Selling funds in a SIPP

Liffy99

I have a SIPP with Interactive Investor, solely composed of several funds (actively managed and trackers).
Given the recent volatility of the market I have been trying to at least stabilise the SIPP value by selling funds and holding in cash for a while.
However, it seems I have little control over the price I sell at. On any given day a fund’s unit price is stated but, apparently, the fund manager can take an unspecified time (which could be several days) to process a sale order and thus place the sale value at the mercy of lhe market. Meaning that the sale price actually achieved may be significantly lower (or higher) than the price displayed at the time of placing the sell order.
Anyone with a similar experience ?

NottinghamKnight

The sale of the fund should normally be at a specific pricing point, typically say the afternoon following instruction. It's true that you don't get an advanced specific value that varies with the market, you cold invest in etfs or its rather than oeics as these are traded like shares at a specific time and price, but there's normally a fee for sale and stamp duty. 
Holding in cash isn't a good idea, you can't really time the market and you are missing out whilst not invested, also many markets including the US are now at or above peaks pre crisis so whilst markets have been volatile losses are not guaranteed and many may be ahead of where they were.

Liffy99

Couldn’t quite follow all of that - predictive text ?
I’m not wanting to achieve more growth, but settling for what I currently have but trying to avoid sudden falls (and we have seen several of those lately). Had I not been in the process of moving to France I would have been drawing down by now, but more likely to retain what I have and then withdraw in a couple of years. Given that interest rates are naff all now, holding cash would pose much less risk than suffering another market fall. All that said, my question still stands . . . 

macman

Selling simply means that you actually realise the losses that until then were purely on paper. 

jamesd

Ordinary funds (unit trust, OEICs) are always traded on price at next trading time instead of last. This is to prevent people with knowledge of changes in the market since the last price exploiting the ability to use the old price and sell "before" a drop that has already happened, similar for buying after a gain.

Funds invested in the UK normally use noon and trade each week day but some do use different times or trade less frequently. Your trading platform will also need some notice, so you might have say an 8AM deadline to use that day's noon price.

[Deleted User]

Further to the above, your funds would go this process, any Investment Trusts or ETFs would be sold as soon as you have traded (when the markets are open) and the funds would become instantly available.

Albermarle

As said above it does not take a 'few days' for the price of your sale to be fixed . The price of the fund is adjusted every 24 hours and depending on that funds timing for that and when you requested the sale ( usually has to be at least a few hours before the pricing time point) the delay between you requesting a fund sale and it being priced could be anything between say 6 and 36 hours . Big pension companies like Standard Life stipulate two working days , so even longer .
There is then a further delay of another couple of days whilst the transaction is settled  and it appears in your account as completed .
OEIC funds are not designed for trading/timing the market but for long term investments, and any minor price differences during fund buying and selling will be lost in the long term .

NottinghamKnight

Liffy99 said:

Couldn’t quite follow all of that - predictive text ?
I’m not wanting to achieve more growth, but settling for what I currently have but trying to avoid sudden falls (and we have seen several of those lately). Had I not been in the process of moving to France I would have been drawing down by now, but more likely to retain what I have and then withdraw in a couple of years. Given that interest rates are naff all now, holding cash would pose much less risk than suffering another market fall. All that said, my question still stands . . . 

I've corrected a couple of minor typos in my response but the rest still stands and should be fairly clear, from you OP there was the impression you were familiar with investment terms and process but that doesn't appear to be the case. 

NottinghamKnight

Liffy99 said:

Couldn’t quite follow all of that - predictive text ?
I’m not wanting to achieve more growth, but settling for what I currently have but trying to avoid sudden falls (and we have seen several of those lately). Had I not been in the process of moving to France I would have been drawing down by now, but more likely to retain what I have and then withdraw in a couple of years. Given that interest rates are naff all now, holding cash would pose much less risk than suffering another market fall. All that said, my question still stands . . . 

As I said if you want collective investments that are tradeable in real time then you should be holding investments trusts (its) or exchange traded funds (etfs). Why you think you might be able to get ahead of trillion dollar investment banks and/ or anticipate market volatility is of course a separate question.

green_man

Funds aren’t really designed to be ‘traded’ as such. The intention is that they are held as long term investments, though I can understand the frustration of the uncertainty of sale price.

Do you intend drawing down all your SIPP in a short period (all within the next 5 years?) if not it doesn’t sound like a great idea to be holding cash as a long term investment.

Liffy99

I am not trying to second guess the market ! I, mistakenly obviously, assumed that I could sell my investments at the currently indicated price ! As I can’t I have to accept some volatility. Given that recently there have been BIG swings in the markets I am metely trying not to be invested when the next one comes. I am intending to withdraw the lot within two years. Hope that helps to clarify my intentions.