Standard Life Pension Funds

cagey76

here is where I am currently;

Schroder Global Emerging Market 25
standard life UK equity High Income 20
Fidelity European 10
M & G Global Basics 15

with another 30% still outstanding, I am finding the funds available through Standard Life are a bit limited, no mention of Brazil, BRIC or any alternative energy.

DaveK

I've been investing in my company pension for the last 10 years, the last 3 of which have been with Standard Life. The choice of funds was hard to understand so I wrote a simple script to get the prices each day off the Std Life website so I could choose suitable funds. I'm hoping to write a complete portfolio management tool eventually and work out a way to help choose funds on the move.

Go to http://www.pimpmyportfolio.co.uk/stdlife.php

My portfolio is currently:
40% Std Life European One
25% Schroder Global Emerging Markets
35% Fidelity South East Asia


The closest BRIC fund if Schroder Global Emerging, and Fidelity South East Asia. Don't forget to weather the storms in those funds, they are very volatile but also provide the best growth.
My take on the market is that US is in recession, UK will see a slow down/recession, Europe will also see a slow down but will recover quicker. Asia and Global Emerging will ride it out and still provide growth. But I could be wrong. The Std Life Select Property has a Global mix of property which has fallen in recent time. Personally I'd avoid property for the moment as I reckon there is still much more uncertainty with sub-prime to come.

As has been said before this is not Financial advice just my own personal opinion, you are in control of your own money and you can make your own choices.

cagey76

DaveK, cheers for the link, and the confirmation re BRIC. Perhaps they'll offer more funds soon, but the Schroder one does look to be the closest available now.

Cheers.

artic99

Nice page thanks DaveK, looking at it though cash is sitting at 19th out of 158!

My pot has dropped a good 15% over the past 6 months in what were decent funds when I chose them a year ago, cash is looking appealing just to halt the dropping, cant go wrong with 19th!

DaveK

True, cash has faired better than a lot of funds but a word of warning, switching your fund to cash is one way to stop the rot as long as you can pick the right time to get back in, just like the lottery you have to be in it to win it, there will be some years when you loose money as well as make money so be prepared to take a hit during the bad times, research the funds (yep boring I know) and be confident that they will pick up eventually.

I was a clueless investor for 6 years, I choose the recommended bog standard "Cautious Managed Funds" and lost 27% one year and 21% the next (2000 - 2002), it was then I decided that if I was going to be able to retire at all I needed to manage it myself and watch it weekly, hence writing this script.

A good example of choosing the right fund is Fidelity Special Situations, Anthony Bolton - see this (the God of investments!!) when he was managing the fund (he's pretty much retired now) he made an average of 19.9% for 25 years! in the bad years of 2000 - 2002 he lost about 2% - 4% in those years but the average compound interest was 19.9%! most IFA's really annoy me with the "cautious approach" attitude, the cautious fund was rubbish and lost me money yet the fund they deemed "adventureous" hardly lost anything.

I'm hoping to get this site I've done up and running properly in the near future, unfortunately Standard Life don't always publish their funds prices which can cause prices to be missed out when working out percentages so I need to look at a more robust way of getting those prices.

dunstonh

most IFA's really annoy me with the "cautious approach" attitude, the cautious fund was rubbish and lost me money yet the fund they deemed "adventureous" hardly lost anything.

Problem is that most people are cautious. It may annoy you but that is the fact. If you are not cautious then its fine for you but you shouldnt shoe horn everyone else into your risk profile.

cagey76

the decision has been made;

Schroder Global Emerging Market 30
standard life UK equity High Income 30
M & G Global Basics 30
standard life far east 10

there were limitations in the fund choice which hindered my decision, but of course my ISA can be used alongside this

I doubt I will change these too often, but of course will keep a regular eye out on the performance in relation to the sector.

I may transfer in old (& under performing) pensions but will make a decision on those funds at the time, if its another couple of months, the UK equity fund might be a good spot for these.

Adviser21

The key to long-term investment success is having an appropriate asset allocation strategy in place. This is common sense, but it is something that both investors and investment advisers may neglect.
No one can predict the future performance of different asset classes with any degree of certainty, but it is possible to identify that over the long term these asset classes relate to each other in predictable ways. By understanding the strength of these relationships, assets can be blended together to reduce risk and, in many cases, improve potential returns. This approach to pension investment must be better than "best guess" fund selection based on past performance which as we all know is no guarantee for future performance!

DaveK

dunstonh wrote: »

Problem is that most people are cautious. It may annoy you but that is the fact. If you are not cautious then its fine for you but you shouldnt shoe horn everyone else into your risk profile.

Maybe I should have re-writen that, sure there's nothing wrong with being cautious, as you said most people are (including myself when I started out) but there is no guarantee that the "Cautious Fund" is going to be any better than any other fund. I'm certainly not trying to shoe horn everyone else into my "adventureous" risk bracket, I'm merely pointing out that when an adviser assesses your risk attitude and recommends the "cautious" funds you aren't neccessarily going to be loosing the least if the markets fall, hence my example.

cagey76

DaveK, your webpage is still useful ...... cheers !