Extremely Poor Investment

wickmanarea

Hi, In 2000 I had a little spare cash so I made a few small investments.,One of these was £2,000 in a " Britannic investment Bond",

I had not really been keeping an eye on it over the years but now having recently retired & checking through my finances I was dismayed to find out
that my 2K investment was now worth £1,890.64, meaning that after twelve years investing they had actually lost me over a hundred pounds.

I realise that the last few years have been difficuilt but on this showing I wouldn't ask the Britannic Phoenix Life investment team for the right time.!!!

dunstonh

You mentioned the product and the provider (who are closed for business) but you didnt mention the investment. That is the key thing. The same product/provider could have investments that have doubled in that period (indeed, I know they have).

Sam_Malone

These things happen.

Look on the bright side, if you had checked it 6 years ago it might only have been worth £1,000

bigfreddiel

well when you invest in any fund or bond that has 'experts' looking after it you're never going to come out on top - just remember all these investment companies are trying to be number one (just read their adverts) and they can't all be winners. and don't forget all these experts cost money coming out of your investment.

you can never win this game- it's no diffrent to horse racing - all the stables are trying to beat each other and there's only one winner - the thing with funds and envesting is the same it just tales longer for each 'race' to come to fruition.

the only sure way of increasing your wealth by investing is going down the low cost balanced diversified tracker/etf route.

anyone who tells you otherwise i either a fund manager, a salesman or one of the very few on a lucky streak

hope that helps

fj

guitarman001

Try losing the better part of £20k, or half your life savings to date...

Forever

guitarman001 wrote: »

Try losing the better part of £20k, or half your life savings to date...

What happened? That seems just awful!

gkerr4

bigfreddiel wrote: »

well when you invest in any fund or bond that has 'experts' looking after it you're never going to come out on top - just remember all these investment companies are trying to be number one (just read their adverts) and they can't all be winners. and don't forget all these experts cost money coming out of your investment.

you can never win this game- it's no diffrent to horse racing - all the stables are trying to beat each other and there's only one winner - the thing with funds and envesting is the same it just tales longer for each 'race' to come to fruition.

the only sure way of increasing your wealth by investing is going down the low cost balanced diversified tracker/etf route.

anyone who tells you otherwise i either a fund manager, a salesman or one of the very few on a lucky streak

hope that helps

fj

this is a pretty down-beat view! - and depends on what you mean by 'win'

if you are looking to multiply your money each year then yes, you'd have to have either illegal knowledge or by amazingly lucky - but if you consider winning to be "beating what you could get from a savings account", then all it takes is a bit of work and monitoring.

By my definition I have 'won' every year for a number of years now - i don't consider it a "lucky streak" either.

That said - your final note - about avoiding fee's and using trackers / ETF's - i totally agree with this, but could argue it isn't a massive leap to move from ETF's to individual share trading.

datostar

dunstonh wrote: »

You mentioned the product and the provider (who are closed for business) but you didnt mention the investment. That is the key thing. The same product/provider could have investments that have doubled in that period (indeed, I know they have).

You'll obviously know much more than me about Phoenix performance. I do wonder, given their 'run off' speciality, and little prospect of repeat business, whether there is the same motivation for their product managers as for the original managers. Of course, the fact that the products end up with Phoenix may not reflect too well on the original managers either. Any opinion?

guitarman001

Forever wrote: »

What happened? That seems just awful!

I was young (still am, I guess) and thought that since I needed to be near a millionaire to be able to afford to buy a house, I may as well try my hand at the markets. I went long on small mining companies but whilst the metals went up in price, the companies went down. Sold all bar one which is currently still 66% down. I hope for some sort of a recovery. Still lost a lot, and would have lost even more had I held the rest. Never again.....

dunstonh

You'll obviously know much more than me about Phoenix performance.

Phoenix is largely irrelevent. If it the fund or funds you invest in.

I do wonder, given their 'run off' speciality, and little prospect of repeat business, whether there is the same motivation for their product managers as for the original managers. Of course, the fact that the products end up with Phoenix may not reflect too well on the original managers either. Any opinion?

The opinion of many is that you should not expect much but a number of their contracts have external fund links as well as internal and some of them are mirror funds which are still open for new business.