Aussie shares outshine in April: Morningstar


Australian shares surpassed international shares over April, with Australian listed property the standout for growth assets, the Morningstar Australian Institutional Survey has found.
The median Australian share manager saw a good month, with the S&P/ASX 300 Index rising 1.7 per cent in April, while the MSCI World ex-Australia NR Index rose 1 per cent.
Top performers in the sharemarket sector were energy (3.4 per cent), utilities (3.3 per cent), and consumer staples (3.1 per cent).
Australian listed property rose by an impressive 5.7 per cent, while global property increased by 3.6 per cent during this time.
The Australian property securities index added 2.6 per cent over the past year, with Zurich the best performer at 5.8 per cent.
But sectors like healthcare (-1.4 per cent), information technology (-0.2 per cent), and industrials (0.3 per cent) were not up to mark.
Longer-term annualised returns were 12.4 per cent over one year, 10.2 per cent over three years and 13 per cent over five years.
Top performers among Australian share strategies over the year to 30 April were Millinium (25.4 per cent), Wilson HTM (19.1 per cent) and Solaris High Alpha (18.9 per cent).
The international share strategy's return for the month was 0.8 per cent, below the mark by 0.2 per cent. Longer-term median returns were 32 per cent over the year and 15.6 per cent per annum over the three years to 30 April.
Morningstar also released the Australian Superannuation Survey, which said super funds made modest gains of 1 per cent in April.
Longer-term annualised median returns were 11.6 per cent over one year, 8.9 per cent over three years, and 10.1 per cent over five years, to 30 April.
REST Super Balanced finished on top among balanced options (10.9 per cent), followed by AMP Moderate Growth (9.1 per cent) and AMP Moderately Conservative (8.9 per cent).
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