Many super fund members must be wondering if their annual reports due soon will show a big loss in 2020. In fact most did not, though it depends on how each fund was invested.

According to investment research firm Lonsec the average conservative fund with up to 30 per cent shares and property and the rest of its money in cash and fixed interest made 1.9 per cent before tax.

Tax will have been small so fund members can expect a positive return of around 1.5 per cent for the financial year.

Investors whose super fund held half shares and property for growth and half defensive assets made 1 per cent pre-tax and should still have positive post-tax.

The typical default super fund for members who haven't made a choice has around 70 per cent growth assets and 30 per cent defensive.

These funds averaged minus 0.3 per cent for the year pre-tax according to Lonsec.

The post-tax net return should be a loss of under 1.0 per cent.

It's disappointing for super fund members to have a year of little or no return, but at least the big loss in the final quarter was offset by gains in the first three quarters.

Looking at specific investment sectors we see more variation in returns.

Australian shares as measured by the All Ordinaries Total Return Index (includes dividends) lost 7.2 per cent.

However financial shares such as the big banks lost 21 per cent.

Conversely investors in healthcare stocks made gains of 27 per cent.

Basic consumer staples companies showed a 12 per cent profit for the year and information technology stocks made almost 20 per cent.

Overseas shares did better than Australian shares once again, a repeating pattern recently.

The MSCI average return from international shares including dividends was 4.9 per cent. Countries recording gains included the US where the S&P 500 earned 5.4 per cent, Japan and China.

Britain and Hong Kong's share markets went backwards, while the German market recorded a break-even result.

Property based investments on the Australian stock market were some of the bigger losers. On average they shed about 20 per cent.

However commercial property not traded on the share market reported average returns of plus 12 per cent.

It was a disappointing year but not as bad as some may have thought.

Fortunately this year the economy and financial markets should continue to recover from the virus impact with major support from governments and central banks.