Reduction in DC Pension Pot

fkerr

I'm 38 years old and have a DC workplace pension using Scottish Widows. I am 100% invested in SW Baillie Gifford North American Equity Pension Series 2. The fund has decreased in value from £1850,000 to £78,000. Should I leave the money invested in the same fund or change to something more defensive. The fund is heavily weighted towards technology shares which is why there has been a significant drop in value. I am contributing approximately £1,200 per month including employer contributions. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Brie

A lot of shares have dropped so you might want to hold on to wait for the market to turn.  Meanwhile is there any way you can draw a line under what has been invested so far and have any future contributions going into a different fund?  Just for diversity.

dunstonh

 I am 100% invested in SW Baillie Gifford North American Equity Pension Series 2. 

That is bad quality investing.  However, as long as you have been investing in it for more than 5 years, you are likely to be no worse off than had you gone 100% into a US tracker.   

Should I leave the money invested in the same fund or change to something more defensive.

How you are investing is not sensible.   So, it should be changed.

Albermarle

The fund has decreased in value from £1850,000 to £78,000. 

Wow that is quite a drop - 95% !

More seriously, being 100% invested in one sector is not a very good strategy.

Kim1965

Jesus, 2 million to nowt

Markneath

What would be considered the correct amount of US stocks percentage wise? 

MX5huggy

US represents about 60% of world stock market. But you’re not invested in the US market you’re invested in a very small number of selected us stocks. 

You might be able to comfort yourself with knowing how much you’ve put in and it still being worth more than that. 

It certainly has been a roll-a coaster  https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/p/bgo3/sw-baillie-gifford-north-american-equity-pension 

QrizB

Kim1965 said:

Jesus, 2 million to nowt

I'm hoping its £185k to £78k and the OP got a bit carried away with the zero key while typing that!

squirrelpie

I had something similar happen during the dotcom bust. I learned a painful lesson, but like fkerr is now I was still young enough then to learn from it and make some major changes to the way I invested. I hope they can do the same.

Cus

Likely that the fund has only dropped to where it was pre covid.  But definitely need to diversify in the future

Audaxer

Looking at Trustnet, I see that the fund has fallen 55% in the last 6 months, but is still 61% up over the last 5 years. In that position I think I would swap to a Global tracker, and possibly keep a small percentage in the BG fund as a satellite hoping it will recover some of it's losses.