Plan for Life confirms struggling markets

The latest Plan for Life data has served to confirm market caution, revealing a relatively subdued March quarter and “a fairly flat year where underlying investment markets generally struggled to find any really sustained and solid direction”.

Of particular concern was an almost halving of cash trust business driven by the Government’s bank guarantee.

The Plan for Life data revealed that gross inflows grew by 7.8 per cent to $38 billion during the March quarter but noted that, year on year, they were down significantly by 22.4 per cent due mainly to a further halving of the remaining cash trust business during the year.

The data revealed that Mercer (8.2 per cent), AMP (3.6 per cent), Commonwealth/Colonial (2.6 per cent), BT (2.1 per cent) and National Australia Bank/MLC (1 per cent) were the only leading companies to report any growth, albeit modest to slight.

Looking at all retail managed funds, the Plan for Life data revealed a 1.9 per cent increase over the year and concluded “this result probably better sums up the actual performance of the retail managed funds market, as it excludes the effect of the continued exodus out of cash trusts”.

It said the cash trust business was almost halved during the year, down by 49.1 per cent as cash deposit type business continued to be moved into the banking system attracted by the Government guarantee.