Gold vs Australian Industry Super Funds: What 17 Years of Data Shows

Ask most Australians when they last checked their super and you'll get a shrug. For a lot of people it's the biggest pool of money they own outside the family home, and it's sitting in an industry fund they barely look at.

I sell bullion for a living, so you'd expect me to say precious metals beat super. Instead of just saying it, I wanted to test it properly: the same amount of money, the same start date, and real returns from nine of Australia's biggest super funds compared with gold and silver.

Here's what 17 years of data shows, and why I think the next decade could look a lot like the 1970s.

The Test: $500,000 Invested on 1 July 2009

The scenario is simple. What if you'd put $500,000 into gold, silver or one of nine Australian super funds on 1 July 2009, and never added another dollar?

I picked that date for two reasons. It gives a long-term window of more than 17 years, and it's as far back as the fund-level data goes. The super fund figures come from APRA's Annual Fund-level Superannuation Statistics, so you can check them yourself.

If I'd wanted to cherry-pick, I would have started at the beginning of the gold bull market in 2000, the bottom of the gold bear market in 2015, or the breakout a couple of years ago. Starting in 2009 is a fair, long-run comparison.

How Australia's Industry Super Funds Performed

The best performer of the nine was UniSuper, which turned $500,000 into $2.05 million. That's an average return of 8.5% a year, or 4.1 times your money.

The worst was MLC, which only got to $1.51 million: 6.6% a year and just over 3 times the starting amount. The average across all nine funds finished at $1.81 million, about 7.8% a year, or 3.62 times your money.

For those playing at home, multiplying your money by 3.6 over 17 years might sound fine. Then you put gold on the same chart.

Gold Turned $500,000 Into $3.46 Million

The same $500,000 in gold would be worth $3.46 million today. That's an average of 11.9% a year and close to 7 times the original amount, without a single extra contribution.

Compared with the average super fund, that's around an extra $1.65 million at retirement. Not bad for a shiny rock sitting in a safe, whether that's at home or in professional vault storage.

Why Silver Lagged, and the Gold to Silver Ratio Swap

Anyone who follows my content knows I'm a bigger silver fan than gold. So did silver win? Not on its own. $500,000 in silver in 2009 would be worth $2.50 million today, behind gold.

That's exactly what I'd expect at this stage of the cycle. In a precious metals bull market, gold tends to run first and silver follows later, then runs further in percentage terms. In the first half of the move, gold outperforms, which is what we've seen.

That's where the gold to silver ratio comes in: how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. In early 2025 the ratio went above 100, and I was saying publicly that it was time to swap gold for silver. One of our own team swapped all of his personal gold at the time.

If you'd swapped your gold for silver when the ratio hit 100 in April 2025, your $500,000 would now be worth $4.86 million. That's 14.1% a year, almost 10 times your money, $1.4 million more than staying in gold and around $3 million more than the average super fund.

This is not financial advice. This is insight into what I do with my own money, not a recommendation for what you should do with yours, and past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

The Full Scoreboard

Here's every result side by side. All figures assume $500,000 invested on 1 July 2009, valued at 23 September 2026, with no extra contributions.

Why 2026 Is Starting to Look Like the 1970s

The obvious pushback is that 2009 is in the past. What matters is what happens from here. So let's take stock of where we are.

Interest rates are rising. Inflation is high and not going away. The share market looks overvalued, and so does Australian property. And with conflict in the Middle East, there's real pressure on oil prices. Is there a time in history when all of those things happened at once? Absolutely: the 1970s.

What's Actually Inside an Industry Super Fund

To understand how super funds might handle that kind of environment, you need to know what's in them. Take AustralianSuper, the biggest fund in the country. Here's its strategic asset allocation.

That's 55% in shares, Australian and international, plus almost 15% in fixed interest. Together, around 70% of your money is in shares and bonds, and those are exactly the two asset classes that struggled through the 1970s.

Shares and Bonds Struggled Through the 1970s

Australian shares in the 1970s were volatile and delivered modest nominal returns, and once you account for the high inflation of the decade, real returns were roughly flat or negative. That's the number that matters: not how far the dollar price rises, but how far it rises after inflation. The US share market told the same story, with high volatility, stagnant growth and severe stagflation.

Bonds were worse. They were nicknamed "certificates of confiscation" in the 1970s, because bond prices and bond yields move in opposite directions. When interest rates rise, bond prices fall, so a decade of rising rates is a decade of falling bond prices.

We've already had a taste of that. Since 2020, when interest rates were close to zero, US Treasury bond futures have fallen about 45% from their peak as yields have climbed.

Gold and Silver in the 1970s Bull Market

Now compare that with precious metals. From its September 1971 low to its January 1980 top, gold rose more than 2,000%. Silver started its run a little later, and from its October 1971 low to the top it rose over 3,400%. That's the same pattern we're seeing today: gold runs first, then silver goes further.

Then there's the ratio. Halfway through that bull market, in February 1975, the gold to silver ratio peaked above 40 to 1. By January 1980 it had collapsed to around 17 to 1. If you'd held gold from early 1971 and swapped it all for silver at that 1975 peak, you'd have more than doubled what gold alone delivered, finishing the decade with a return of more than 50 times your money.

Not bad for buying some shiny rocks, swapping them for other shiny rocks and sitting them in a safe. You can follow both metals and the ratio on our live metal charts.

Taking Back Control of Your Retirement

If you're comfortable with your industry super fund heading into a high-inflation, high-interest-rate environment, that's your call. But if, like me, you're unhappy with how super funds have performed and can see the writing on the wall, there's another path.

A self-managed super fund lets you hold physical gold bars and silver bars inside your super. I've written a step-by-step guide on how to invest in gold and silver through your SMSF, and our team can help you get the process started.

This is not financial, tax or legal advice. Moving your super is a big decision, so speak with a licensed adviser and an SMSF specialist about your own situation first.

What a time to be alive.

Sam from Liberty Bullion.