Cant stop the dealing!!!!!:)

Giovanni88

Hiya guys,

At 26 years old I currently have 2 pensions...

Stan Life- work pension worth 4k at the moment and recently upped my contributions. To 25 per week with employer putting in 20 per week.

HL Sipp- With only £875 at the moment with 100 per month contributions.

Heres the thing.....

With the sipp I just cant stop playing around with it :rotfl:. I currently have all my funds in 3 relatively high risk funds and I love the idea of chopping and changing to make quick profits. Im a very keen novice and check the sipp almost daily, learning, browsing funds and adding what I feel are very undervalued funds to my watchlist. But is what I am doing right? I seem to be making money (so it seems).

For example.... 2 weeks ago I put 600 into the vanguard developed work ex uk because I knew it was due to jump a few percent in the coming days and indeed it jumped buy 5%. Now because theres a £2 platform fee I decided to sell up having made £30 and have put most of it into a very undervalued latin america fund ive been watching and since have made another 5%.

Now I know im never going to keep making profits but I am just trying to grow the sipp to a few thousand asap before I think abit more long term.

So should I keep tinkering or put it all into 1 or 2 funds and ride the ups and downs?

Drp8713

What you are doing is gambling, sometimes you will be up 5% here, but with most of your money in a single high risk fund you could be easily 50% down tomorrow.


Most people lose gambling, a few win. Who knows which you will be.


But to invest sensibly, you should be diversified across different asset classes, sectors and countries. That way you will win over the long term.


Your way, you could move it into a fund that drops 50% then think sod this for a laugh, switch it into another fund that then does the same. You don't need many of those sequences to lose most of your money.


Different markets and assets will grow at different times and the only way to ensure you don't miss out is to hold them all.


That can be done with one or two funds or 20.

Voyager2002

Firstly: if you were to put more money into your work pension fund then would your employer increase their contribution as well? If so, then that is what you should be doing about your pension, and for something like that just put the money in and leave it.

Secondly, you obviously enjoy playing the markets and maybe have talent for doing so. By all means continue, but don't put your (main) pension at stake in this way. Have a separate pot of money for speculation, and be sure that it is a reasonably small amount so that you would not suffer too much if you lost the lot. Use it to experiment with different investment approaches and different products: Funds are probably not suitable for playing and frequent trading, so discover the world of ETFs and Investment Trusts and perhaps even selected individual shares.

Your_Hero

To be honest, with that amount of money in HL, it makes little difference overall. So by all means have a bit of fun if you want. You will learn quickly that it's easy to lose a large part of your fund with your investment strategy.

For stable long term returns, you need to diversify, review, rebalance, and not chop and change funds regularly.

Giovanni88

Thanks for the reply. I see exactly what your saying here. I should have clarified from the start I do have the money in 3 funds and are quite equal between the 3. Ive currently got...

Legal & general uk index
Aberdeen latin america (bought in very low and will keep until at least 25% has been made)
Rathbourne global opportunities.

So for now quite a small group but I suppose the aim of what ive been doing is to grow the sipp to around 5k as soon as I can (fingers crossed). I know patience is key but I actually quite enjoy it.

Also, if a fund was to suddenly drop massively I would keep in for the longer term, especially if it was the latin america. This particular fund I have massive expectations for and although volatile it is set to climb which will make another profit.

Giovanni88

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Firstly: if you were to put more money into your work pension fund then would your employer increase their contribution as well? If so, then that is what you should be doing about your pension, and for something like that just put the money in and leave it.

Secondly, you obviously enjoy playing the markets and maybe have talent for doing so. By all means continue, but don't put your (main) pension at stake in this way. Have a separate pot of money for speculation, and be sure that it is a reasonably small amount so that you would not suffer too much if you lost the lot. Use it to experiment with different investment approaches and different products: Funds are probably not suitable for playing and frequent trading, so discover the world of ETFs and Investment Trusts and perhaps even selected individual shares.

Completely understand this. My employer contributes £20 per week maximum currently and I put in 25. I earn 28k per annum and in total my contributions are 11% of my salary . I would put more but am currently planning a wedding in sicily:beer: after this I will increase the contributions because I like most want as much as possible.