Poor pension pot performance
Discussion
No you pay them to perform their mandate.
If it's active fund that might be to try to beat a given benchmark.
But the mandate might be (for example) to always be in a set allocation of assets.
Take Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 for example.
You're almost never going to wake up one day and find it's moved to 40% cash.
If it's active fund that might be to try to beat a given benchmark.
But the mandate might be (for example) to always be in a set allocation of assets.
Take Vanguard LifeStrategy 60 for example.
You're almost never going to wake up one day and find it's moved to 40% cash.
I've never made any money on investments apart from rental income (no increase in capital value) and have only had a private pension since becoming a PAYE employee almost 4 years. For the last 12 months I have been paying 100% of my PAYE income into the pension and intend to continue doing so for at least the next 3 years, upon which time I will reach the age of 55.
Typical poor luck regarding investments on my part, but rather than see the benefits of compound increases, I suspect I will see compounded losses. My pension fund is called the Mercer Money Trust and it lost over 9% in the last 12 months. That is pretty diabolical in my opinion and simply inexcusable. As for the acronym of their name, are they taking the piss with MMT which is commonly associated with Magic Money Tree?
Typical poor luck regarding investments on my part, but rather than see the benefits of compound increases, I suspect I will see compounded losses. My pension fund is called the Mercer Money Trust and it lost over 9% in the last 12 months. That is pretty diabolical in my opinion and simply inexcusable. As for the acronym of their name, are they taking the piss with MMT which is commonly associated with Magic Money Tree?
BAMoFo said:
I've never made any money on investments apart from rental income (no increase in capital value) and have only had a private pension since becoming a PAYE employee almost 4 years. For the last 12 months I have been paying 100% of my PAYE income into the pension and intend to continue doing so for at least the next 3 years, upon which time I will reach the age of 55.
Typical poor luck regarding investments on my part, but rather than see the benefits of compound increases, I suspect I will see compounded losses. My pension fund is called the Mercer Money Trust and it lost over 9% in the last 12 months. That is pretty diabolical in my opinion and simply inexcusable. As for the acronym of their name, are they taking the piss with MMT which is commonly associated with Magic Money Tree?
Are your pension contributions via salary sacrifice? If so I'm surprised your employer allows this as it will clearly bring you under the minimum wage.Typical poor luck regarding investments on my part, but rather than see the benefits of compound increases, I suspect I will see compounded losses. My pension fund is called the Mercer Money Trust and it lost over 9% in the last 12 months. That is pretty diabolical in my opinion and simply inexcusable. As for the acronym of their name, are they taking the piss with MMT which is commonly associated with Magic Money Tree?
Since changing my target retirement age to 55 the pot appears to have moved into something called SW Mercer Target Drawdown 2026 Retirement CS6. I have no idea what the breakdown of the investments are nor what the fees are. All that I recall is that the fees appeared to be competitive when I first received the literature regarding the product.
The user interface on the app is rubbish on my mobile phone and the link to Scottish Widows (I don't know what the relationship is) is also very poor. It may be better on a laptop or PC, but I've not yet tried. There is a webinar organised for next Wednesday that I am going to dial into to see if I can glean more information.
To be honest, I doubt there will be much in the way of pension fund returns for quite a number of years, so I'm mainly interested in trying to preserve as much of the value of the pot over the next few years.
The user interface on the app is rubbish on my mobile phone and the link to Scottish Widows (I don't know what the relationship is) is also very poor. It may be better on a laptop or PC, but I've not yet tried. There is a webinar organised for next Wednesday that I am going to dial into to see if I can glean more information.
To be honest, I doubt there will be much in the way of pension fund returns for quite a number of years, so I'm mainly interested in trying to preserve as much of the value of the pot over the next few years.
20 seconds with Google finds https://documents.feprecisionplus.com/factsheet/SW... which has fees and a broad investment breakdown.
Rob_125 said:
Are your pension contributions via salary sacrifice? If so I'm surprised your employer allows this as it will clearly bring you under the minimum wage.
I am paying 6% as salary sacrifice (the maximum I am allowed) and 100% of the remaining salary as Additional Voluntary Contributions.BAMoFo said:
I am paying 6% as salary sacrifice (the maximum I am allowed) and 100% of the remaining salary as Additional Voluntary Contributions.
You can't sacrifice the AVCs? It seems odd for a firm to bother with the paperwork for doing it at all and then not extend it to AVCs (as it potentially saves them employer NI contributions).xeny said:
BAMoFo said:
I am paying 6% as salary sacrifice (the maximum I am allowed) and 100% of the remaining salary as Additional Voluntary Contributions.
You can't sacrifice the AVCs? It seems odd for a firm to bother with the paperwork for doing it at all and then not extend it to AVCs (as it potentially saves them employer NI contributions).I will never understand why people pay exorbitant rates of asset "managers" when they can stick it into a target retirement funds with Vanguard or any other reputable platform, pay minimal fees, and perform perfectly well if not better than actively managed funds after fees are factored in.
rb26 said:
I will never understand why people pay exorbitant rates of asset "managers" when they can stick it into a target retirement funds with Vanguard or any other reputable platform, pay minimal fees, and perform perfectly well if not better than actively managed funds after fees are factored in.
Well there's a conversation. But yes I agree. My work brings me into contact with the fund management industry now and again and every time it does I am more convinced that active fund management is a bulls
tters' bazaar full of people that only sing when they're winning. 'Ooh but if you put your money in a tracker you'll only ever get the market return - how dreadful!' - this is true, but over the long-run the market return has proved to be really quite good. And better than most actively managed funds, once fees are taken into account. 
Warren Knows Best
"There's no sense in handing 1%-2% plus fees to fund managers when a cheap tracker gets results
Nearly a decade ago, Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, made a $500,000 bet with a hedge-fund manager a bet that now looks certain to pay off. Buffett wagered that, over ten years, a cheap, no-frills S&P 500 index tracker (ie, one that aims to match the performance of the main US equity index see page ten) would beat the average performance of five funds of hedge funds (so in effect, 100 or so underlying funds) picked by asset manager Protg Partners. With less than a year to go, the market has trounced the fund managers a valuable reminder that, over the long run, most professional money managers charge healthy fees for rotten results.
At first glance, the bet doesn't seem to make sense. Hedge funds boast of their ability to beat the market. Managers are marketed as investment geniuses, masterfully exploiting markets for clients. If they cannot beat a simple index tracker, then how on earth do they manage to attract huge sums of money and earn such high fees from sophisticated, well-advised investors such as the super-wealthy and large investment funds?"
https://moneyweek.com/464117/buffetts-bet-can-a-tr...
"There's no sense in handing 1%-2% plus fees to fund managers when a cheap tracker gets results
Nearly a decade ago, Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, made a $500,000 bet with a hedge-fund manager a bet that now looks certain to pay off. Buffett wagered that, over ten years, a cheap, no-frills S&P 500 index tracker (ie, one that aims to match the performance of the main US equity index see page ten) would beat the average performance of five funds of hedge funds (so in effect, 100 or so underlying funds) picked by asset manager Protg Partners. With less than a year to go, the market has trounced the fund managers a valuable reminder that, over the long run, most professional money managers charge healthy fees for rotten results.
At first glance, the bet doesn't seem to make sense. Hedge funds boast of their ability to beat the market. Managers are marketed as investment geniuses, masterfully exploiting markets for clients. If they cannot beat a simple index tracker, then how on earth do they manage to attract huge sums of money and earn such high fees from sophisticated, well-advised investors such as the super-wealthy and large investment funds?"
https://moneyweek.com/464117/buffetts-bet-can-a-tr...
I got my annual reminder to check one of my pension pots and was pleasantly surprised.
This is a pot that has had zero contributions for over 5 years, and the charges from Aviva amount to .49% per year (of the pots value). Around £900 a year (which feels modest)
3 year annualised return - 9.9%
Last 12 months return - 16%
This is a pot that has had zero contributions for over 5 years, and the charges from Aviva amount to .49% per year (of the pots value). Around £900 a year (which feels modest)
3 year annualised return - 9.9%
Last 12 months return - 16%
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