Child Trust Fund performing badly ?

lanstrom

I set up a child trust fund in April 2005. So far (including government vouchers) its had £1,818 credited to it (£1,200 as a single cheque in February 2007).

I checked the balance today (6 years and 4 months later) and its currenly at £1,732.68.

So after all these years its making a loss of £85.32

Are all Child Trust Funds doing so badly or did I make a mistake going with this Family Investments one ?

Thanks.

Reaper

Firstly you haven't said where you invested, Family offer 2 investments options, an ethical tracker and a worldwide tracker.

Either way you put the majority of your money in just before the stock market crashed so only being down a bit is quite good considering.

Family are a reasonable choice. A least they offer a worldwide tracker whereas many only offer UK ones.

Personaly I did not select them and went for a non-stakeholder shares CTF, but they made it to my best buy list.

lanstrom

OK thanks.

The only details I have for the account is ...

Account investing into
Prosper 1 Type of account
Stakeholder

Is it possible to transfer to another fund ?

Thanks.

Reaper

In that case you are in neither fund, you are in the "Barclays Prosper" CTF, which is no longer sold. According to this article written when it was first offered:

Prosper splits the capital into risk and risk-free components. A maximum of 70% is invested in the shares of a sub-fund of a Barclays Global Investors open-ended investment company (Oeic) that tracks the FTSE. At least 30% of the remaining assets are invested in an instrument that pays a rate of 0.15% below the Bank of England base rate.

So you are in a mix of a FTSE tracker and below base rate savings!

I would be tempted to move it just on the basis that a UK tracker is too narrow when the UK economy may not do that well in the future, let alone the dodgy savings.

Yes you can switch funds provided your target provider accepts transfers. A simple switch would be to move to the worldwide tracker within Family Assurance, or you could do what I did and use the Investment Trust on my Best Buy list (though if you do that read up on it first to make sure you understand what they are).

P.S. You may or may not be able to convert it into a Junior ISA later in the year, we are waiting to hear. If it is possible it will likely give you more investment options.

lanstrom

Reaper wrote: »

In that case you are in neither fund, you are in the "Barclays Prosper" CTF, which is no longer sold. According to this article written when it was first offered:
So you are in a mix of a FTSE tracker and below base rate savings!

I would be tempted to move it just on the basis that a UK tracker is too narrow when the UK economy may not do that well in the future, let alone the dodgy savings.

Yes you can switch funds provided your target provider accepts transfers. A simple switch would be to move to the worldwide tracker within Family Assurance, or you could do what I did and use the Investment Trust on my Best Buy list (though if you do that read up on it first to make sure you understand what they are).

P.S. You may or may not be able to convert it into a Junior ISA later in the year, we are waiting to hear. If it is possible it will likely give you more investment options.

OK. Thanks for that info. I will wait and see what happens with the junior ISAs and then decide.

ses6jwg

I orignally opened my little girls CTF with Leeds Building Society in 2007 as a cash account paying about 3.5%.

I finally got my !!!! in gear and transferred it to Legal and General's offering in February 2010. I transferred about £1200 and have made £10pcm contributions current value is about £1480.

The LGEN is, like a lot of the CTFs, a FTSE All-Share tracker, not a terrible investment over 18 years history has shown us, however I feel that in the current climate it is a very narrow range of investments.

I've just transferred to the Family Investments standard CTF stakeholder (not the ethical one, ethics never made anyone rich). I believe it is spread across global securities as well as UK.

I set up a £20 DD so qualify for £25 boots vouchers, and also applied via Topcashback for £35 cashback.

Now that's moneysaving.