Spotlight: InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio

Find out who the InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio suits, the fees it charges, how it has performed and how it stacks up against its peers.

By InvestSMART · 27 Mar 2025

By InvestSMART ·
27 Mar 2025 · 5 min read

It's been a decade since InvestSMART launched our first investment portfolios. The Balanced Portfolio was the fourth of our diversified portfolios to hit the market, making its debut on 29 December 2014. Here's what you need to know.

About the InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio

The Balanced Portfolio invests in a portfolio of five to 15 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that provide a mix of regular income plus the potential for capital growth through equities, property and infrastructure assets.

It is best suited to Aussies saving for medium to long-term goals, including school education expenses, as the minimum suggested investment timeframe is three to five years.

Here are a few quick facts about the Balanced Portfolio:

Inception date: 29 December 2014
Suggested timeframe: 3-5 years
Risk: Medium to High
Minimum initial investment: $10,000
Management fee: 0.44% p.a. capped at $880 p.a.
Admin fee: 0.11% p.a. includes buy-side brokerage costs.
Benchmark Index: Morningstar® Australia Balanced Target Allocation NR AUD

Where does the InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio invest?

The Balanced Portfolio has a pretty even mix of growth assets (49.75%) and defensive (50.25%). The growth assets are split between international equities (27%), Australian equities (17.45%) and property and infrastructure (5.3%) as at 28 February 2025. The Portfolio also has 38.75% invested in fixed interest and 11.5% in cash.

The ETFs that InvestSMART currently includes in the Balanced Portfolio are:

Some of the top underlying ETF holdings include Commonwealth Bank, Goodman Group, BHP, Apple, NVIDIA and Microsoft.

What are the fees?

InvestSMART's annual management fee is 0.44%, which equates to $44 per year on a $10,000 investment (the minimum). The management fee is capped at $880 per year for balances of $200,000 or more.

There is a flat admin fee of 0.11% per year, which includes all buy-side brokerage costs. This means you won't pay extra when you invest or add funds. Brokerage fees apply to sell transactions (including rebalances). Brokerage costs are $4.40 per trade or 0.088% of the value of the trade (whichever is higher) and are paid entirely to a third-party broker.

There are also indirect costs charged by the underlying ETFs. For the Balanced Portfolio this is estimated to be 0.15% a year.

How has the InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio performed?

The Balanced Portfolio has provided a solid return for investors, averaging 5.59% a year since its inception in December 2014. So what does that mean in dollar terms? Well, if you had invested $10,000 in the Balanced Portfolio when it first launched, your investment would have been worth $17,577 at the end of February 2025.

InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio performance

	1 yr	3 yrs p.a.	5 yrs p.a.	SI p.a.¹
Capital return	5.98%	2.93%	2.41%	2.97%
Income return	3.37%	2.94%	2.80%	2.62%
Total return	9.35%	5.87%	5.21%	5.59%

Returns to 28 February 2025. ¹Since inception on 29 December 2014.

How does the InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio compare to its peers?

The Balanced Portfolio has outperformed the majority of its peers both over the short and long term. As you can see from the table below, the Balanced Portfolio has returned 5.21% p.a. over five years. The average annualised returns of the peer funds in this category was 4.19% over that same period.

Balanced Portfolio performance vs peers

	1 yr	3 yrs p.a.	5 yrs p.a.	SI p.a.¹
Balanced Portfolio	9.35%	5.87%	5.21%	5.59%
Average of peers	8.90%	5.17%	4.19%	3.87%
Excess to peers	0.45%	0.70%	1.02%	1.72%

Returns to 28 February 2025. ¹Since inception on 29 December 2014.

With a flat admin fee of 0.11% a year and a management fee of 0.44% per year (capped at $880 per year), the Balanced Portfolio's annual fee is lower than the average fee of its peer funds, which is sitting at 0.97% a year at the time of writing.

Key takeouts

The InvestSMART Balanced Portfolio is a great option if you are saving for the medium to long term and are comfortable with a degree of volatility as there's roughly a 50% allocation to growth assets.

The fees are very competitive and the portfolio's long-term returns have been strong, with the portfolio outperforming the majority of its peers over one, three and five years as well as since its inception a little more than 10 years ago.