Stock markets, inheritance, i don't understand

As a lot of other posters have said the markets have gone crazy this week. My investment has went down by about 45% this week. Was a bloody shock when I first checked it and then I clicked about it being linked to the US

You can take the hit now or see how the markets (hopefully) calm down over the next few weeks

To the poster who said why are we being ignored when we advise waiting it out, not everyone can afford to wait these things out. Maybe the OP's siblings have been living hand to mouth throughout the cost of living crisis, and are desperate to get their hands on a nice big lump of cash, which, thanks to the OP and her feckless DH, has shrunk dramatically. Although it now sounds like the DH is back peddling because he realises what a shit show he's created.

You can divvy it up without selling the investments. Why are those of us pointing that out being ignored?

Then each person sits tight on their portion of the investments and takes a long term view (if they've any sense anyway) waiting for the markets to recover.

They can, of course, sell their own portions whenever they wish to, but if they were to do it right now they would be choosing to make a loss. If they wait then in time there will be recovery and more.

@Vlinty I dont know what possessed you to let your dh get his hands on your and your siblings inheritance! you will just have to sell everything and divvy up. hopefully your dh has not let that power go to his head too much. looks like he wanted to play the big man and didnt really have the big funds needed to do that till your parents funds were available! now he has realised that he is not as good as he thought he was!! I would not have let him touch them at least no without informing your siblings who are going to be affected by this.

Yes there is. There's no rush to sell the investments and you and your siblings will only make a loss if you all panic and sell them right now.

Split the investment three ways. Each sibling will get their own account in their own name and can decide what to do with it (and when) for themselves. No need to rush to sell.

There really is no rush here. Stop panicking, get probate granted, divide the investments into three equal accounts and then sit tight. That would be my approach.

This is a much more reasoned approach.

Your DH hasn't done anything wrong that I can see and you need to stop panicking. You'll only make a loss if you panic sell the shares/investments now. Don't panic sell. It's almost always a very bad idea.

You don't have to sell at all. You can just take a sensible long term view and wait for the markets to stabilise and recover. If you sit tight, the markets recover and the share price does too then you very likely won't make a loss at all and could even turn a profit.

With regard to the investments and your siblings' inheritance, you can still split them equally three ways without selling them. Everyone can then make their own decisions about when to sell (or sit tight if they have any sense).

Stop the panic. It's really unnecessary.

Have you looked at exactly what the investments were OP?
Everything has plummeted this weekend.
To be fair you would need to get a qualified IFA to do some comparisons of different investments over the period of time since DH took over.
As pp said, the original sum invested may have still increased.
DH and I invested a small inheritance years ago. The pot has lost 20% in the last few days, (as it did when Liz Truss tanked the economy), but even taking inflation into account, it is still a lot more than the original sum. We just keep an eye on it until we start thinking about using it.
Get the figures and the facts.

The DH isn’t the executor. It’s the executor (or previously the person with power of attorney) at fault however this isn’t a situation anyone would have anticipated and unfortunately moving stock for most people isn’t something that is instant.

I had power of attorney for my mother. When I needed to use the POA in about 2014 I need to realise some of her investments made about 4 years earlier so that she could buy a flat.
Turned out the bank adviser who made the investments interviewed my DM aged about 83 locked her into about 5 years of high risk investments because when asked she said that she wanted to live a little.
I made a formal complaint and won. The high risk investments had gone up handsomely so no compensation for that but the exit fee was waived. Your fathers estate should take legal action against your DH unless you can reach an out of court settlement.

Do you think he is up to something fishy OP? Do you trust him?

Well no, not really. If you wanted to do that you would need to assess what the value today would have been if left in the lower risk finds and NS&I. Then calculated the difference as the lower risk would gave grown at a much slower rate than the high risk. It may be that the difference even with the large drop is not as much as that depending on how much the value increased before the fall.

Why did you bother to post such a long reply when you obviously haven't even read the OP?

Ask him for the paperwork and you can see for yourself.

its now up to the executor to administrate the estate and apply for probate. It’s not within the executor’s role to take any risks with the estate assets.

Well they don’t need the money themselves as they are dead so why not take some risk on it. We don’t even know that it’s been a bad investment. So it lost value yesterday, that doesn’t mean it’s a loss overall.

What I don't understand OP, is why you allowed your DH to take over, given the fact that your parents already had a financial advisor? Why didn't you just take the financial advisor's advice, as your parents would have done. You say that your parents knew you didn't know much about money, but if they wanted your DH to act on their behalf, they would have named him as P.O.A. or they could even have named you jointly, so they obviously DIDN'T want HIM involved! You have failed your parents, and your siblings, and quite frankly, in their shoes I would be furious with you both. Your siblings could in fact have you investigated, because you didn't act in the best interests of your parents, which is what a P.O.A. states that you MUST do. If, once Probate has been granted, the funds aren't back to where they were when your DF died, then as a sibling, if I needed the money, I'd expect you and your DH to reimburse me the amount that you have lost out of your share of the Will.

No, OP said that “everything is down 25%”.

Can mean two things:

1. they had invested £100,000 but it’s now worth £75,000 which is shit.

or

2. they had invested £100,000 10 years ago and on Monday it was worth £200,000 and then by Friday it was £150,000.

OP, everything has tanked.

My pension is in v low risk funds as I am retirement age: plummeted.

It may be that the value if the funds rose a lot over the last few months, so is dropping from a higher level than had they been in low risk funds.

The important figure is how much has been lost against the starting amount. Or the amount a year ago.

The investments lost 25% that means on an investment if £180k that means the investments stand at £135k

£60k each doesn’t take account of the losses the low risk funds suffered

Low risk doesn’t mean no risk.

1. agree your DH has massively overstepped. It is not his right to play around with other people’s money and experiment with the stock market. It’s a misuse of trust and of fiduciary duty. You’re also at fault for allowing him to do this. He clearly has a higher tolerance for risk, which is very easy when it’s not his money to play with.

2. don’t panic. A lot of stocks and shares were down Thursday/Friday. They fluctuate a lot. The news makes it very alarming. It may well be that not all of the stocks are down, just some. Eg., the pound is actually stronger since the tariffs were announced, and UK funds are doing fine, it’s just that US ones are a bit down.

3. Don’t sell when you’re down, wait it out.

4. what does he actually mean by 25% down? Is that 25% down on the initial cash contributions, or just that they’re 25% down on where they were on Tuesday? Massive difference between the two.

5. your husband is a dick for playing with your parents investments. The low risk low cost trackers have been fine this past week.

I think as a couple you should take the hit for this (but preferably wait until the market recovers). Let's say the total pot was worth 180k when DH became involved (so 60k for each sibling) and it is now worth 150k. You should give the 2 siblings their 60k and have 30k for yourselves.

Your DH is an idiot.

You both may find this history of market crashes helpful.

https://www.morningstar.com/economy/what-weve-learned-150-years-stock-market-crashes

As you can see staying invested for the long term helps but the long term is a much longer than some people on this thread think it is.

Just don’t look a similar picture for the Japanese stock market 😪and pray we have not entered a period of high inflation and war.