I wanted to see how well Akademikerpension has done wrt. returns. This graph shows average yearly return from the financial crisis 2009 until 2021 and they are actually the best performing among other Danish pension funds [1].
Judging a pension fund by how it performs in a bull market seems wrong. Like their main job is to limit your downside from market crashes (if they're not doing that then they offer nothing compared to an index fund), so its strange to not include 2008 crisis (or .com bubble popping).
Checking this shows that the top 2 performers in this graph lost more money (~8%) in 2008 than the bottom 2 (~2%)
well I agree, my point is that ie 2007-2021 is better than 2009-2021, and with my example I meant to illustrate that the best performers will perform less well and the poor performers perform better if you include 2008, showing that this does in fact matter.
Well, often you don't get to "dump" your pension fund. In Denmark, it is your employer deciding what pension fund to use, and you will then have to use it. It is kinda ridiculous.
AFAIK only pension contributions mentioned in a collective bargaining agreement is mandatory. If you get offered a regular contract offering a salary plus 10% pension you can accept the job, write an email to HR stating that you opt out and get the extra 10% as take home pay. You can the make voluntary pension contributions to whatever pension fund you have a private agreement with. And all the private pension companies are very happy to make such an agreement, though the terms will be worse than an employer plan from the same company. Or you could do a completely self-administered one, e.g. through Nordnet.
Checking this shows that the top 2 performers in this graph lost more money (~8%) in 2008 than the bottom 2 (~2%)