Pensions rallying?

Malthusian

Collyflower1 said:

Thanks for your reply Eskbanker! The info i have is that the policy is invested in the RL open fund within the Royal London Long-Term Fund. I dont know if you can deduce anything from that, there are no specifics and i'm just given the following regarding the investment mix:-

      At december 31st 2021 (previous year end, 2020, in brackets!) it was 54% (44%)company shares, 15%(13%) property, 31%(36%) govt. and other bonds and 0%(7%) cash.

Obviously i wont know what the investment mix is at december 2022 as i'll only get the annual statement june'ish!

If you are in a With Profits fund and the value has gone down 10%, that implies that Royal London has either applied a Market Value Reduction, or cut your terminal bonus, or both.
The performance of With Profits funds tends to lag the market because if the market goes down enough to justify an MVR or terminal bonus cut, the actuaries won't immediately apply the MVR or bonus reduction, but they will eventually. Equally when the markets recover again, they won't remove the MVR or increase terminal bonuses immediately. All part of the "smoothing" process.
Like all With Profits funds it has a large allocation to government bonds, which fell heavily last year, and the overall underlying fund is likely to still be down. 
So I'd say that sounds about right. Because the performance of With Profits funds is opaque by design, it's difficult to say more than that. 

P933alilli

Malthusian said:

Collyflower1 said:

Thanks for your reply Eskbanker! The info i have is that the policy is invested in the RL open fund within the Royal London Long-Term Fund. I dont know if you can deduce anything from that, there are no specifics and i'm just given the following regarding the investment mix:-

      At december 31st 2021 (previous year end, 2020, in brackets!) it was 54% (44%)company shares, 15%(13%) property, 31%(36%) govt. and other bonds and 0%(7%) cash.

Obviously i wont know what the investment mix is at december 2022 as i'll only get the annual statement june'ish!

If you are in a With Profits fund and the value has gone down 10%, that implies that Royal London has either applied a Market Value Reduction, or cut your terminal bonus, or both.
The performance of With Profits funds tends to lag the market because if the market goes down enough to justify an MVR or terminal bonus cut, the actuaries won't immediately apply the MVR or bonus reduction, but they will eventually. Equally when the markets recover again, they won't remove the MVR or increase terminal bonuses immediately. All part of the "smoothing" process.
Like all With Profits funds it has a large allocation to government bonds, which fell heavily last year, and the overall underlying fund is likely to still be down. 
So I'd say that sounds about right. Because the performance of With Profits funds is opaque by design, it's difficult to say more than that. 

Thankfully an MVR wont be applied to my policy. The value has gone up only 0.79% after contributions since last April but inflation implies that its worth up to 10% less.

Albermarle

Collyflower1 said:

Malthusian said:

Collyflower1 said:

Thanks for your reply Eskbanker! The info i have is that the policy is invested in the RL open fund within the Royal London Long-Term Fund. I dont know if you can deduce anything from that, there are no specifics and i'm just given the following regarding the investment mix:-

      At december 31st 2021 (previous year end, 2020, in brackets!) it was 54% (44%)company shares, 15%(13%) property, 31%(36%) govt. and other bonds and 0%(7%) cash.

Obviously i wont know what the investment mix is at december 2022 as i'll only get the annual statement june'ish!

If you are in a With Profits fund and the value has gone down 10%, that implies that Royal London has either applied a Market Value Reduction, or cut your terminal bonus, or both.
The performance of With Profits funds tends to lag the market because if the market goes down enough to justify an MVR or terminal bonus cut, the actuaries won't immediately apply the MVR or bonus reduction, but they will eventually. Equally when the markets recover again, they won't remove the MVR or increase terminal bonuses immediately. All part of the "smoothing" process.
Like all With Profits funds it has a large allocation to government bonds, which fell heavily last year, and the overall underlying fund is likely to still be down. 
So I'd say that sounds about right. Because the performance of With Profits funds is opaque by design, it's difficult to say more than that. 

Thankfully an MVR wont be applied to my policy. The value has gone up only 0.79% after contributions since last April but inflation implies that its worth up to 10% less.

Inflation has affected the real value of all pension funds the same. If your fund value itself is pretty stable, then you are doing better than most. 
Some have been hit by a 20% loss in value and another 10% loss to inflation

P933alilli

Albermarle said:

Collyflower1 said:

Malthusian said:

Collyflower1 said:

Thanks for your reply Eskbanker! The info i have is that the policy is invested in the RL open fund within the Royal London Long-Term Fund. I dont know if you can deduce anything from that, there are no specifics and i'm just given the following regarding the investment mix:-

      At december 31st 2021 (previous year end, 2020, in brackets!) it was 54% (44%)company shares, 15%(13%) property, 31%(36%) govt. and other bonds and 0%(7%) cash.

Obviously i wont know what the investment mix is at december 2022 as i'll only get the annual statement june'ish!

If you are in a With Profits fund and the value has gone down 10%, that implies that Royal London has either applied a Market Value Reduction, or cut your terminal bonus, or both.
The performance of With Profits funds tends to lag the market because if the market goes down enough to justify an MVR or terminal bonus cut, the actuaries won't immediately apply the MVR or bonus reduction, but they will eventually. Equally when the markets recover again, they won't remove the MVR or increase terminal bonuses immediately. All part of the "smoothing" process.
Like all With Profits funds it has a large allocation to government bonds, which fell heavily last year, and the overall underlying fund is likely to still be down. 
So I'd say that sounds about right. Because the performance of With Profits funds is opaque by design, it's difficult to say more than that. 

Thankfully an MVR wont be applied to my policy. The value has gone up only 0.79% after contributions since last April but inflation implies that its worth up to 10% less.

Inflation has affected the real value of all pension funds the same. If your fund value itself is pretty stable, then you are doing better than most. 
Some have been hit by a 20% loss in value and another 10% loss to inflation

Thanks! The april 2021- april 2022 tax year was +10.5% even after contributions. The present tax year is +0.79% albeit only 3/4's of the way through. As Malthusian alluded to the 30+% in bonds has brought the value down quite a bit even allowing for the smoothing affect? They apply an annual bonus too. I assume thats at the end of each tax year but i'm not sure? Hopefully if the outlook has now improved for bonds then things should improve after this tax year?