The best low cost balanced fund is..
Super provider: HostPlus
Fund option: Indexed Balanced
Fund details
| Administration fee | $78 per year |
| Fund Management Fees | 0.04% |
| Growth/Defensive split | 75/25 |
| Funds under management (FUM) | $15 billion |
| Total members | 1 million |
| Who can join? | Generally, anyone can join HOSTPLUS |
| Entry fee, exit fee, contribution fee, withdrawal fee, rollover fee and employer fee. | Nil |
| Buy – sell spread | Nil |
Why the Indexed Balanced Option?
Lowest fees wins
Just because a fund manager charges more in fees does not ensure they provide better performance over the long term. In fact exactly the opposite has been shown to be the case after fees and costs are taken into account. "Jim Minifie" job_title="Super sting: how to stop Australians paying too much for superannuation" company_name="Grattan Institute" url="http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/811-super-sting.pdf"
Why choose an index fund over a managed fund?
Managed Fund
A managed fund is managed by a human fund manager. That is, a person chooses which stocks should make up the fund and when to buy and sell these stocks. The fund manager charges a fees of usually between 0.5% and 2% of your total fund size.
Index Fund
An index fund is managed automatically using an index rule and does not require a person to choose the stocks. For example the ASX 200 index is made up of the 200 biggest companies on the Australian stock exchange. As index fund simply tracks an index there is no fund manager to pay, so their fees are usually much lower than managed funds, typically around 0.1 to 0.5%.
**Studies have shown that over 80% of fund managers fail to beat the equivalent index fund over the long term after deducting their fees. For this reason I think you will likely do better by simply following an index using an index tracking fund rather than a high fee charging managed fund.
Small difference in fees, big difference in retirement
| Average Super Fund | Index Balanced option from HostPlus | |
| Fees | 1.2% | 0.04% + $78 per year |
| Cost of fees | $286,294 | $21,649 |
| Estimated balance at retirement age 67 | $900,904 | $1,165,549 |
For Brett who earns $60,000 a year, switching his super to HostPlus Indexed Balanced will save him
$264,645
by the time he retires.