Sipp lost £3,777. Yikes - advice please?

bostonerimus

travelodger said:

bostonerimus said:

So you invested 43k into something you don't understand and now you cancelled your DD without really understanding what you are doing either. Frankly I suggest you sit down and do some reading about investing basics to see if VLS80 is the right fund for you and why it's probably a good idea to keep paying into your SIPP.

Hello Bostonerimus

Could you explain what you think has gone wrong with my investments that you consider to be my fault?

Cos it seems that everyone else is saying that everyone's taken a massive drop in their investments because of global reasons that none of us can control.

Even had I spent weeks studying, and understood every tiny little detail about VLS80, it would not have changed what happened, and my investment would have dropped by exactly the same amount as it did with me in ignorance.

The only choice to be made is to sell the shares and put the money under the mattress, or stay invested and ride it out. People are now saying that the correct thing to do is to stay invested, which I have. So in fact it turns out that I did the right thing. I have not only reinstated my DD but doubled it to £800 as people are saying that when it's low, that is the right time to buy.

The fall in fund value is not your fault and it's true that most of us are seeing similar drops, but you broke one of the basic rules of investing by not understanding what you were investing in and by not knowing how to manage your investment. So you are gambling with your finances and that's a fast path to disaster for many people. You have been lucky so far, but you might not be next time. I'm criticizing your process not necessarily the result. The worrying thing is that your approach is probably quite common and there are going to be people with far worse outcomes than you after the dust of inflation and economic stagnation has settled.

redpete

benwhistler said:

callum9999 said:

You seem to keep reading criticisms that aren't there while ignoring the ones that are!

People on this forum can often be a bit blunt/rude (though I can't say anyone seems to be that bad), but the perfectly valid criticism you're receiving is that you're gambling huge sums of money on things you don't understand, nor seem to have made any effort to understand.

...
The OP is invested in Vanguard's LS80. You've characterised that as "gambling huge sums of money on things you don't understand" but essentially all pensions are invested and this fund is an entirely normal choice, though given the OP's age it might be wiser to have a higher share of bonds (e.g. by using one of the Target Retirement funds Vanguard provides)....

The OP talks elsewhere in the thread about having a large proportion of a large amount of money in an ISA invested in a Japan Smaller Companies fund.  This is a racy decision or advice from someone that would be beyond my level of risk toleration and far closer to a gamble than VLS80.

callum9999

benwhistler said:

callum9999 said:

You seem to keep reading criticisms that aren't there while ignoring the ones that are!

People on this forum can often be a bit blunt/rude (though I can't say anyone seems to be that bad), but the perfectly valid criticism you're receiving is that you're gambling huge sums of money on things you don't understand, nor seem to have made any effort to understand.

Actually, the OP asked a perfectly reasonable question and has generally behaved in a pretty open-minded and charitable way despite getting a few unhelpful responses. Alistair's jibe about her friend not being clever was downright needless in my view and the opposite of helpful - it was, in fact, a rather pathetic attempt to raise a laugh by mocking someone who was looking for help.

The OP is invested in Vanguard's LS80. You've characterised that as "gambling huge sums of money on things you don't understand" but essentially all pensions are invested and this fund is an entirely normal choice, though given the OP's age it might be wiser to have a higher share of bonds (e.g. by using one of the Target Retirement funds Vanguard provides).

But beyond tinkering with the fund chosen, the OP is already basically doing the right thing (far better than having money wasting away in a savings account) and just needs a bit of reassurance, as some people have provided. The clever friend was in fact quite clever because there are few better options someone with little investment experience can have for their SIPP than investing contributions in a fund like this.

What do you mean "actually"? I never said it wasn't a reasonable question.

So you disagree that blindly following the advice of one person (something they seem to be doing again with their fixation on a single YouTuber) is doing something they don't understand? And I know many people don't like to view investing as gambling, but the fact they've recently lost (on paper, granted) tens of thousands of pounds demonstrates otherwise in my view.

I did specifically point out that they're doing the right thing and that they're better than most others, as they seem sensitive to criticism. I don't however see how you can disagree with the points I've made (other than the friend jibe which yes, is this forum's characteristic brand of "be nasty for no reason - but don't worry, I'm also trying to help so it's perfectly fine").

anonmoose

This forum is no different to real life. People will disagree and you occasionally get some inappropriate comments from idiots but take the useful stuff and you learn massive amounts. Sometimes people are also well meaning but word things badly. No community is perfect especially online.

It sounds like the OP is doing a great job of starting to understand her investments and that is the main thing.

travelodger

anonmoose said:

It sounds like the OP is doing a great job of starting to understand her investments and that is the main thing.

I've learned from every poster and from this amazing young man

Stock Market Crashes | 4 rules for controlling your emotions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxg-OG8-Jug

travelodger

Thank you for the additional responses.

Sorry, Eyeful for calling you Eyeball.

travelodger

Hurrah, my loss has dropped to £3,500.

I have also found Mark Tilbury and other British people on Youtube about what do do in a recession. I am no longer worried. What you do is buy even more stocks and shares.

Eco_Miser

@travelodger, another good place to learn about investments is http://monevator.com/ which currently explains bear markets (what we may or may not be in at the moment) and how quickly they recover, on the front page and lots of very useful information in its archive

Alice_Holt

Travelodger said:
I have also found Mark Tilbury and other British people on Youtube about what do do in a recession. I am no longer worried. What you do is buy even more stocks and shares.


Eco_Miser said:

@travelodger, another good place to learn about investments is http://monevator.com/ which currently explains bear markets (what we may or may not be in at the moment) and how quickly they recover, on the front page and lots of very useful information in its archive

       Yes, I was about to post that link:

   "How to invest during a bear market

 Bear market recovery times make for depressing reading. But the goods news is your bounce-back will be fast-forwarded by something you’re probably already doing: pound cost averaging. Regularly investing over time shortened the UK’s longest bear market recovery time by a third.

   Automatic remedial action.
  Pound cost averaging is underestimated because it enables us to do the right thing without agonising over it. And you could have sped up the recovery by investing even more.

This is especially feasible when you’re a relatively young investor, and your portfolio hasn’t yet grown to a size where new contributions won’t move the dial to the same extent."

https://monevator.com/bear-markets/

Monevator is a really good source of info for all - whether newbies or seasoned investors