Despite the Coronavirus pandemic, and the associated global recession, 2020 has proven a bumper year for Tesla. The company’s share price has more than doubled in the last six months, reaching just over $1000 US per share in June.

There’s a good chance your super balance benefited from that remarkable run. At Catholic Super we invest in the world’s leading tech stocks on our members’ behalf, including Tesla. Which means you may own a small piece of the company if you’re invested in our overseas shares option or growth driven diversified options.

Tesla may be the highlight, but we hold significant technology investments on our members behalf, and their collective share price performance has been excellent over recent times. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google are collectively referred to as ‘FANG’ stocks - (F)acebook, (A)apple / Amazon, (N)etflix, (G)oogle - and have been shaping how we live our everyday lives for several years. In the process (and joined by the fund’s investment in Tesla and Microsoft), they’ve helped drive the strong investment returns for our members.

FANGs versus BATs

While Apple and other FANGs are US-based, they face stiff competition in the global tech stakes from China’s BATs. (B)aidu, (A)libaba and (T)encent may not be household names in Australia, but they deserve to be on investors’ radars because they are a dominant market force not just in China but increasingly elsewhere else as well.

As our Top Holdings page shows, we are invested in a range of overseas shares, and Alibaba is among them.

Hong Kong-listed Tencent Holdings is known as China’s equivalent of Facebook. Tencent was the first Asian company to reach the US$500 billion stock market valuation mark. It’s WeChat social media platform has over one billion members and it’s also involved in online gaming, music, e-commerce and smartphones.

Alibaba (China’s Amazon plus eBay) is the world’s biggest retailer. It’s New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing in 2014 was the world’s biggest and this year it became the second Asian company to be valued at more than US$500 billion.

Baidu (China’s Google) is the second most widely used search engine in the world. It’s also moving into mapping, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. And these are just the biggest of many emerging Chinese tech stocks.

Bigger doesn’t always mean better

The tech giants are also beginning to expand into new business areas such as cloud storage, music and video streaming. Some are also growing by buying other companies, with Facebook buying WhatsApp and Microsoft buying LinkedIn.

But bigger doesn’t always mean better. Facebook has seen user numbers flat-lining in recent years and has faced public scrutiny about privacy issues. China’s BATs also face challenges from the worsening trade dispute with the US. And everyone is facing challenges around the coronavirus pandemic – with the notable exception of Tesla.

What does all that mean for our members? And how does it impact your retirement?

Making the most of opportunities

Our fund managers are tasked with investing members' money, and ensuring we make the most of opportunities whilst also being mindful of the risks.

Our overseas shares option has a significant weighting to technology companies. And even our growth driven diversified options have substantial tech stock holdings.

Which means iPhone sales, Netflix subscriptions, and Tesla shares have more to do with your future retirement balance than you may realise.

You can review and update your investment options by logging into your account. More information regarding investments is available via our investment options page.