Reallocating part of an old pension into a better fund set

[CoffeeGuy]

Hi Everyone,

I took the time to look at the pension allocation at an old Standard Life pension. The performance has been pretty poor (to say the least). This is an old pension with about ~£20K in it.

I want to change it to something a lot better. The "Standard Life Managed Pension Fund FA" does "ok" so I am happy to leave that.
The "Standard life Ethical Pension Fund G7" performance is diabolical, recording a 13% increase over five years! It's a 50/50 split.

Can someone recommend an alternative to invest in. I don't mind it being a bit risky because it's not my major nestegg. I was looking at "SL BlackRock Gold & General Pension Fund" based on the fact they peformed well and the focus (Energy, Mining,Rare metals.)

Is there any reason not to take a bit of a risk and swap the SL Ethical pension for the Blackrock fund?

I know you guys are not my financial advisers but all I am asking is "is there any reason to run away from it".

[Simpo Two]

CoffeeGuy said:

The "Standard life Ethical Pension Fund G7" performance is diabolical, recording a 13% increase over five years! It's a 50/50 split.

Be grateful you only had £10K in it, so you're only about £4K down! Who chose it and why?

[Cupid-stunt]

How long will you have the money invested?

What proportion of your overall pension is it?

What is your attitude to risk?

If you were early 40s with a £1m pot in then the answer could be significantly different to someone that is 55 with a £200k pot.

[CoffeeGuy]

Simpo Two said:

Be grateful you only had £10K in it, so you're only about £4K down! Who chose it and why?

That would be me, when I first started to look at pensions....

I am late 40s with an existing pension pot of circa 300K for what its worth.

[Imasurv]

I have an old standard life stakeholder pension and changed the investments around from the original default funds some years ago. I now have two funds, a Vanguard developed world ex UK pension fund which has returned 80% over 5 years and a Standard Life global equity 50/50 tracker pension fund (50% uk ft100 and 50% world) which has returned a similar amount. I also have a small bond fund in there as well which has returned -19% over 5 years

Moral of the story ignore bonds!

[Somebody]

My old company had to set up a pension scheme when they were bought out and the firm that set up the new scheme with Royal London had their advisors assess all the members' attitude to risk.

I came out as "adventurous" and I agreed to their recommendation of RL's Adventuous Managed and Sustainable World Trust. I've since left the company and upon assessing the comparative fund performance I recently decided to move away from the recommended multi-asset funds and into an equity income fund in M&G Global Dividends.



Go and do similar research on trustnet yourself.

[Derek Chevalier]

Somebody said:

and upon assessing the comparative fund performance

Is there a possibility of evaluating over a more meaningful time period?

[Somebody]

Derek Chevalier said:

Is there a possibility of evaluating over a more meaningful time period?

You can chart whatever period you want; if that's what you mean:

[Derek Chevalier]

Somebody said:

Derek Chevalier said:

Is there a possibility of evaluating over a more meaningful time period?

You can chart whatever period you want; if that's what you mean:

Ideally from 2000 onwards to capture the major bear markets this century.

[Somebody]

Derek Chevalier said:

Ideally from 2000 onwards to capture the major bear markets this century.

Yes, if the fund existed then it will chart from whatever date you put in.

[Derek Chevalier]

Somebody said:

Derek Chevalier said:

Ideally from 2000 onwards to capture the major bear markets this century.

Yes, if the fund existed then it will chart from whatever date you put in.

The RLS fund was only launched in 2013 (from what I can gather), so it's tricky to know how it would've performed during genuinely challenging periods. All we have is COVID, where it fell around 30% vs global equities, which fell around 25%.

[Derek Chevalier]

Imasurv said:

II also have a small bond fund in there as well which has returned -19% over 5 years

Moral of the story ignore bonds!

Worth bearing in mind that global equities were down 23% from 2000-2005, while global bonds were up 50%.

[Imasurv]

Derek Chevalier said:

Imasurv said:

II also have a small bond fund in there as well which has returned -19% over 5 years

Moral of the story ignore bonds!

Worth bearing in mind that global equities were down 23% from 2000-2005, while global bonds were up 50%.

Yep I know, it was a sarcastic comment really - and two sides to mean ignore them in terms of performance as opposed to in your portfolio, hence the wink, but I completely agree!