Self-managed super savers favour the companies we love to hate

We may criticise them for their profit-making activities, but Aussie superannuation savers are very fond of telcos, bank and utility companies when it comes to investing.

CommSec’s SMSF Trading Trends Report, released today, looked at the investment habits of self-managed super fund owners over the first six months of the year, and found that they had hiked the amount they sank into stocks. The total value of trades was up 2 per cent on the final six months of 2016.

What didn’t change, though, was investors’ taste for Aussie blue chips, with ASX 200 stocks making up 60 percent of all SMSF trades. Investors were most likely to weight their portfolios more heavily towards telcos, banks, utilities and consumer stocks because of their dependable dividend returns.

Telstra and the Big Four banks were popular buys, while Woolworths and Rio Tinto were common sells. Transurban, CSL, Santos and the Commonwealth Bank were also popular purchases.

Investors may be regretting their first-half fondness for Telstra now, though.

The giant telco disappointed the stock market last month by reporting lacklustre growth for the quarter and saying it would cut future dividends. Further bad news came when the NBN Co., which is rolling out the nation’s new broadband network, dropped plans to pay Telstra to use some of the telco’s infrastructure as implemented the NBN.

Telstra shares are currently sitting around a five-year low, having dropped almost 15 percent just since the end of the first half, to close at $3.67 each on Friday.

Do you favour Australian blue-chip stocks for your super portfolio?