Why do posters here have disproportionately higher than average pension funds...

Pile_o_stone

cfw1994 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

cfw1994 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

couriervanman said:

OP I've always loved these posts as well your not the only one
Its always somebody who is mortgage free in a £500k house with £150k in isa,generous pension pot £350k increasing by £1k a month top up with a partner who has retired a few years earlier on £20k a year.+ £100k savings. And they always ask will i have enough to last for 20 years,plus they forget the £180 a week they will collect at 65. 

They also seem to have 8% growth year on year on year, and do not get hit with the Global financial crisis crash, the Corona virus crash or other corrections in the market. I also would take issue with the idea that if you are interested in pensions and save early then you will automatically get a £1m pot. As someone who has been a high rate taxpayer for over 20 years and who has been VERY interested in pensions over that time, who has consistently saved double digit percentages (I saved 15% when that used to be the maximum and I have been saving 20% over the last 7 years). I have always had DC pensions and when I move companies I have consolidated my pensions into a HL SIPP which gives me access to a large range of funds. I have no where near £1m saved in a pension plan. I'm currently 15% down on my pre-corona share values.

15% down?

Really?   Are you investing in super safe funds?
I took an overkeen interest this year in my main DC pot.  +4% since the Feb, +23% since the trough in March, and  +10% on start of year.    

I agree, 8% year after year gains would be unrealistic....but markets have broadly (& curiously, perhaps!) bounced back apace.

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash. I assume you were in supersafe funds prior to the crash and then moved them all to riskier high-gain equities after the crash? 

Looking at your figures, you have made a 6% gain since the crash, so your shares must have fallen 17% in the crash (i.e. +4% - 17% + 23% = 10%). What funds/shares were you in prior to the crash for such a small drop from peak to trough?

Super-safe? 
Not at all.   
My funds are currently split equally 4 ways: from "higher risk" to lower:

• Baillie Gifford American (moved from Aviva North American recently, but similar pref)
• Baillie Gifford International (moved from Blackrock World ex UK, but similar)
• BlackRock Over 15 Year Gilt Index Tracker
• Aviva Pre-retirement Fixed Interest

& sure, for the month from 21st Feb to 20th Mar (my peak to trough) they dipped almost 16%.....but given the DOW dropped 36%, the FTSE & S&P around 33%, I'm happy with the performance.    The first two show decent gains over 1/3/5/10 years, the latter two are okay, but it is always a balance, right?
Where are yours that are still 15% down?

Actually, good news.
I got muddled up with my figures because I transferred a company pension into my SIPP just as the crash happened and it skewed the figures. After doing proper calcs where I subtracted the company pension I found that my pension dropped 14.09% at the trough (I noted down my pension value on a bit of paper at the time) and I now find that the pension is currently 6.03% down from peak. I'm invested in trackers (10% Emerging Markets, 10% Asia Pacific (ex Japan), 40% International and 40% UK). The UK tracker is the laggard.

This SIPP is the repository of my former company DC pensions and I don't put any additional money into it, so it has not benefited from buying funds at a low level during the correction. My monthly contributions go into my company pension, which I joined in December 2019 and that's currently up 4.26% as of today.

Quite chuffed we had our chat - it made me look at my figures properly.

Albermarle

now find that the pension is currently 6.03% down from peak

In my view measuring from a peak is not that useful as by definition you can only come down from a peak .

I think YTD for 2020 is a better measure /way of comparing performance in the short term .

cfw1994

Deleted_User said:

• “Baillie Gifford American (moved from Aviva North American recently, but similar pref)”

These funds are as different as it gets:
1. The Aviva’s fund is diversified and is basically a closet index fund with long term performance similar or a bit less than the index. 

2. BGA is a highly concentrated US tech fund with massive allocation to companies like Tesla, Shopifly and Netflix. If you wanted to bet on a pandemic in Dec 2019, you’d invest in these companies. BGA trounced the index YTD and has done well over the last ten years. 

Moving from the first fund to the second gives the appearance of performance chasing. 

Fair comment on content - I guess I view them both as 'US mostly tech', but you are right that they are not "the same" - I don't have 'x-ray' analysis on my funds, just fact sheets and some industry insight.
Of course I am "performance chasing" with that chunk - as I said, it is the highest risk of the quadrant I have in there....& of course, that performance could go down as well as up.
The balance being that the BG International has overlap too.....bottom line is that both the Aviva and BG American have been (imho) decent performers for 1/3/5/10 years:
   Aviva: 9.71 36.12 88.77 303.70
   BG American: ) 53.44 129.39 278.84 598.54
The only question being "why didn't I spot that 10 years ago?" 
It's all balance, eh

Audaxer

Albermarle said:

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash

Typical well known medium risk funds , such as Vanguard Life strategy 60 or HSBC global strategy balanced  are at almost exactly the same level as on Jan 1st ( minus 0.2% and minus 0.1 % respectively )

One with home bias and one without .

Apart from the bond content, both these funds have a greater percentage of value equity than growth equity. It seems that those portfolios with more higher risk growth funds have bounced back better since March than portfolios that contain more value equity.  

Prism

Audaxer said:

Albermarle said:

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash

Typical well known medium risk funds , such as Vanguard Life strategy 60 or HSBC global strategy balanced  are at almost exactly the same level as on Jan 1st ( minus 0.2% and minus 0.1 % respectively )

One with home bias and one without .

Apart from the bond content, both these funds have a greater percentage of value equity than growth equity. It seems that those portfolios with more higher risk growth funds have bounced back better since March than portfolios that contain more value equity.  

I wouldn't say that growth equities are higher risk than value equities. You would normally expect quality and growth companies to survive a downturn pretty well, whereas value equities which are usually pretty cyclical tend to struggle regardless of the fact that they are already cheap. 
Risk is all pretty subjective though. I would say that my portfolio of only growth based funds is lower risk than the index but others would look at it and disagree.

pensionpawn

Pile_o_stone said:

cfw1994 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

couriervanman said:

OP I've always loved these posts as well your not the only one
Its always somebody who is mortgage free in a £500k house with £150k in isa,generous pension pot £350k increasing by £1k a month top up with a partner who has retired a few years earlier on £20k a year.+ £100k savings. And they always ask will i have enough to last for 20 years,plus they forget the £180 a week they will collect at 65. 

They also seem to have 8% growth year on year on year, and do not get hit with the Global financial crisis crash, the Corona virus crash or other corrections in the market. I also would take issue with the idea that if you are interested in pensions and save early then you will automatically get a £1m pot. As someone who has been a high rate taxpayer for over 20 years and who has been VERY interested in pensions over that time, who has consistently saved double digit percentages (I saved 15% when that used to be the maximum and I have been saving 20% over the last 7 years). I have always had DC pensions and when I move companies I have consolidated my pensions into a HL SIPP which gives me access to a large range of funds. I have no where near £1m saved in a pension plan. I'm currently 15% down on my pre-corona share values.

15% down?

Really?   Are you investing in super safe funds?
I took an overkeen interest this year in my main DC pot.  +4% since the Feb, +23% since the trough in March, and  +10% on start of year.    

I agree, 8% year after year gains would be unrealistic....but markets have broadly (& curiously, perhaps!) bounced back apace.

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash. I assume you were in supersafe funds prior to the crash and then moved them all to riskier high-gain equities after the crash? 

Looking at your figures, you have made a 6% gain since the crash, so your shares must have fallen 17% in the crash (i.e. +4% - 17% + 23% = 10%). What funds/shares were you in prior to the crash for such a small drop from peak to trough?

Before contributions during the year, a tad up, however I view my portfolio as still down compared to where I expected it to be by now. Just a word of caution on comparing percentage fall and growth, it takes more than 10% growth to recover a 10% fall!

AlanP_2

pensionpawn said:

Pile_o_stone said:

cfw1994 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

couriervanman said:

OP I've always loved these posts as well your not the only one
Its always somebody who is mortgage free in a £500k house with £150k in isa,generous pension pot £350k increasing by £1k a month top up with a partner who has retired a few years earlier on £20k a year.+ £100k savings. And they always ask will i have enough to last for 20 years,plus they forget the £180 a week they will collect at 65. 

They also seem to have 8% growth year on year on year, and do not get hit with the Global financial crisis crash, the Corona virus crash or other corrections in the market. I also would take issue with the idea that if you are interested in pensions and save early then you will automatically get a £1m pot. As someone who has been a high rate taxpayer for over 20 years and who has been VERY interested in pensions over that time, who has consistently saved double digit percentages (I saved 15% when that used to be the maximum and I have been saving 20% over the last 7 years). I have always had DC pensions and when I move companies I have consolidated my pensions into a HL SIPP which gives me access to a large range of funds. I have no where near £1m saved in a pension plan. I'm currently 15% down on my pre-corona share values.

15% down?

Really?   Are you investing in super safe funds?
I took an overkeen interest this year in my main DC pot.  +4% since the Feb, +23% since the trough in March, and  +10% on start of year.    

I agree, 8% year after year gains would be unrealistic....but markets have broadly (& curiously, perhaps!) bounced back apace.

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash. I assume you were in supersafe funds prior to the crash and then moved them all to riskier high-gain equities after the crash? 

Looking at your figures, you have made a 6% gain since the crash, so your shares must have fallen 17% in the crash (i.e. +4% - 17% + 23% = 10%). What funds/shares were you in prior to the crash for such a small drop from peak to trough?

Before contributions during the year, a tad up, however I view my portfolio as still down compared to where I expected it to be by now. Just a word of caution on comparing percentage fall and growth, it takes more than 10% growth to recover a 10% fall!

Comparing where you are against where you expected to be sounds like masochism to me. The actual numbers are all that matters, and the only really important one is - Do I have enough? 

[Deleted User]

Audaxer said:

Albermarle said:

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash

Typical well known medium risk funds , such as Vanguard Life strategy 60 or HSBC global strategy balanced  are at almost exactly the same level as on Jan 1st ( minus 0.2% and minus 0.1 % respectively )

One with home bias and one without .

Apart from the bond content, both these funds have a greater percentage of value equity than growth equity. It seems that those portfolios with more higher risk growth funds have bounced back better since March than portfolios that contain more value equity.  

It has been the story of the last 10 years. Value and small underperformed growth and large and US outperformed everything. The stock market has been driven by a small number of US tech corporations. 

Various factors and regions are expected to underperform in any given decade. Long term staying  “small“ and “value“ has worked well for investors. 

m_c_s

The HSBC Global Strategy Cautious fund in my SIPP is up 1% since Feb 20 and up 4% since Aug 2019
The HSBC Global Strategy Conservative fund in my ISA is up 0.2% since Feb 20 and up 4.1% since Aug 2019

Although low risk (I am retiring in the next 18 months at 56) I am quite happy with their performance.  The corresponding Vanguard 20 fund has performed slightly better although the comparable Vanguard 40 fund is slightly worse:

Vanguard 20 is up 2% since Feb 20 and up 4.5% since Aug 2019
Vanguard 40 is up 0.1% since Feb 20 and up 3.9% since Aug 2019
 
It seems maybe for Vanguard 20 the mix of bonds could be the reason for Vanguards slight over performance. HSBC has property and slightly higher EM equity allocations which may improve performance in the future. 

pensionpawn

AlanP_2 said:

pensionpawn said:

Pile_o_stone said:

cfw1994 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

couriervanman said:

OP I've always loved these posts as well your not the only one
Its always somebody who is mortgage free in a £500k house with £150k in isa,generous pension pot £350k increasing by £1k a month top up with a partner who has retired a few years earlier on £20k a year.+ £100k savings. And they always ask will i have enough to last for 20 years,plus they forget the £180 a week they will collect at 65. 

They also seem to have 8% growth year on year on year, and do not get hit with the Global financial crisis crash, the Corona virus crash or other corrections in the market. I also would take issue with the idea that if you are interested in pensions and save early then you will automatically get a £1m pot. As someone who has been a high rate taxpayer for over 20 years and who has been VERY interested in pensions over that time, who has consistently saved double digit percentages (I saved 15% when that used to be the maximum and I have been saving 20% over the last 7 years). I have always had DC pensions and when I move companies I have consolidated my pensions into a HL SIPP which gives me access to a large range of funds. I have no where near £1m saved in a pension plan. I'm currently 15% down on my pre-corona share values.

15% down?

Really?   Are you investing in super safe funds?
I took an overkeen interest this year in my main DC pot.  +4% since the Feb, +23% since the trough in March, and  +10% on start of year.    

I agree, 8% year after year gains would be unrealistic....but markets have broadly (& curiously, perhaps!) bounced back apace.

If I was invested in super safe funds, then I'd imagine they would not still be 15% down after the Corona crash. I assume you were in supersafe funds prior to the crash and then moved them all to riskier high-gain equities after the crash? 

Looking at your figures, you have made a 6% gain since the crash, so your shares must have fallen 17% in the crash (i.e. +4% - 17% + 23% = 10%). What funds/shares were you in prior to the crash for such a small drop from peak to trough?

Before contributions during the year, a tad up, however I view my portfolio as still down compared to where I expected it to be by now. Just a word of caution on comparing percentage fall and growth, it takes more than 10% growth to recover a 10% fall!

Comparing where you are against where you expected to be sounds like masochism to me. The actual numbers are all that matters, and the only really important one is - Do I have enough? 

....and the answer is no, because I am not where I planned to be by now, and if something doesn't change, neither will I be by my planned retirement date. Don't you believe it's sensible to monitor progress (of anything) according to a plan, so you can adjust accordingly if necessary? So either my fund managers evolve their strategy to improve fund growth, I modify my fund allocations, I increase my contributions, a combination or do nothing and hope for the best (markets make a spectacular recovery, which could happen).