My Aviva Workplace Pension ?

Outeast1000

I have being paying into a Aviva workplace pension for the last six and a half years . At present i pay £66 and my employer pays £49 each month in the last six weeks my pension pot has gone down about £400 in value and it is the only time it has gone down in value AFAIK  .  I have spoken to Aviva about it and they said that sometimes a pension pot does go down in value and that was all they knew on the subject 

I will retire in about a year and a half and my pension pot then should be about ten thousand £ which in intend to take in what would be a small lump sum minus tax of course 

My question is why has my pension pot gone down in value and will it keep going down or will it start going up in value again 

Worried 

Thank You 

Albermarle

and it is the only time it has gone down in value AFAIK  

That is very unlikely, it will have gone up and down numerous times.

My question is why has my pension pot gone down in value

Stock and bond markets have gone down this year, which is almost certainly what your pension is invested in. Ukraine war is the main issue.

and will it keep going down - it might and it might not or will it start going up in value again - yes at some point

I will retire in about a year and a half and my pension pot then should be about ten thousand £ which in intend to take in what would be a small lump sum minus tax of course 

25% is tax free, the rest will only be taxed if you have other taxable income in that tax year. If you stop work completely, it would probably be be better to delay taking it until the next year. Although the state pension is taxable as well. 

Marcon

Outeast1000 said:

I have being paying into a Aviva workplace pension for the last six and a half years . At present i pay £66 and my employer pays £49 each month in the last six weeks my pension pot has gone down about £400 in value and it is the only time it has gone down in value AFAIK  .  I have spoken to Aviva about it and they said that sometimes a pension pot does go down in value and that was all they knew on the subject 

I will retire in about a year and a half and my pension pot then should be about ten thousand £ which in intend to take in what would be a small lump sum minus tax of course 

My question is why has my pension pot gone down in value and will it keep going down or will it start going up in value again 

Worried 

Thank You 

If this is the only time your pension pot has gone down in value in over six years, that is (a) extremely unusual and (b) suggests you are in investments which don't fluctuate much in value.

Your pot has gone down because the underlying investments have dropped in value - markets are all over the place at present. Whether it goes down further will depend on how your chosen investments perform, and nobody can predict that.

Outeast1000 said:

II have spoken to Aviva about it and they said that sometimes a pension pot does go down in value and that was all they knew on the subject 

As pension providers (rather than financial advisers) that's all they can say, not least because it is perfectly accurate. 

dunstonh

I have being paying into a Aviva workplace pension for the last six and a half years . At present i pay £66 and my employer pays £49 each month in the last six weeks my pension pot has gone down about £400 in value and it is the only time it has gone down in value AFAIK  

6 years take us back to 2016.  There was a loss period similar to now in 2015/16. So, you may have just missed that.  There was a similar one in Q4 2018.  You should have seen that. But you would need to be looking.   Maybe you were not looking.    There was a bigger drop in Spring 2020.   Again, it was there if you looked at it.

 I have spoken to Aviva about it and they said that sometimes a pension pot does go down in value and that was all they knew on the subject 

Investments go up and down every day.

My question is why has my pension pot gone down in value and will it keep going down or will it start going up in value again 

You may have heard  that Russia invaded Ukraine and accelerated a cost of living crisis with inflation going up significantly and countries going into recession.

Outeast1000

I should have said it has only been in last six weeks or so that i have been checking how much £ is in my pension pot each week so it probably has been going up and down over the last six years and i did not know 

dunstonh

Outeast1000 said:

I should have said it has only been in last six weeks or so that i have been checking how much £ is in my pension pot each week so it probably has been going up and down over the last six years and i did not know 

So, the answer is to stop looking.    And that is not a mickey take answer.  That is a genuine answer.

Back in the old days when people got an annual statement, they would miss all the volatility that would occur between statements.  Sometimes it may be down a little but in most periods it was up as the bulk or all of the loss and recovery would happen between statement dates.

This volatility you are seeing at the moment is normal for investments (it's above the norm for low risk investments but within the typical range or less for higher-risk investments).   

If you don't look at it often, then you will not get worried about things you can't control.  Close your eyes to it and wait until you come out the other side.

Albermarle

Also keep paying in to it .