The tipsy-topsy world of recent KiwiSaver performance

For example, ASB's Positive Impact fund was the best performing balanced KiwiSaver fund in the quarter with an 8.1% return, but it was the worst performer out of 17 funds over calendar 2023 with an 8.3% return and the worst performer over three years with a negative 1.2% annual return.

The fund hasn't been going long enough to record five or 10-year returns.

In sharp contrast, Milford's balanced fund was the worst performer in the quarter with a 4.8% return and the second-worst performer over calendar 2023 with a 9.1% return, but it was the best performer over three years with a 4.7% annual return, over five years with an 8.3% annual return and over 10 years with an 8.6% annual return.

MJW noted that because KiwiSaver is a long-term savings vehicle, “one should not put too much weight on the short-term results.”

It also cautioned that past performance “is not a perfect predictor of future results.”

And it reminded investors that performance tends to come in cycles.

The best performing growth fund in the latest quarter was ANZ's with a 7.5% return, but it was third-worst out of 15 funds over 2023 with a 12.7% return, seventh-best out of 15 over the three years with a 3.6% annual return and fifth best out of 15 over five years with an 8.4% annual return.

Milford's growth fund fared relatively poorly over three months, ranking eighth out of 15 funds with a 6.7% return, and was also eighth over 2023 with a 13.7% return, but it was the best performer over three, five and 10 years with annual returns of 7.4%, 10.6% and 10.4% respectively.

Among conservative funds, Kiwi Wealth's conservative fund was the best performer over both the latest quarter and 2023 with returns of 6% and 10.5% respectively and fifth out of 18 funds over three years with an 0.8% annual return and third over five years with a 3.8% annual return. It ranked sixth out of 13 funds over 10 years with a 4.3% annual return.

Kiwi Wealth's default conservative fund was twelfth out of 18 funds in the December quarter with a 5.2% return but second over 2023 with a 10.5% return, but it ranked number one over both three and five years with respective annual returns of 2.1% and 4%.

Kiwi Wealth is now owned by Fisher Funds which plans to merge its funds into existing Fisher products.

Milford's conservative fund was the best performer over 10 years with a 5.9% annual return, but ranked seventeenth out of 18 funds over the December quarter with a 4.2% return.

The worst performing conservative fund in the latest quarter was BNZ's first-home buyer product with a 3.5% return and it ranked seventeenth out of 18 over 2023 but was second best over three years with 1.6% annual returns.

Over five years, AMP's defensive conservative fund was the worst performer with 2.5% annual returns while AMP's conservative fund was worst out of 13 funds over 10 years with 3.3% annual returns.