Pension has tanked :(

barnstar2077

You may want to look at Vanguard's FTSE Global All Cap index fund.  It is weighted more inline with the global stock market, which many believe is a better all round strategy than picking one or two countries or sectors (especially compared to managed funds.) 

dunstonh

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

BG American is one of the highest risk US equity funds available in the UK.  It makes a good satellite fund for a US equity allocation but it wouldn't make a good core fund and certainly not a 100% into fund (that would be awful investing)

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....

You have invested in a very bad way by picking extremely high risk funds in a focused area.   The fund has lost a lot but would have been capable of losing a bit more.   So, the problem appears to be a lack of understanding of the risks you have taken.   So, you should change it as it could go down a lot more than it has already.

I will google and look into 'top high yield funds' so thank you for that.   

Don't do that as you risk making similar mistakes in a different sector.

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!? 

Its a small amount of diversification but very selective and only at the extremely high risk end of the scale. Where is your UK, European, US core etc?   By going tech heavy, you suffered the bulk of your losses because of the tech crash late 2021.  

ha-pajama

Alot of food for thought here.  thank you dunstonh

Pat38493

ha-pajama said:

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....

You might want to do a bit more research and watch some videos around pension investing - it's a long term game.  Generally the best thing is to pick a reasonably good well diversified portfolio and stick to it for the long term.  Chopping and changing investments every month, or even every year, is probably not going to work out well.

You can get some good guides about how to pick funds because it's not that hard, but it's more complicated than just picking the one that had the highest return in the last few years.

The global funds mentioned by other posters are good funds but keep in mind that these funds are 100% equities and you have the potential for significant volatility - if you are going to panic and sell up if it drops by 30%, it might not be the right choice for you personally.  These funds are very likely going to deliver good average returns over periods of more than 10 years - you should not look to them to be making significant gains every single year and some years will be negative.

Some of the greatest minds in investing would recommend global tracker funds like the ones mentioned above - these funds probably won't give stellar performance in any one year but they are arguably likely to give the best long term result over decades.

Most posters on these boards would steer clear of Crypto - crypto is not really diversified investing as there is a significant risk that you will lose most or even all of your money, and it could happen just before you need it.

GDB2222

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 appreciate that pension growth is tax free, but I'm not sure why you are looking for high yield  specifically? What you want is to maximise the overall return, from income and capital growth combined. It's not obvious why  'top high yield funds' will do that.

Bear in mind that by 'top' you presumably mean funds that have performed well in the past. There's a ton of research that suggests that past performance is no guide at all to the future. You might be better off looking for diversification and keeping the charges down.

And, please, please get out of crypto whilst you can.

penners324

The other risk of crypto is not being able to extract your 'investment'/gamble due to most UK banks now being unwilling to receive or send funds to most crypto exchanges 

Bostonerimus1

ha-pajama said:

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....

This looks like a high risk assembly of investments chosen on the basis of their prominence in the financial news. So you might well have bought high and overly suffered from recent downturns.  Also remember that the Midas Touch was ultimately a curse. 

How do you manage this portfolio? is there any rebalancing? do you have an asset allocation in mind? Going with Baillle Gifford American and 2x Japanese funds is not very diversified and is high risk so you need to reconsider your equity allocation. I would look at multi-asset funds or maybe a few index funds for your core portfolio and keep active funds like Baille Gifford and risky things like crypto as small percentage satellite funds...if you must...personally I don't use such financial products.

barnstar2077

I also would advise not to stay in crypto.  It is literally just a token, bought and sold by people hoping someone else will buy it for more later, but with no underlying asset or intrinsic value.  It is a worthless house of cards, don't be the last sucker in the chain.

SVaz

James Shack on youtube is very good, he gives clear information in an easy to understand way.
You can still ‘dabble’ with a couple of smaller / riskier satellite funds, but it’s not worth having less than 5-10% in holdings unless your portfolio is huge.
 I’ve had Fundsmith for years as 10% of my pf, when it dropped 12% last year, I bought more by selling some VLS 80.  

westv

A 13% drop in a SIPP is hardly "tanking". Maybe 50% or 60% down.