Did your super fund protect your savings during the crash?
See what we did to protect client capital during this turbulent period
Our Tactical Growth fund was positioned for a fall in the markets since late January. It blends Australian and International shares, Cash and Bonds
“Chantwest is a research, data insights and technology company, providing a suite of data analytics to super funds and individuals, so they can compare super and pension products on an ‘apples with apples’ basis.” Performance figures are sourced from their monthly fund performance surveys
Past performance is not an indication of future performance.
Our Tactical Growth fund was positioned for a fall in the markets since late January. It blends Australian and International shares, Cash and Bonds
“Chantwest is a research, data insights and technology company, providing a suite of data analytics to super funds and individuals, so they can compare super and pension products on an ‘apples with apples’ basis.” Performance figures are sourced from their monthly fund performance surveys
Past performance is not an indication of future performance.
This performance is no accident. We’ve been following COVID-19 and the potential market impacts intently since there were only a few hundred cases in China during early January.
This resulted in Head of Investments Damien Klassen being featured in a Fund Manager Q&A with Livewire Markets focused on Nucleus “Calling the crash” in January when there were just 400 cases. Livewire note what’s happened since:
“In just 9 weeks, those 400 cases have exploded to over 400,000 cases and nearly 20,000 deaths globally, leading to economic disruptions that have decimated markets worldwide and unleashed extreme levels of volatility”
Our portfolios only hold high quality, liquid listed assets; limited to blue chip International and Australian stocks, cash and government bonds.
We target high quality stocks to reduce risk. We use only the MSCI World Index (top 1600 companies worldwide) and the top 60-70 Australian shares.
We are dedicated to full transparency and provide:
Information on every company you own and why it is in your portfolio.
Detailed dashboards showing how your portfolio is positioned.
Access to clear performance & fee data any time.
A detailed performance report each monthly.
Our investment structure provides independent custodians, trustees and, unlike traditional super funds, ensures your tax situation is not affected by the trading of other investors.
All client capital is held and maintained by our Separately Managed Account provider, Praemium, who is backed by JPMorgan and HSBC, two of the biggest global banks. Cash management is backed by ANZ bank.
We believe the decision of what your super supports in should be in your hands.
We offer 29 different Ethical screens for you to select what to exclude from the portfolio that can be altered at any time.
Unlike other super funds where the fund manager makes that decision for you, with Nucleus Super you’re only excluding stocks that you don’t wish to support.
1. Create your account
2. Complete the ethical screen, selecting any categories (such as Fossil Fuels or Tobacco) you wish to exclude from your portfolio
3. Fill out our short risk profile questionnaire, this helps us provide a recommendation on how we would invest for a client with your risk appetite
4. Review the portfolio and make any changes before finalising the account and beginning a super rollover
Account fees are typically around 1% p.a, consisting of:
Gone are the days of having to manually adjust or de-risk your portfolio for market conditions
In our 4 Tactical portfolios the amount of Cash, Bonds and Shares in each portfolio is adjusted by Nucleus Wealth to take advantage of global macroeconomic themes and to help protect the portfolio during volatile market conditions
If you wish to, you can adjust which portfolios you invest in at any time
Our investment structure provides independent custodians, trustees and, unlike traditional super funds, ensures your tax situation is not affected by the trading of other investors.
All client capital is held and maintained by our Separately Managed Account provider, Praemium, who is backed by JPMorgan and HSBC, two of the biggest global banks. Cash management is backed by ANZ bank.
These portfolios feature "Tactical Asset Allocation", meaning the amount of Cash, Bonds and Shares in each portfolio is adjusted by Nucleus Wealth to take advantage of global economic themes and help protect the portfolio during volatile market conditions
Through our onboarding portal you can select any of the portfolios, a blend of several, or receive a recommendation of an appropriate blend for you using our free online advice tool
High growth portfolio for investors who are comfortable with higher levels of volatility and have a longer investment timeframe
1 Year 17.0% p.a |
5 Year 5.9% p.a |
Inception 7.6% p.a |
Past performance is not an indication of future performance. The above returns are per annum, as of January 31st 2025 and after investment fees (of 0.64%) but before administration fees (variable, available on our client portal and FAQs). Inception returns are per annum from 31 July 2017. You can view our full performance reports here.
Fund profile | Get started |
Conservative portfolio for investors who do not have an income requirement
1 Year 9.0% p.a |
5 Year 1.5% p.a |
Inception 3.1% p.a |
Past performance is not an indication of future performance. The above returns are per annum, as of January 31st 2025 and after investment fees (of 0.64%) but before administration fees (variable, available on our client portal and FAQs). Inception returns are per annum from 31 July 2017. You can view our full performance reports here.
Fund profile | Get started |
High growth portfolio for investors who are comfortable with higher levels of volatility and have a longer investment timeframe
1 Year 17.0% p.a |
5 Year 5.9% p.a |
Inception 7.6% p.a |
Past performance is not an indication of future performance. The above returns are per annum, as of January 31st 2025 and after investment fees (of 0.64%) but before administration fees (variable, available on our client portal and FAQs). Inception returns are per annum from 31 July 2017. You can view our full performance reports here.
Fund profile | Get started |
We use Nucleus Wealth because of its ethical standards and good performance. We are entirely satisfied with its structures and communicative process
Charles / 75+ years old
Nucleus Wealth was very easy to use, the support team is great and happy to answer any questions. They exceeded expectations and I would recommend their service.
Virginnia / 46-55 years old
Fund performance was excellent during challenging conidtions. For me it was an excellent alternative to most domestic (AU) investment options such as ASX, and as such really helped to diversify internationally and minimise risk. Staff have been easy to communicate with. I was also pleased to make use of the ethical & environmental filters.
Dave / 36-45 years old
The Nucleus Wealth offering from risk profile assessment and platform asset management is incredibly easy to use. The customer support is responsive, informative, polite and caters to a wide group of investor experience. The service overall has exceeded my expectations and prove the benefits of an active fund manager in these uncetain times.
David / 36-45 years old
Nucleus Wealth offer a great product with outstanding dashboard tools that allow investors to drill all the way down into their investment and view each holding. Great customer support. Strongly recommend.
Richard / 25-35 years old
Nuclear Wealth aligns well with my investment thesis, had great customer service and communicate often through interestomg podcasts
Jason / 36-45 years old
The team has been very helpful and accommodating with my needs. Have recommended it to friends
Jarek / 36-45 years old
Nucleus Wealth was relatively easy to use. The customer support options were quite good. Nucleus Wealth’s service generally met my expectations. I would definitely recommend it to friends.
Patrick / 46-55 years old
Nucleus Wealth was easy to use, though charting options were not straight forward. The customer support was excellent. I would definitely recommend it to friends.
Russel / 25-35 years old
Ethical investing is frankly confusing. There are plenty of good products, but also a number of products whose promoters may not be as ethical as the stocks they invest in…
For Nucleus Wealth’s Head of Investments Damien Klassen, there are three key issues:
For a broader overview of ethical investing, including how much performance will be affected, see the full ethical investing blog post and webinar.
How are the stocks chosen
There are three different approaches that different ethical funds use to select stocks:
- Positive ethical investing: This involves finding companies that are actively contributing to causes that you feel strongly about. It might mean investing in a solar manufacturer, a biotech with a potential cure for cancer or an electric car manufacturer.
- Negative screening: This involves excluding companies that do not meet ethical standards. It may mean not investing in any companies that are involved in tobacco, that produce carbon or that make weapons.
- Best of breed: This involves ranking companies on a range of metrics and excluding those that don’t meet particular standards. For example, a carbon/global warming strategy may exclude companies involved in brown coal or tar sands (generally considered the most polluting) but include companies that produce natural gas as it pollutes less.
Positive investing is difficult – finding stocks that are good quality and cheap is hard enough. If you find a stock with very positive ethical characteristics that is only average quality and the stock is very expensive should you buy it anyway, expecting a poor return?
Negative screening needs to be customised, which makes investing in an ethical fund difficult. One investor may think that tobacco is a terrible additive product but gambling is an individual’s choice. Another investor may have exactly the opposite view.
Best of breed can be similarly problematic. If you don’t want exposure to fossil fuels, then holding a gas producer with the view that it is “the least damaging, and it is cheap and so I think I can profit from it” can seem hypocritical.
Nucleus: At my fund, we decided that the best result for our investors would be to incorporate corporate governance screens into our stock selection process, and then to allow investors to add negative screens that customise the ethics to investors own views.
This is possible as we run managed accounts, but is something that you wouldn’t be able to do if you invested in a traditional managed fund.
In these funds, we make the decision when and what mix of Australian shares, International shares, cash or bonds to invest in.
There are three sub-funds, and typically we will blend all three of these funds for you so that you get a mix of assets appropriate for your income needs and your risk preference:
This is a fund for investors with lower balances. It aims to provide investors with an introduction to the benefits of individual share ownership through a separately managed account, whilst still ensuring investors maintain a reasonable share parcel size.
We again make the decision when and what mix to buy of Australian shares, International shares, cash or bonds.
Due to the lower balances though, direct international share ownership is not feasible and so this model achieves this through an individual Australian share portfolio, a selection of International exchange traded funds, and defensive holdings in bonds and cash.
These are “carve outs” of the Australian or International parts of the above portfolios.
They are a core holding, designed to have exposure to the large capitalisation part of the Australian or International market. Its intended for investors who wish to do their own asset allocation, and can use this fund to get exposure to higher quality and cheaper stocks in the Australian market.
The funds maintain minimal cash balances – i.e. the tactical funds above will reduce share weights when stock markets are expensive or risky, whereas this fund will remain fully invested. It is up to the investor to manage the asset allocation when buying this fund.
For more information, click here for our product page.
We offer a range of transparency options:
A company profile on each company you own showing where it sits on our metrics and why it is in your portfolio
Detailed dashboards showing how your portfolio is positioned
24×7 access to performance and fee data
A weekly podcast/webinar where you can ask questions
We write up a detailed performance report each month, with a focus on current positioning and what we expect from markets
We also write blog posts frequently about markets
You are welcome to call us or book a meeting if you have any questions not answered by the above.
Whilst engaging professionals to look after any part of your life is going to cost money, it should not mean the difference between a great and a less than ideal retirement. At Nucleus, we strive to keep costs low by cutting out the many middlemen that reside in most of the current investment options available today.
If you choose to invest with Nucleus there are three fees that are charged:
Brokerage Costs. We have secured very low-cost brokerage.
Costs are important.
Our mission is to provide a technology-based investment solution that delivers portfolio tailoring, transparency and world-class investment research to our clients whilst sharing the cost efficiencies that come with not needing a branch on every corner.
As an investor with Nucleus, you only pay the costs associated with your account, not for the managed pool as found in other alternatives, and take advantage of the minimised worldwide brokerage and administration costs that come with using a platform that is not owned by a large institution.
When you apply, we provide a full breakdown of the costs for your investment.