2 jobs that involves supplying the employers my TFN.
Using industry super fund because of low fees and not too bad return.

i read this book about "our brain and money" that says investment return will go up and down but the only sure thing about super or managed fund is the fee.

Even with good return, a fund might end up with less than average return because of high fees.
And we should be careful about the method of calculating investment return.

For example, fund A claims that it has average return for 2 years of 20% and fee of 4%.
Fund B has an average return for 2 years of 10% and fee of 2%.

At a glance, fund A looks much more attractive. but let's see their backgrounds:

Fund A has a return of 80% during the first year and a dissapointing loss of 40% on the second year. Using the arithmetic mean or average, they can claim the average return is 20% (80% - 40%/2 = 20%).
If you invest $100 here, at the end of year 2, you will have $102 minus the fees.

On the other hand, if fund B is moving slowly but surely with 10% return on both years, you will end up with $121 minus the fees at the end of year 2.

I know Super should be a long term investment and over the years they will get better.

However, we should remember that higher return more often involves higher risk which means over the years there will be up and down. Aggressive funds have huge gap of returns and it can really eat away your capital. You'll need higher return in the next year only to break-even if your fund experiences loss this year.
More importantly, no matter what happens with your fund, the fees are the sure thing to happen.

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Permalink Reply by Miffy on July 30, 2008 at 23:49

This is true about fees, and I think the Govt has started looking into regulating fees on Super. Has anyone else heard anything about this?

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