Danish pension provider PFA has seen a “significant” return of 11.8 per cent in the first nine months of 2024.

This return level is approaching the same level as 2023, when it ended at 12.1 per cent. The provider credited this to the first nine months of the year having strong tailwinds in the stock markets, which have reached new record levels in the US.

PFA said that, at the same time, central banks have started to lower interest rates, which has lifted the yield on bonds. It suggested that this can be felt in PFA's return on investment, where all the company's profiles are on their way to delivering returns at the same level as in 2023.

Commenting, PFA investment director, Kasper Lorenzen, said: "I am pleased that we have continued the good pace from 2023 and again in 2024 delivered some of the best returns in the industry to our customers.

“Combined for 2023 and 2024, a typical PFA customer has now achieved a return of 25.3 per cent. This gives a significant boost to pension savings - and thus to security in retirement.

He added that PFA's climate-focused savings product, PFA Climate Plus, has also performed well in 2024 and delivered a return virtually identical to the return on PFA's regular PFA Plus product.

"Our shares have returned 17.3 percent. This is a good result and is partly due to the fact that we have benefited from the progress in the US stock market, where we already increased our exposure in 2023,” Lorenzen continued.

“Zooming in on our risk management, we reduced our equity overweight in early summer, and then again increased our exposure to the broad US stock market at the end of the summer.

“This has been an advantage during the summer's stock market turmoil and in the past month when returns have had more legs to walk on and are no longer so heavily concentrated in the big tech giants."

He said he was predominantly optimistic about the rest of the year, suggesting that the final result for the year will depend, among other things, on developments in the United States, where the presidential election campaign could increase “turmoil” in the financial markets.

“Normally, political elections do not have much of an impact on the financial markets, although election years have historically been good for returns - and
especially in the period after the winner has been found,” he continued.

“If this holds true, 2024 could end up as another really good investment year.”

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