Got no pension..Help

DiggerUK

gozomark wrote: »

Gold is sitting at an all time nominal high in $ - where does that fit in with your "Buy low, sell high" investment style ?

Erhhhhh, this is a UK thread, we use the pound sterling over here.
In pounds sterling it is not at an all time high, it sits at 660 GBP, it was at an all time high earlier this year when it got to 690 GBP in the UK.

As it is at an all time high over there I would recommend you hold on for a dip.
But then again, if it does what the bugs and gurus keep saying and goes "to da moon" you will have missed a chance.

You are looking at gold in one dimension, it's role as a commodity.
You should also look at gold in it's role as money and a store of the labour value it represents.

You have far to go grasshopper.

gozomark

Confucius says : grasshoppers leap for the moon, but come down to earth....

Aegis

DiggerUK wrote: »

Next thing to do is shoot any IFA who tries to mesmerise you, with fantasy stories of 7/8% growth if you give them lots of money for a zombie pension.

Why have you suddenly become obsessed with zombie pension as if any FA (let alone an IFA) was going to sell any such product? If someone buys in to a pension and then does nothing about reviewing their choice for 10 years, that's not the IFA's fault unless they've agreed to have ongoing servicing as part of their package. You can't blame the IFAs for what insurance companies do with their pension funds, and you can't blame IFAs when their ex-clients don't check up on their arrangements from time to time.

Now, if you had a legitimate point about IFAs specifically recommending zombie funds, this would be something you would be able to complain about with good reason, but you don't. Indeed, you don't even seem to understand the various pension products available on the market (as evidenced by your inability to identify a SIPP as a money-purchase/defined-contribution pension recently), but you're happy to insult IFAs for not knowing their facts?

For the record, 7/8% annualised return is more than achievable in the long term, especially for someone many years from retirement willing to take some short term risks for long term gains.

They are sexed up sales reps who know about financial services and financial products, but sweet FA about economics and markets. Once they have their fees and commissions it will be the last you will hear from them.

Again, insults without any actual evidence supporting you at all. Within the industry IFAs tend to be the ones who build up long-term relationships with most of their clients. It's not generally a case of selling and running, it's usually more like advising and then reviewing periodically, unless the client wishes to look at their situation only when they feel the inclination.

For the record, IFAs are not required to have much in-depth knowledge about economics and markets because it's not their job to do so. The IFAs are there to advise on asset allocation, objective setting, tax efficiency, cash-flow planning, etc. They effectively outsource the investments to fund managers whose job it is to know as much as possible about markets and economics. IFAs know enough to do their job, any more than that would require far too much time studying market movements for no good reason.

If you're going to make comments about this sort of thing, please think about why an IFA should be knowledgeable in areas that aren't required.

Furthermore, IFAs generally have access to investment research teams who will give them indications of what is likely to happen in the medium to long run. My own employer advised a partial switch from gilts to corporate bonds in January based on what our investment team recommended, and many of our clients have profited quite nicely from that advice. There's recently been a debate about commercial property, but the results of that have yet to be decided.

In short, IFAs don't know everything because they outsource. A GP doesn't know everything about medicine, but they refer you to specialists who do.

Did you know that they don't have to have any qualifications in economics, accountancy and, wait for it, they don't even have to have a qualification in maths.

What does this matter? As long as they can use a computer they don't need a qualification in maths. On top of that, the industry exams have calculations and formulae as part of the syllabus, so the relevant maths is covered in more than enough depth. Another pointless complaint.


All in all, the IFA-bashers on this forum should really come up with some decent reasons for not liking the profession, because at the moment it just sounds like unfounded nonsense.