Balanced portfolios return 11% for 2023
In case you missed it, the average Canadian Pension Plan Balanced investment portfolio performance for the year ended 2023 was 11%.
According to RBC Investor Services Pooled Fund survey, 1-year performance for Canadian Pension Plans was 11% – a better result than the year ended 2022 where RBC reported average returns of -8.78%. Northern Trusts’ Universe of Canadian Pension Plans reported 1-year annual median returns of 10% – also a turnaround from the 1-year performance of -12.8% at the year end 2022. Longer term average returns similarly improved as well.
A snip of the 1-year returns for each of the last 10 years show that while the ‘simple’ average of returns is 6.99% … annual returns are rarely average.
These returns show the benefits of mimicing the broad and global diversification of Institutional Pension Plans. And, for the Individual Investor who may need a starting point in building and maintaining their own investment portfolio, the returns above can be approximated by mimicing the Pension investment Association of Canada’s (PIAC) composite average asset allocation.
The PIAC composite average aset allocation is updated each year around mid-year and will be posted here when available.
Doug Cronk CFA, PRM is a Pension Investment and Risk Management Officer
Institutional Investing for Individual Investors 