Pension has tanked :(

ha-pajama

hi everyone,

I always thought I was alright with money.   VEry focused on paying off mortgage and since H and me have done that, we have been doing our best to accumulate money for (hopefully) an early retirement.

I'm 53 - H is 50 - we have 2 kids, dog etc.   Both me and H are S.E

The problem is, I seem to have the opposite of the Midas touch in relation to pension planning.
We've been chucking money into Sipps and Isa and Crypto.  Crypto has done well.  Isa pretty good - but the sipps is tragic!   we've invested £105K into the pension/ISAs and it's current value is £91K.    We're invested in:

Baille and Gifford American - going in when it was at it's highest point.   Now down by 50%

2 x japaense funds both down 20% each

I'm worried about taking the money and out and transferring into another fund adn crystalissing losses - but everytime I look at the money I've lost, I feel a bit sick....

Brie

My shares are down drastically right now.  So are my pension funds.  Small matter of wars in Ukraine and middle east.....  I believe things will change in the world in the next 12 months so while I'm keeping an eye on things I'm not making any drastic plans.  And I'm much older than you.  You have lots of time to wait so don't panic.

All that said - maybe you need a bit more diversity in your funds?  Might be possible to remedy quickly by cashing in the crypto (not my favourite thing for investments - I don't understand it so just don't go there) and putting the proceeds into some of the top high yield funds that will have a modest increase and pay dividends along the way?

Keep_pedalling

Well the first thing I would do is get out of crypto while your are up otherwise you could find yourself losing a hell of a lot more. 

You seem to have selected a bunch of random high risk investments presumably based on past performance.

Janie2008

Switching funds isn't the same as crystallizing losses. You could do with more diversity, a whole world tracker something like Vanguard lifestrategy 100. There are several choices. Japan is pretty risky and should make up a small percentage.

 

ha-pajama

Thank you both for your replies.  
I will google and look into 'top high yield funds' so thank you for that.   You are right that globally, there is so much going on sadly, with Wars etc.  But we seem to also be living through a period of time where a settled landscape for financial markets is rarer than crisis mode: i.e.. brexit to pandemic to War to perhaps recession.

I know this probably makes me sound quite stupid, but I thought by going for 2 Asian funds + and American I thought that was some diversification!?   I also have some money in Vanguard lfe 80% equity (just put in over the past few days) and Fundsmith equity.

twopenny

But then I did the oposite and went for 'reliable'

ISA rates went to floor level, private pension has not kept up with inflation and as for the state pension lets not go there. So splitting into 3 reliable ones has kept my capital but times have changed from when I made those decisions.

That's what happens. You can only deal with the here and now.

It's largely guess work. Keeping your head in the highs and sulking in the lows.

I'm retired as are the people around me. Those who seem the most stable are those s/e who went for pension funds up to 5 different ones.

That has remained the case through decades.

I knew someone who played the stock market which went well until he passed and his wife was left with the basics.

But a better gamble will be to look for good pension plans for income. Preferably ones you can move so you can change with the times.

ha-pajama

thanks Janie and twoPenny.
Good advice that I'll look into.  Thanks again

SVaz

A Global equity fund, either with or without emerging markets is properly diversified.
Steer clear of Vanguard LS if you don’t want a UK bias.
You could have Fidelity index world  or HSBC
FTSE All world, which has emerging markets, to name two. 

ha-pajama

thanks Svaz, am googling those recommendations

Janie2008

ha-pajama said:

Thank you both for your replies.  
I will google and look into 'top high yield funds' so thank you for that.   You are right that globally, there is so much going on sadly, with Wars etc.  But we seem to also be living through a period of time where a settled landscape for financial markets is rarer than crisis mode: i.e.. brexit to pandemic to War to perhaps recession.

I know this probably makes me sound quite stupid, but I thought by going for 2 Asian funds + and American I thought that was some diversification!?   I also have some money in Vanguard lfe 80% equity (just put in over the past few days) and Fundsmith equity.

I don't think 2 Asian and an American fund is much diversification at all to be honest. I would be inclined to switch some of it into a global tracker. If it helps I put some money into the stock market 25 years ago and it immediately plummeted to less than half it's value. It recovered eventually and if it had been in a global tracker would now be 6 times it's original value. I must have made some pretty poor choices over the years as it's only about 3 times original value. I'm not sure how many years it took to recover but not that many. 

ha-pajama

Janie2008 said:

I don't think 2 Asian and an American fund is much diversification at all to be honest. I would be inclined to switch some of it into a global tracker. If it helps I put some money into the stock market 25 years ago and it immediately plummeted to less than half it's value. It recovered eventually and if it had been in a global tracker would now be 6 times it's original value. I must have made some pretty poor choices over the years as it's only about 3 times original value. I'm not sure how many years it took to recover but not that many. 

thanks Janie.  Glad yours recovered - hope mine doesn't take 25 years to do so I'll have a good think about what you suggest