Scottish Widows or Standard Life Tracker

LizMac42

My son is trying to consolidate his Tracker Pension Funds - he has two from Scottish Widows and two from Standard Life - all of which can be merged.


Does anyone have any views on which of the two is better to choose for placing the consolidated Tracker Fund into and do either of them have a best performing tracker fund?

dunstonh

Does anyone have any views on which of the two is better to choose for placing the consolidated Tracker Fund into

Having a single index tracking fund is bad investing. .e.g 100% in a FTSE tracker is putting everything in one sector; UK equity. single sector funds (whether index trackers or managed) are designed to be held in a wider portfolio of funds to allow you build your own portfolio.

if you dont have the knowledge and understanding to build a portfolio then you should not use single sector funds but stick to multi-asset funds.

and do either of them have a best performing tracker fund?

Potentially both of them do depending on which contract type he is. A Standard Life stakeholder pension would only have a limited range of internal funds. Whereas the Standard Life Wrap or Standard Life Elevate platform are whole of market with 30,000 investment options.

Scottish Widows products are largely dated and unless it is a workplace scheme, you wouldnt normally look to use them nowadays. SW own brand funds tend to be poor quality.

LizMac42

Gosh! reading this shows me how little I know about these pensions. I am obviously not the person who can give him any advice. I know his Scottish Widows one is based on several different funds. I think he may have to get advice from a financial adviser.

dunstonh

Get him to look at his pension fund list and look for multi-asset or mixed-asset funds. They are the funds suited to inexperienced investors. There will probably be only three or four of these. Each covering a different risk profile.