Should I leave IFA and where to go

dunstonh

@dunstonh Yes I'm looking at a graph over the last three months and the investment values have gone down.

3 months is nothing.   Even in strong growth periods you could get 3 months of decline.    You never look at any performance on a 3 month basis.

I understand it's been a difficult five years for investment. I guess I appointed an IFA because I know very little about investments so hoped he would invest better than I would.  I'm trying to find out if this is still the right approach or not. There doesn't appear to be much in the public domain about how well other people are getting on with investments so the main question here is whether I would probably have fared better elsewhere and where that might be.

There is loads in the public domain about the last few years of performance but it pretty much boils down to how muc you have or have not got in gilts.

MarzipanCrumble

I have an IFA.  Yes, I am in a priveledged position in that I am not dependent on the investments managed by IFA because I have DB pension including a very much increased SP (old) due to deferring.

I rely on my IFA to give me advice about how to manage the inevitable IHT which will be liable on my estate and how to mitigate this so it could be lower.

I am a boomer who has benefited from property values (location actually), silver? plated DB pensions and 10% interest on old deferred SP.  I don't consider myself 'rich' but I am, due to circumstance.

Hence the advice from an informed IFA to mitigate against tax is, for me, a good investment.

Lookingforanswer

@dunstonh The three month comment was a response to your comment about investments not continuing to go down.

The investments are not primarily in gilts.  Do you know what a reasonable return over the last 5 years would be for investments which are not gilts or where I can look for this information? Or is it simple a case of using the Financial indices as a reference?

older_and_no_wiser

Lookingforanswer said:

@older_and_no_wiser. Feeling like that tag right now! The ongoing fee is 1% which I believe is not unusual.

Haha. Actually 1% does seem quite a lot. I spoke with a couple of local IFAs a few years ago and they were quoting me around 0.6% annual charge. I made a decision to go it alone. As others have said, this investing/pension malarky isn't all that difficult. There are so many online resources these days to help you. The Smarter Investing book is also a good start but equally, some good YouTube channels. These are the ones I watch:

Meaningful Money

Damien Talks Money

That Finance Show

Rob Berger (US based but some good essentials)

PensionCraft (maybe a bit too detailed for some!)

Hooked on Finance

Chris Bourne (pension withdrawal strategies)

They all have videos that describe the basics and show you what you need to be thinking about. Keep it simple is often the best advise (search for multi asset funds on YouTube and Google).

Lookingforanswer

@older_and_no_wiser Thanks for that list. I'll check those out!

QrizB

Lookingforanswer said:

The investments are not primarily in gilts.  Do you know what a reasonable return over the last 5 years would be for investments which are not gilts or where I can look for this information?

If you can tell us what you are invested in, we might be able to help you understand the ups and downs.

Lookingforanswer

@MallyGirl

Not sure how much detail is needed here? It is mostly invested in various IA funds across the world (incl infrastructure, equities, tech and media, smaller cos, emerging markets, energy and commodity). The risk level is balanced by an investment in Pru Growth Fund.

Albermarle

Lookingforanswer said:

@dunstonh The three month comment was a response to your comment about investments not continuing to go down.

The investments are not primarily in gilts.  Do you know what a reasonable return over the last 5 years would be for investments which are not gilts or where I can look for this information? Or is it simple a case of using the Financial indices as a reference?

I already mentioned in my first post that a medium risk multi asset fund ( such as the well known Vanguard Life Strategy 60) is up around 15 to 20% in the last 5 years. These are basically 60% equities and 40% gilts/bonds
The growth came in a period from mid 2020 to Nov 2021 and then fell back a bit. They have been quite stable for about 12 months now.
Your mix of investments is more complicated and I suspect ( just guessing ) that a couple of the funds are dragging down the overall performance.

older_and_no_wiser

PruGrowth Fund is very expensive (1.75% annual charge according to Trustnet). That's on top of your annual IFA charge. It's also heavily invested in the UK - which forms around 4% of the global economy currently.

I personally would be tempted to move out of the existing funds and into a reasonably cautious multi-asset fund like HSBC Global Strategy Balanced (0.17% annual fee) or Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 - if you want that overweight UK ratio (0.22% annual fee).

Both of the above funds contain everything you need in a pension fund. You can just pick the level of "risk/volatility" you are comfortable with.

Of course, please do your own research and understand how funds and different asset classes work. Hopefully you will enjoy learning it all and take pleasure in managing your own destiny and saving/growing money!

Lookingforanswer

@Albermarle Yes thanks, I saw that figure and appreciate you taking the time to respond on this. This information is really helpful.