Private Pension - losing money

trev2014

Please excuse my ignorance, when it comes to pensions I'm clueless!

Long story short.... I spoke with a financial advisor many years ago and set up a private pension. Both my employer and I pay into this every month. Every so often I log into my account to set how its performing. Last month I received an email statement showing my pension recorded its first loss which was around 3% (approx £4k). I've just logged into my account again this morning and its now showing a 7.5% loss!

I understand pensions can go both up and down. I'm also aware the world's financial markets have gone crazy, however, I'm not sure if I should be doing something proactive and moving my funds to a different pension? At the rate my current pension is performing I stand to lose a small fortune!  

JOHNBOY42

ALL pension funds are down right now and there are lots of topics on it here..... mine is down 16k and we are all in the same boat, the way I look at it as a storm sit tight and ride it out

Stubod

...if you undesrtand investments can go down, and that all markets are currently on a downward trend what makes you think changing provider will make any difference, and how would you decide on which one to go for? We are all in the same boat. Ride it out, investing is a 10+ year journey.

Kim1965

trev2014 said:

Please excuse my ignorance, when it comes to pensions I'm clueless!

Long story short.... I spoke with a financial advisor many years ago and set up a private pension. Both my employer and I pay into this every month. Every so often I log into my account to set how its performing. Last month I received an email statement showing my pension recorded its first loss which was around 3% (approx £4k). I've just logged into my account again this morning and its now showing a 7.5% loss!

I understand pensions can go both up and down. I'm also aware the world's financial markets have gone crazy, however, I'm not sure if I should be doing something proactive and moving my funds to a different pension? At the rate my current pension is performing I stand to lose a small fortune!  

Youve lost nothing until you sell up, why consolidate your losses? 

balbs

Think of it this way - every month you invest in your pension at the present time it is buying more units or shares than it did at the start of the year - hopefully these will then increase in value over time.   But you must expect these ups and downs - to make yourself feel better google what happened a year after the stock market crash in 2008 - a year later most markets had regained their value and more.  Thats not to say there wont be even worse pain this time - but you need to take a long term view - your pension savings are not the same as saving for next years holiday.

dunstonh

I've just logged into my account again this morning and its now showing a 7.5% loss!

Well done on such a small loss in this period.

I understand pensions can go both up and down.

I would argue that point......

I'm also aware the world's financial markets have gone crazy, however, I'm not sure if I should be doing something proactive and moving my funds to a different pension? At the rate my current pension is performing I stand to lose a small fortune!  

....this would indicate that you don't understand that investments will go down as well as up.    

Firstly, your pension doesn't perform in either direction. Pensions are just an administrative wrapper that holds investments.   Changing the pension changes the logo in the corner but it doesn't change where it is invested.

Secondly, you are paying into this monthly.  This drop is great news for you as you are now buying investments back at 2020 prices.  When they go back up, it will be these investments that make more money than those you bought in 2021 when you didn't have this concern.

You say this was in place many years ago.   In 2020, we saw a loss period that was nearly double the current loss level.  What did you do then?   In quarter 4 of 2018, there was a crash of a similar level.  What did you do then?    Over 2015/16 there was a similar level drop.  What did you do then?

From what you indicate, you have been through worse or similar periods of loss.  So, what is different about this one that is worrying you but not those that went before?