What do these charts mean?

breaking_free

Hi all.

Just over a month ago I opened a SIPP. I have almost no idea what I'm doing. I had to opt out of my workplace pension as I was made redundant so I hastily jumped onto the Fidelity platform and started buying up funds, ETFs and shares. 

It's been a month and so far I'm up 4.2% (the actual figure bounces around like a wallaby throughout the day so I've stopped watching as my heart's in my mouth whenever it goes down!) I discovered the benchmarking report that lets me compare against the FTSE 100 among others (see below). The trouble is that I have no idea what I am looking at! Remember, my "portofolio" has only been active for a month so what do any of the charts and figures below actually mean?

If anybody could point me in the direction of online learning material that I could teach myself with I'd be forever grateful. Thanks all.

Marcon

Apologies for going off at a tangent rather than answering the question, but are you sure you can't continue to contribute to your previous workplace pension? Opting out has a specific meaning (ie you are still in employment and eligible for scheme membership but choose to leave the scheme), but with so many workplaces offering some sort of group personal pension arrangement, you can normally continue to contribute.

Looking at your previous thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6496950/pension-doesnt-allow-3rd-party-contributions#latest I wonder if it's a simple misunderstanding of your options, thanks to the messy jargon in the land of pensions?

breaking_free

Marcon, you are right that I could have continued to contribute to the old workplace scheme (Scottish widows), but chose not to as it appeared to have fared rather poorly - in 6+ years it had barely grown beyond the contributions I was putting into it. I'm now contracting and may well do so for a good number of years so thought I'd take the bull by the horns and start a SIPP pension that I can control.

So, any idea where I can learn what these various charts mean? I'm Googling away but I seem to get drowned in more text jargon when what I want is a page of charts that look like mine and an explanation of how to read each one. I guess the line chart is not hard to interpret, but it goes back to Jan 2019 whereas I only started investing on Jan 18th of this year. I'm guessing the dark blue line, my portolio, represents the sum total of all 13 stocks/funds/EFTs I've invested in as a whole and is comparing those 13 with the single benchmark, no? And what do the Stock Sector and Stock Style segments of the benchmark report mean? 

Marcon

breaking_free said:

Marcon, you are right that I could have continued to contribute to the old workplace scheme (Scottish widows), but chose not to as it appeared to have fared rather poorly - in 6+ years it had barely grown beyond the contributions I was putting into it. I'm now contracting and may well do so for a good number of years so thought I'd take the bull by the horns and start a SIPP pension that I can control.

Don't forget that it isn't the pension scheme per se which performs; it's the underlying assets in which you have chosen to invest. You might have had (and still have) much more control over the SW pension than you've realised.

breaking_free said:

So, any idea where I can learn what these various charts mean? I'm Googling away but I seem to get drowned in more text jargon when what I want is a page of charts that look like mine and an explanation of how to read each one. I guess the line chart is not hard to interpret, but it goes back to Jan 2019 whereas I only started investing on Jan 18th of this year. I'm guessing the dark blue line, my portolio, represents the sum total of all 13 stocks/funds/EFTs I've invested in as a whole and is comparing those 13 with the single benchmark, no? And what do the Stock Sector and Stock Style segments of the benchmark report mean? 

I'd start by having a look at the websites of various SIPP providers (starting with Fidelity) to see what they offer by way of 'online education'.

Pensions are long term investments and you'll drive yourself mad if you keep on madly checking away, especially when this new toy is only a month old. 

This might be of use: https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pensions-basics/midlife-review-for-self-employed-people

breaking_free

I've scoured the Fidelity site and they don't provide any insight as to what their own charts mean. I've also looked at a number of other pension provider's sites as well as good old Google and have drawn a blank. What's the purpose of providing graphics if there is no explanation as to their meaning?
Yours in perplexity, 
breaking_free.

Marcon

breaking_free said:

I've scoured the Fidelity site and they don't provide any insight as to what their own charts mean. I've also looked at a number of other pension provider's sites as well as good old Google and have drawn a blank. What's the purpose of providing graphics if there is no explanation as to their meaning?
Yours in perplexity, 
breaking_free.

Probably because they expect people who are 'buying up funds, ETFs and shares' to have a grasp of the basics - but why not drop them a line and suggest they do precisely that? Looking back at some of the fund performance updates I've had (eg Aviva), there is often a 'key to reading' included.

In the meantime, try

https://www.aviva.co.uk/investments/investing-for-beginners/how-to-read-a-fund-factsheet/

af1963

As a quick summary:

The line chart is showing how the specific investments in your fund have performed over the chosen time period - shown in your picture as 5 years although you can choose others.  It compares it to a "benchmark" - in this case they are comparing to a tracker which is linked to the UK FTSE 100 market.  The investments you now own did well compared to the benchmark over that period - but that says nothing about how they'll do in future.

The table below shows the same information in numbers.

Below that, three boxes analysing your current holdings into broad categories  ( e.g. "cyclical" stocks usually go up and down in line with the general economy, "defensive" are thought to be good at holding value when things are bad; no idea exactly how somethign qualifies as "sensitive" !

Below that, a more detailed split of your investments into three types (similar to the above) and also by three company sizes.  The 3x3 grid shows the percentage of your investments in each category/size You mostly have "growth" investments - riskier but potentially higher rewards.

There' a similar 3x3 matrix for "fixed income" investments but you don;t own any of those so the numbers are all zero.

I'd echo what was said above about checking too frequently.  Apart from creating work and worry, it might also tempt you to trade frequently, and that can be costly - both in fees, and in encouraging you to sell after an investment has dropped a bit, locking in the losses.

Marcon

af1963 said:

Below that, three boxes analysing your current holdings into broad categories  ( e.g. "cyclical" stocks usually go up and down in line with the general economy, "defensive" are thought to be good at holding value when things are bad; no idea exactly how somethign qualifies as "sensitive" !

'Sensitive' is clearly not an exact science! See e.g. https://peggottyic.digital.conncoll.edu/Sensitive_Sector.php#:~:text=The%20sensitive%20category%20regroups%20industrials,the%20cyclical%20and%20the%20defensive.

JohnWinder

'I have almost no idea what I'm doing.'

'If anybody could point me in the direction of online learning material that I could teach myself with I'd be forever grateful.'

Here's the thing. You've excluded books at a time when one particular book is probably one of the best things you could read. Tim Hale's Smarter Investing. You'll probably get it from your library; if not ask them to buy it as you'll be doing other borrowers a favour too. It will be all you need for investing with Fidelity or anyone else.

But if you insist on on-line, they're mostly foreign but not bad, but you'll waste less time with Hale.

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is one. You'll get an old edition as a free pdf, and it's worth every penny and more.

‘If You Can’ is a free pdf by W Bernstein, short and sweet.

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, by Larimore et al is a 7.2MB pdf. I think it's here: https://ia803405.us.archive.org/23/items/the-bogleheads-guide-to-investing/The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing.pdf

The Basics of Investing Basics  A primer for the young retirement investor by A. Dad, is a free pdf written by a father for his daughters, not published as a book I think, but good enough at 40pp.

Investment Strategies for the 21st Century by Frank Armstrong is a 160pp pdf.

Serious Money, Straight talking about retirement investing, by Richard Ferri is a free 200pp pdf

 https://ia803405.us.archive.org/23/items/the-bogleheads-guide-to-investing/The%20Bogleheads%27%20Guide%20to%20Investing.pdf

 https://rickferri.com/wp-content/uploads/Serious-Money-Straight-Talk.pdf

 https://archive.org/details/common-sense-investing

breaking_free

Wow, thanks very much to everyone who has responded.
Marcon, I read your How to read a fund factsheet and things started to make sense. 
af1963 Thanks for the summary - now things make even more sense!
JohnWinder I shall take a look at everything you've provided this week.

Meanwhile I've already taken the advice to not keep looking at the peformance summary. I've cut down to once a day and will wean myself further to once every few days and so on. Really, I can't thank you all enough.
Cheerybye.

Albermarle

breaking_free said:

Hi all.

Just over a month ago I opened a SIPP. I have almost no idea what I'm doing. I had to opt out of my workplace pension as I was made redundant so I hastily jumped onto the Fidelity platform and started buying up funds, ETFs and shares. 

It's been a month and so far I'm up 4.2% (the actual figure bounces around like a wallaby throughout the day so I've stopped watching as my heart's in my mouth whenever it goes down!) I discovered the benchmarking report that lets me compare against the FTSE 100 among others (see below). The trouble is that I have no idea what I am looking at! Remember, my "portofolio" has only been active for a month so what do any of the charts and figures below actually mean?

If anybody could point me in the direction of online learning material that I could teach myself with I'd be forever grateful. Thanks all.

Not sure if it helps, but I would guess the majority of Fidelity's customers do not understand these charts or even look at them. I think you are getting into too much detail, and trying to run before you can walk.