should i cancel my pension?

shaggy

I'm self employed and have had a pension scheme for just over a year - in that time i've invested around £20K but the value of the pension is around £17k and decreasing by the day. Given the state of the markets should I cancel now and cut my losses, save the money for a rainy day, or just keep investing the minimum £300 per month in the scheme?

MrChips

It's the value of the fund when you retire, rather than the value now which is important.

In an ideal world, it is best for the asset values to remain low when you are buying them, as now, and be high only when you need to sell them.

You should consider if you think saving the money in a bank account at 4% (or whatever) interest will do better in the long run rather than whatever it is you have invested in.

You also get tax relief on contributions and investment returns in a pension, which you will lose if you pay your money into a bank account.

purch

should i cancel my pension?

No.......

Most probably you should consider Investing your Pension differently !!!

bigbloke45

The right time to invest is in a recession, Don't worry about what your current investments are doing, get on an invest for what they may be in the future.

dunstonh

Stockmarkets zig zag. Always have, always will. Events like this occur on average once every 7 years. The reasons vary, the degree of the impact varies but this is not the first and it wont be the last.

Its times like this when you buy the units cheaper and they go on to make the most money. Stopping now and starting again when they have gone up is the wrong thing to do.

shaggy

some good advice here. I actually have a SIPP plan so chop and change where the investments are made. So is the general advice to actually INCREASE the monthly payments, in order to buy shares cheap and hopefully make a good return in a few years ?

jamesd

Yes, that's the idea. The time to cut back or switch to lower volatility investments is when the markets are very high. Gradually, because you can never know just when the change will happen.