Pension Losing Money

[Deleted User]

dunstonh wrote: »

Which will have nothing to do with the pension type you have.



No its not. Mainly as the statement wont be calendar year. The santa rally wont be included in it.



it is best to be sober before posting on a discussion board.

Santa rally, yes it did help but even months prior to Christmas I was delighted with returns, in fact never even dipped into a loss throughout 2015


Our best performing fund [Newton] was the one with the highest charges too. So charges are the be all and end all...


The worst performing [though still making reasonable gains] was my Aviva fund in a PP, a bit off the mark when compared to the cheapo Vanguard [80 & 100] funds that we also hold in ISA/JISA/SIPP. So looks like Aviva will be jettisoned at some point...


Cheers

zagfles

dollydiva wrote: »

Hmm...but then again in the past we listened to Equitable Life telling us not to look at their recent poor performance either?

Once bitten...

But don't just look at one year's performance, look at the performance over several years. If that too is rubbish, then consider moving it.

saver861

dollydiva wrote: »

Hubby has a small pension amount of £7000 with an old employer so not a fortune, but shocked to see that it lost 3.2% last year. We could have gotten better than that if it had just sat in our Bank Account - at least we wouldn't have LOST money!

So, its £7,000, and you say its from an 'old' employer suggesting from a spell of employment from a time ago. OK, it lost 3.2% last year - FTSE lost 5% so you done good there.

But, find out how was actually paid into the pension and then you have a picture of the true growth.

dollydiva wrote: »

How easy is it to get the money from this Pension? Hubby is 56 and we're not sure on all the T&C's

It does sound like you are unsure of the workings of these things and I'd be inclined to suggest you have a good look at where you are and where you want to be in x years and work from there.

Drawing your pension out that may have actually done very well over the years might not be the wise thing to do, certainly not if it is based on this years better than average performance.

Malthusian

Hmm...but then again in the past we listened to Equitable Life telling us not to look at their recent poor performance either?

Once bitten...

Equitable Life had this marvellously clever system known as "With Profits" (they didn't invent it, but they are one of its most famous exponents) where instead of its pensions going up and down in line with the stockmarket, they would add a bonus each year, and hold back growth in good years so that they could keep adding bonuses in bad years. In other words, no-one would ever have to get a statement telling them their pension had gone down by 3.2%.

That wasn't what sunk them (a similarly clever idea known as guaranteed annuity rates sunk them) but that's beside the point. The point is that getting a statement saying your pension has gone down when the market has gone down is not in itself cause for worry. The time to worry is when the market goes down but you get a statement saying your pension is doing marvellously, like the ones Equitable Life used to send.

(Of course if it'd been sat in your bank account it would now be worth exactly what it was a year ago, and the year before that, and the year before that. For an analysis of this investment strategy, see Matthew 25:14–30.)