Natwest stocks and share account cost me £430 in a week! I'm on the verge of crying!

dunstonh

If the 30 day cancellation period allowed your money back without losses included, everyone would be investing for 29 days, cancelling and reinvesting. You could take as much risk as you liked with no fear of ever losing money.

Hence why it says on the cancellation rights that you may not get back what you paid in.

jamesd

jonj123 wrote: »

I opened a Natwest stocks and share account last month however after recommendations I received on this forum I decided to cancel the account after a week of opening it. I initially invested £25,100. Today I received a check for £24,670 so I basically lost £430 for having my account opened for a week!

The five years that you asked about initially is OK as a period for investing. Five days isn't, the markets could have dropped by 40% in that time, without opportunity to recover, if you'd been unlucky. 20% down or up in one day is possible, more in some markets.

A 40% drop, then recovery to 40% higher, wouldn't be surprising in a five year period. Or the drop might come at the end. But the combination of drop and rise has a greater chance of leaving you up overall the longer you're in the market. 20% is more likely than 40% - almost certain - but you can't tell which it will be.

You typically can't get out in time to react to a rapid market drop and avoid it. That's even more true with funds because you normally trade at the noon price following your instruction to buy or sell.

How did NatWest frustrate you? That is, what have they done wrong themselves other than being the company you used for your brief foray into investing?

Here are the one day percentage variations for part of my investments for the last month or so, across a dozen of so funds in different parts of the world and types of investment:

0.18
0.28
-0.51
1.19
-0.28
-0.17
0.16
-1.32
-1.33
0.38
0.06
1.12
0.44
0.51
-0.95
-0.14
-0.46
-0.99
-0.40
0.09

What you saw was pretty much normal variation in the markets, you just happened to buy before a small drop.

Here's a similar set during a high volatility time in the markets:

-5.77
-4.20
-3.28
-4.31
0.29
-5.50
0.52
8.29
-2.39
-6.35
-0.38
1.30
3.96
-1.60
-6.78
-2.81
-2.16
0.85
4.20
3.64
2.55
2.44
2.98
1.79

During that time the net drop was 12% but there were runs of days where the drop totaled 17.6% and 13.3% down as well as one that totaled 18% up. And that 8% up day, along with the 6.8% down day. This period is within October and November 2008, a time of uncommon high volatility with massive financial events happening and influencing the market.

Moving up and down is what markets do, and it can be on very short timescales.

anna_grant

jonj123 wrote: »

Natwest have really frustrated me and the first thing I do when they open on Tuesday is to close down all the accounts I hold with them and move my 55K elsewhere.
I know how the stock market works but I certainly didn't anticipate a £430 loss after a week. I thought the 30 day cancellation notice meant that I would get my initial investment back but it clearly wasn't the case. Really frustrated - it's ruined my day

Why are you penalising NatWest? Annoying as it is to you to lose £430, NatWest haven't done anything wrong.

sabretoothtigger

Sounds alot like when houses went up 1k a week and people 'made' more on that then their jobs.


You havent lost money exactly. Your investment went down in value, if you manage to repurchase at a lower price then you have increased value
I lost 1.1% this week on a portfolio if you want a comparison. Start of January I gained 3% in a week, by the end of Jan I had lost 6%
Frustrating thing there is I 'knew' it was due a fall, but it went up first so I hesitated or something like that. I did order my pp sold but I didnt realise it took a month, oh well

Start of Jan for those reasons I sold Aggreko, great idea as their shares were going down. So they go down a bit then since then have gone up like 70% so the weekly price means quite little.


You could start a scheme with half the amount this time and then invest the rest monthly over time to get some average price.
Stocks arent overvalued really, its bonds taking all the money because governments are faking the market

Hungerdunger

dealer_wins wrote: »

NatWest have done nothing wrong here!!

But you're forgetting that these days everything that goes wrong is somebody else's fault.

cloud_dog

jonj123 wrote: »

I know how the stock market works but I certainly didn't anticipate a £430 loss after a week.

Whilst I don't want have a downer on the OP I think this statement indicates that perhaps the OP isn't quite as ok with S&S investments.

dtaylor84

jonj123 wrote: »

I know how the stock market works

Clearly you don't.

but I certainly didn't anticipate a £430 loss after a week.

And there's the proof.

ed123_2

.....If as most of the replies imply ie the op does not know much about stock-markets ( eg not knowing he would lose re price difference of units after a few days), would he therefore have a good case re miss-selling. I would write to the manager of the NatWest branch stating this fact and ask for the money back.

dunstonh

ed123 wrote: »

.....If as most of the replies imply ie the op does not know much about stock-markets ( eg not knowing he would lose re price difference of units after a few days), would he therefore have a good case re miss-selling. I would write to the manager of the NatWest branch stating this fact and ask for the money back.

Its not mis-selling. If you look at the new thread by the OP, he has picked 6 DIY funds all very high risk.

opinions4u

ed123 wrote: »

.....If as most of the replies imply ie the op does not know much about stock-markets ( eg not knowing he would lose re price difference of units after a few days), would he therefore have a good case re miss-selling. I would write to the manager of the NatWest branch stating this fact and ask for the money back.

I doubt it. The key facts (or whatever they're called these days) and cancellation documents will have this covered off in plain English. There's no way Nat West should reimburse and I doubt the FOS would spend more than two minutes looking at it.

Like Dunstonh, I don't think there's been any selling. The OP appears to have made all the decisions.