Switch pension from Aviva to ii

dont_use_vistaprint

MetaPhysical said:

Something to be aware of when inside II.  Trades are normally £3.99.  You shouldn't need many to build your portfolio.  However, as soon as you want to buy (or sell) 100k or more of something, the trade fee is £40.  Be careful of this since I got burnt on three trades that were 150k.

If you want to buy more than 100k, 150k in my example, then split it into two trades - a 90k and a 60k for instance and each will be £3.99.

Your trade would have to be over £one million for it to be worth paying the £40 fee.

Again you don't really need to trade that much, and I'd question anyone if they were regularly trading on what is meant to be their pension fund.  Each to their own though.

Yes the plan was a single trade but will look to split to safe on fees,,thanks 

dont_use_vistaprint

MetaPhysical said:

jimjames said:

I've switched as well from Aviva to ii and very happy with it. They are often doing special transfer deals so you might find you can get cashback from ii as well. Depending on your Aviva pot that might be substantial.

https://www.ii.co.uk/ii-accounts/sipp/offers-and-cashback/sipp-cashback

I picked up £800 in cash back from II as part of my move to them - I moved £700k.  I would have moved anyway but that was a nice bonus.

Yes hopefully get £500 if it completes in time 

dont_use_vistaprint

Pat38493 said:

dont_use_vistaprint said:

sausage_time said:

I'm also doing an Aviva "S6" transfer to Interactive Investor.   I'm a month in, and things do seem to be moving rather slowly for me.  I have several forms from Aviva to sign and scan back.   This will be a cash transfer, and I'm tempted to sell at least one of the S6 funds manually - it's on a bit of a high!

What fund in ii will you go for?

Yes S6 is doing fantastic at the moment and as I get closer to 55 at 25% tax lump sum it’s growing nicely week by week which is why I’m apprehensive to move things. Just found this on the interactive investor website…. a month or six weeks at the market would be devastating for me at the moment


A pension which is transferred to us entirely as cash usually takes 2 to 6 weeks to complete. You will need to sell any investments before you transfer your pension as cash. If you are transferring another SIPP to us, you may be able to transfer your investments as they are.

Or it might be very lucky - in April this year the markets went down by over 10% in a week.  If that happens again whilst you are out of market, you will gain out of it - no way to tell really, but it's pretty unusual for there to be movements that large in a few weeks or so and it could go either way.

I had the same worries when I transferred but in the end you just have to bite the bullet - if I remember correctly I think I gained a few hundred quid by being out of market, but that was just lucky.

I googled S6 growth fund and if I am looking at the correct fund, it's a multi asset fund with about 80% equities, which at first glance has been outperformed by other well known 80/20 funds like Vanguard life strategy 80 in recent years, so it's not the specific fund you are in that's doing well - it's just that the market is doing well right now - if you are a long term retirement investor generally being out of market for a week or two whilst doing a transfer will be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Can I ask how are you Determining that they have outperformed it ? Are you waking % growth per full calendar year  then cumulating or averaging them over what time period. Are you dedicating the fees annually or monthly 

is there an accepted standard method to compare one investment against another over time to confirm which is performing better ?

LHW99

dont_use_vistaprint said:

MetaPhysical said:

Something to be aware of when inside II.  Trades are normally £3.99.  You shouldn't need many to build your portfolio.  However, as soon as you want to buy (or sell) 100k or more of something, the trade fee is £40.  Be careful of this since I got burnt on three trades that were 150k.

If you want to buy more than 100k, 150k in my example, then split it into two trades - a 90k and a 60k for instance and each will be £3.99.

Your trade would have to be over £one million for it to be worth paying the £40 fee.

Again you don't really need to trade that much, and I'd question anyone if they were regularly trading on what is meant to be their pension fund.  Each to their own though.

Yes the plan was a single trade but will look to split to safe on fees,,thanks 

Depending on the plan you are on, you can get one (Investor) or 4 (Super Investor) free trades a month

seacaitch

LHW99 said:

Depending on the plan you are on, you can get one (Investor) or 4 (Super Investor) free trades a month

For an ii SIPP, there are 4 "free" trades per month on the Super Investor Plan (£19.99/month), but no free trades with either Pension Essentials (£5.99/month, for SIPP balance <=£50k) or with Pension Builder (£12.99/month, SIPP balances >£50k).

I've done numerous partial transfers from Aviva(Salisbury) to ii over the past year: all went smoothly and swiftly, maybe 10 working days average from initial request to completion. Your experience could well differ.

A slight point of order: some people have mentioned that the S6 fund (~80% equities) "is doing well"; with investments there is no "is doing" only "has done", since all performance is historic, so regarding timing of a transfer don't get too hung up on what something "has done" just recently unless you're consciously a momentum trader and that's your shtick.

Pat38493

dont_use_vistaprint said:

Pat38493 said:

dont_use_vistaprint said:

sausage_time said:

I'm also doing an Aviva "S6" transfer to Interactive Investor.   I'm a month in, and things do seem to be moving rather slowly for me.  I have several forms from Aviva to sign and scan back.   This will be a cash transfer, and I'm tempted to sell at least one of the S6 funds manually - it's on a bit of a high!

What fund in ii will you go for?

Yes S6 is doing fantastic at the moment and as I get closer to 55 at 25% tax lump sum it’s growing nicely week by week which is why I’m apprehensive to move things. Just found this on the interactive investor website…. a month or six weeks at the market would be devastating for me at the moment


A pension which is transferred to us entirely as cash usually takes 2 to 6 weeks to complete. You will need to sell any investments before you transfer your pension as cash. If you are transferring another SIPP to us, you may be able to transfer your investments as they are.

Or it might be very lucky - in April this year the markets went down by over 10% in a week.  If that happens again whilst you are out of market, you will gain out of it - no way to tell really, but it's pretty unusual for there to be movements that large in a few weeks or so and it could go either way.

I had the same worries when I transferred but in the end you just have to bite the bullet - if I remember correctly I think I gained a few hundred quid by being out of market, but that was just lucky.

I googled S6 growth fund and if I am looking at the correct fund, it's a multi asset fund with about 80% equities, which at first glance has been outperformed by other well known 80/20 funds like Vanguard life strategy 80 in recent years, so it's not the specific fund you are in that's doing well - it's just that the market is doing well right now - if you are a long term retirement investor generally being out of market for a week or two whilst doing a transfer will be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Can I ask how are you? Determine that they have outperformed it ? Are you waking % growth per full calendar year  then cumulating or averaging them over what time period. Are you dedicating the fees annually or monthly 

is there an accepted standard method to compare one investment against another over time to confirm which is performing better ?

I wouldn’t say there is a standard method, but there are plenty of YouTube videos or blogs by IFAs and suchlike with hints about how to assess fund performance.  

In this case, I just looked at the performance stats on a 3rd party site like Morningstar or Pickafund - generally I look first at the longest available annualised trailing return which will be up to 10 years.  Your fund had a significantly lower annualised historic long term return than (for example) VLS80 which is Vanguards 80% equity “lifestyle” fund.

You can also look at shorter periods, but if you are investing for the long term, it’s better to look at long term returns.

You can also see statistics about things like Volatility and something called the Sharpe ratio which is supposed to be an indicator of fund performance but you can only use it to compare funds that are having the same objective (as far as I understand).  It may be that your fund is less volatile and loses less during market downturns - I didn’t look into that much details.

You should also look at charges - many of the investors on this board favour passively managed funds which track an index rather than actively managed funds.  I would be typically looking to pay charges of not more than 0.25% on a fund.  Active fund managers rarely outperform the market over the long term (although I’m sure they would disagree with this statement!), or at least they don’t outperform by enough to cover their higher fund charges.  Passive funds seek to track an index so you may also look at “tracking error” which is the deviation from the underlying market index.

If I was look for active funds (which I don’t), I would still look for funds that had a good and sustained long term annualised return - funds which are at the top of the “charts” for shorter periods like 1Y or 3Y I am wary about, especially if they are outliers with massive returns in the last year - that implies they are taking a massive amount of risk to me.

Also you may want to look at number of holdings in the fund - funds with only very few holdings are going to be less diversified.  As far as I know the most diversified fund you can get is the Vanguard FTSE Global tracker fund which has over 6000 holdings and seeks to track the performance of “everything”.

If you don’t know anything about investing you may want to do some reading up on it, as it’s not a given that an 80% equity fund is the right thing for you - I just looked at another fund with the similar asset mix to yours, but this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right fund for you, especially if it’s the default one you were put in by your employer.  The Tim Hale book is a good place to start (can’t remember the name of it but if you google Tim Hale you will find it straight away).

dont_use_vistaprint

Pat38493 said:

dont_use_vistaprint said:

Pat38493 said:

dont_use_vistaprint said:

sausage_time said:

I'm also doing an Aviva "S6" transfer to Interactive Investor.   I'm a month in, and things do seem to be moving rather slowly for me.  I have several forms from Aviva to sign and scan back.   This will be a cash transfer, and I'm tempted to sell at least one of the S6 funds manually - it's on a bit of a high!

What fund in ii will you go for?

Yes S6 is doing fantastic at the moment and as I get closer to 55 at 25% tax lump sum it’s growing nicely week by week which is why I’m apprehensive to move things. Just found this on the interactive investor website…. a month or six weeks at the market would be devastating for me at the moment


A pension which is transferred to us entirely as cash usually takes 2 to 6 weeks to complete. You will need to sell any investments before you transfer your pension as cash. If you are transferring another SIPP to us, you may be able to transfer your investments as they are.

Or it might be very lucky - in April this year the markets went down by over 10% in a week.  If that happens again whilst you are out of market, you will gain out of it - no way to tell really, but it's pretty unusual for there to be movements that large in a few weeks or so and it could go either way.

I had the same worries when I transferred but in the end you just have to bite the bullet - if I remember correctly I think I gained a few hundred quid by being out of market, but that was just lucky.

I googled S6 growth fund and if I am looking at the correct fund, it's a multi asset fund with about 80% equities, which at first glance has been outperformed by other well known 80/20 funds like Vanguard life strategy 80 in recent years, so it's not the specific fund you are in that's doing well - it's just that the market is doing well right now - if you are a long term retirement investor generally being out of market for a week or two whilst doing a transfer will be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Can I ask how are you? Determine that they have outperformed it ? Are you waking % growth per full calendar year  then cumulating or averaging them over what time period. Are you dedicating the fees annually or monthly 

is there an accepted standard method to compare one investment against another over time to confirm which is performing better ?

I wouldn’t say there is a standard method, but there are plenty of YouTube videos or blogs by IFAs and suchlike with hints about how to assess fund performance.  

In this case, I just looked at the performance stats on a 3rd party site like Morningstar or Pickafund - generally I look first at the longest available annualised trailing return which will be up to 10 years.  Your fund had a significantly lower annualised historic long term return than (for example) VLS80 which is Vanguards 80% equity “lifestyle” fund.

You can also look at shorter periods, but if you are investing for the long term, it’s better to look at long term returns.

You can also see statistics about things like Volatility and something called the Sharpe ratio which is supposed to be an indicator of fund performance but you can only use it to compare funds that are having the same objective (as far as I understand).  It may be that your fund is less volatile and loses less during market downturns - I didn’t look into that much details.

You should also look at charges - many of the investors on this board favour passively managed funds which track an index rather than actively managed funds.  I would be typically looking to pay charges of not more than 0.25% on a fund.  Active fund managers rarely outperform the market over the long term (although I’m sure they would disagree with this statement!), or at least they don’t outperform by enough to cover their higher fund charges.  Passive funds seek to track an index so you may also look at “tracking error” which is the deviation from the underlying market index.

If I was look for active funds (which I don’t), I would still look for funds that had a good and sustained long term annualised return - funds which are at the top of the “charts” for shorter periods like 1Y or 3Y I am wary about, especially if they are outliers with massive returns in the last year - that implies they are taking a massive amount of risk to me.

Also you may want to look at number of holdings in the fund - funds with only very few holdings are going to be less diversified.  As far as I know the most diversified fund you can get is the Vanguard FTSE Global tracker fund which has over 6000 holdings and seeks to track the performance of “everything”.

If you don’t know anything about investing you may want to do some reading up on it, as it’s not a given that an 80% equity fund is the right thing for you - I just looked at another fund with the similar asset mix to yours, but this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right fund for you, especially if it’s the default one you were put in by your employer.  The Tim Hale book is a good place to start (can’t remember the name of it but if you google Tim Hale you will find it straight away).

Understood, that makes sense  as I’ve only held it since 2020. I understand your rationale, and of course there is no standard way because then people wouldn’t be able to make claims that one thing is better than another, you can take accumulative or average rate of return, you can look at the fund costs  but all that really matters when it comes to performance of investment is the price when you buy & the price when you sell + earnings and net of any costs. 

As far as I know the s6 growth and others on that platform has no fund costs, there is just a 0.35% platform cost. it wasn’t a default, the default was a mix of bonds and stocks with about 40% in S6 growth, I shifted everything into S6 growth a little while ago when it dropped around 15% & added the max I could as non tax payer and I’ve been really (really!) happy with the performance. It’s exceeded my expectation. I’m sure there are better ones but I would need to pay for advice.

in fact it’s done so well since I moved everything into S6 that  I’ve noticed how much fees I will be paying and that’s the reason for shifting to ii. I’m hoping I can cash it out while it’s on an all-time high, which is most of the time like most things are, but not all the time, and then buy something in ii when the price drops 5 to 10%