Had to make some quick pension decisions yesterday

andyuk01

My own fault really

Due to a promotion at work i have moved pension schemes and had some different investment choices to make

As a result i needed to re allocate both my future contributions and existing funds at short notice otherwise they would go into a default lifestyle plan, not the end of the world admittedly but wanted to avoid it due to 6 month lock in

So i made some very quick decisions, can revisit these but not for 6 months, just wanted a sense check to see if i had done something really stupid

Age - 33
Annual contribution (me & employer) - £10100
Existing fund £33'000

High tolerance to risk, intend to retire around 58-60. Pension contribution will go up in the next few months making a new annual contribution £14'000

These funds are wrapped up in a master trust administered by standard life, these are the under laying funds and allocation

Vanguard FTSE all share pension - 40%
Vanguard Government Bond Pension - 10%
Vanguard Emerging Markets - 30%
SLI global absolute return strategies - 20%

Basically looking for re assurance this wasn't a stupid thing to do and if it was someone to point out why

Can change investment mix again in 6 months time

Thanks in advance

green_man

If it were me with your long term horizon and high tolerance to risk I would be putting pretty much the whole lot into equities (no bonds).

Do you have access within your wrapper to the Vangard Lifstyle funds. You could do worse than put the lot into the Vanguard Lifestyle 100 fund (100% equities).

However I wouldn't worry too much if you are now locked in for 6 months just keep contributing and spend the 6 months looking at the funds you have available.

Linton

I think your main investment should have been in a global fund rather than a pure UK one. Your 30% in bonds and similar seems inconsistent with your 30% in EM. The first looks over cautious for your age and the other very high risk, EM is fine but 30% is high.

andyuk01

Thank you both

Not sure i understand the 30% in bonds & similar comment though

10% is just bonds
20% is in the absolute return fund which according to the bumpf is a mixture of bonds, equities, money making instruments - both passive and actively managed

The thought in my head was this would be relatively low risk to counter the relatively high risk of the EM fund

Admittedly about 5 min thought went into that decision

The funds are all named 'my employer passive equity fund' or similar, finding out the actual fund isn't quick or easy