Pension fund performance - do you monitor yours, how is it doing, do you actively change it?

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Semi serious post, with the state of the world right now I would probably plunge for a global weapons and ammo producers index tracker ;)
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Don't use Aviva as your pension provider then. A few months ago they transferred all holdings in arms companies out of their funds on ESG grounds and charged participants a fee for the privilege!

www.ipe.com

Aviva slammed over charges for adding ESG exclusions to pension funds

Aviva tells clients about one-off costs linked to changing the benchmark to add exclusions
www.ipe.com www.ipe.com
 
weringo said:
Don't use Aviva as your pension provider then. A few months ago they transferred all holdings in arms companies out of their funds on ESG grounds and charged participants a fee for the privilege!

www.ipe.com

Aviva slammed over charges for adding ESG exclusions to pension funds

Aviva tells clients about one-off costs linked to changing the benchmark to add exclusions
www.ipe.com www.ipe.com
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Indeed, unfortunately this is one tricky area
Tobacco companies, arms producers etc will be unethical for many

Me, just give me the high growth ones please, if someone is dumb enough to smoke themselves to death bring it on, slightly diff mindset for arms I guess.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Indeed, unfortunately this is one tricky area
Tobacco companies, arms producers etc will be unethical for many

Me, just give me the high growth ones please, if someone is dumb enough to smoke themselves to death bring it on, slightly diff mindset for arms I guess.
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Suppose it depends if you think your morals will keep you warm in old age or not...
 
The approach I take with my workplace pension, SIPP, S&S ISA and LISA is 85% developed ex-UK, 10% emerging markets and 5% UK equities. Find the cheapest funds to achieve the mix above on each platform, set it and forget it.

I don’t know any better than the global economy.

I don’t think bonds are worth bothering with unless you’re about to retire and even then most people shouldn’t go all in on them.
 
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danlightbulb said:
The gold fund I have access to is actually a gold equities fund - it is an equities fund that invests only in companies that mine gold or other precious metals. It is not specifically a gold buying fund - I don't have one of those to choose from.
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Fair enough, but in terms of performance they will tend to just follow the underlying commodities which have the problem I described. In fact you could argue it's even worse for diversification, since either of a drop in gold price and poor overall economics could sink their underlying assets.
 
Uther said:
Thats why most people should pick one of the well known diversified funds and leave it for a few decades. Chasing a few extra percent all the time and constantly fiddling with things like pensions is not a great idea IMO.
Saying that, some of the figures posted here from company invested pension schemes are appalling. High fees and low growth, no thanks.
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That's what I was getting annoyed with. Two years of seeing my investment being higher than what my pot was worth was enough. My work pension is through L&G and there is no option for Vanguard funds through that. One thing with the change of funds away from the LG fund to the HSBC fund is the charges are slightly higher.

I don't want to chase numbers or percentages so I'll just leave it as is for 10years minimum now then reassess. Next change is likely to be my last change, at least that's the plan.
 
I am currently sat in a cash fund which returns about 5%, looking at when to re-enter. I have around 2 years base salary in my pension and a further years worth in various shares. Between me and my employer I contribute 40k per year and have technically got 25 years to state retirement age, so still time to accept a degree of risk.

I typically have entered and exited equity investment positions at good times in the past. I am looking at global equities, which are US heavy, with some reluctance, but this is countered by the more recent gbp strength. Gilts/bonds seem to represent an opportunity, but for something that is meant to be stable they seem pretty volatile.
 
Apologies of this has been asked in this thread before, I went back a few pages but didn't see similar.

I've had a pension for a long time, but have just had whichever my employer has run with. I've only ever started earning any meaningful salary in the last 3 years so my current workplace pension with L&G is the most significant pot, so I'll keep that in place and have a look into how it's invested. I'm putting in 9% on top of employer contributions.

I have ~£25k wrapped up in ~3 dormant workplace pensions and I've noticed the fees are more than what they're earning. I'm thinking of transferring these to a SIPP to make them more manageable but I doubt I'll add anything on top in the short term. Is there anything I should be wary of by doing this? The pensions have no particular extra benefits, just your standard workplace pots, so in my mind it's a fairly safe.
 
Dup said:
Apologies of this has been asked in this thread before, I went back a few pages but didn't see similar.

I've had a pension for a long time, but have just had whichever my employer has run with. I've only ever started earning any meaningful salary in the last 3 years so my current workplace pension with L&G is the most significant pot, so I'll keep that in place and have a look into how it's invested. I'm putting in 9% on top of employer contributions.

I have ~£25k wrapped up in ~3 dormant workplace pensions and I've noticed the fees are more than what they're earning. I'm thinking of transferring these to a SIPP to make them more manageable but I doubt I'll add anything on top in the short term. Is there anything I should be wary of by doing this? The pensions have no particular extra benefits, just your standard workplace pots, so in my mind it's a fairly safe.
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Personally if there's no benefits you risk losing then I'd move them to a low cost global fund in somewhere like Vanguard and let them do their thing over the years.
Or be a little adventurous with some of it and try their S & P 500 accumulation fund. Fund charge is very low on that.
 
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SpeedFreak said:
I am currently sat in a cash fund which returns about 5%, looking at when to re-enter. I have around 2 years base salary in my pension and a further years worth in various shares. Between me and my employer I contribute 40k per year and have technically got 25 years to state retirement age, so still time to accept a degree of risk.

I typically have entered and exited equity investment positions at good times in the past. I am looking at global equities, which are US heavy, with some reluctance, but this is countered by the more recent gbp strength. Gilts/bonds seem to represent an opportunity, but for something that is meant to be stable they seem pretty volatile.
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Time in the markets, is better than "timing" the markets.

No idea why you would put money in cash with 25 years to go....

The biggest barrier you have now is when to re-invest.... Today, tomorrow, next week? Next month?

Been proven time and time again your better off leaving the money invested, rather than trying to guess what's best....
 
Thanks for this thread. Triggered me to look into mine as I've not touched them in quite a few years. My workplace pension is with Aegon. I'd shifted my contributions into a few different funds, but get the feeling now after reading this thread I could do with simplifying and going with a global tracker or 2. This is what my current investment look like, which as you can see is spread around quite a lot, 3 larger 25% contributions then 5 other 5% deposits:-



and the ongoing charges, which include some holdings from funds I no longer contribute to, which I'm sure I can get down by changing funds around are:-



My return since Oct 2017 until now is +27.17%, so not amazing but not awful, and I'm sure can be bettered. Just need to choose which fund (s) to switch over to now.....
 
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1pudding1 said:
My return since Oct 2017 until now is +27.17%, so not amazing but not awful, and I'm sure can be bettered. Just need to choose which fund (s) to switch over to now.....
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Compared to a very cheap all world tracker its poor.

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I have likely contributed to a few pensions over the years and some of them I have no idea what happened. Is there anywhere anyone recommends that can help me find them? Or do I just try to contact old employers from decades ago and ask if I'm in a system somewhere.
 
danlightbulb said:
What jumps out from that is that most of the growth happened from Oct-17 to Oct-21 (60%). Since then its only gone up a further 10%.

Ps what tool/website is that please?
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Western economies have been in the toilet for the last two years and flirting with a major recession (or in a recession in some cases). 10% growth despite that is quite good...
 
booyaka said:
Time in the markets, is better than "timing" the markets.

No idea why you would put money in cash with 25 years to go....

The biggest barrier you have now is when to re-invest.... Today, tomorrow, next week? Next month?

Been proven time and time again your better off leaving the money invested, rather than trying to guess what's best....
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I don't entirely disagree, but on a personal level my decisions have outperformed the more generic funds available to me. Luck or judgement, who's to say, but I can manage my own risk this way. I will re-enter quite soon, but cash is returning 5% at present so it's hardly a disaster.

Plus I have a good amount of non pension assets in equities anyhow.
 
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