Investments still declining

[Livvyliv18]

Are anyones investments showing signs of recovery yet ?My pension has lost a significant amount in the last 3 months and still seems to be going down.
This happened in first lockdown but then started to do really well so I know it can improve.
Im just starting to panic and unsure if I need to see a financial advisor to look at it.
Im not 55 for another 5 years so maybe I don’t need to panic just yet
Any advice /reassurance greatly appreciated

Percentage wise, how much has it gone down?

Mine is down about 5% and I'm 57 so i've got another 10 years yet. I'm resigned to the fact that it's not going to be brilliant growth but i'm hoping for some modest growth at least.

I can see why people buy property as an investment now!

Only thing i can advise is - spread your risk.

Just over 5%
Ive just moved my DD Junior ISA to vanguard as they have also lost a significant amount and she’s 18 next year.Any suggestions as what to invest in ?
Ive just moved it to cash for now but know I need to invest but don’t really want to lose any more.
Any suggestions ?

If you don't want to "lose any more" then you shouldn't invest in stocks and shares. If you invest you have to be prepared for losses as the value will fluctuate sometimes significantly.

If you really don't want any more losses then you need to put the money in cash or something like premium bonds.

However as you are aware this really limits your growth and with inflation and interest rates as they are you are likely to be effectively losing money as your money won't keep up with inflation.

If you do have the risk appetite to invest Vanguard's FTSE Global All Cap, which tracks the FTSE Global All Cap Index is worth looking at. You are essentially investing in the performance of the whole world. So not betting on the U.K. or US or anything else in particular. And it's cheap which is one of the key things to look for as high charges quickly eat into any growth. Fidelity do a similar fund that's even cheaper (but you can't access it via Vanguard obviously)

You can find out more about these by a bit of interweb research 😬 Search for Vanguard life strategy vs global all cap. Lots of helpful articles and videos online.

If you want something in the middle and less volatile then you could look at one of vanguards life strategy 60 or 80% funds (or even less?). You can find lots of information on the risk and performance and strategy of the funds on the vanguard website.

Thanks TooManyPJs
Ill have a look at that

There is plenty of time for your pension to recover. I know it's not easy but don't bother even looking to see how it's doing. Also remember that you haven't 'lost' anything until you cash in your investments, so don't be tempted to do that.

I'm with Vanguard and my investments are in VHYL (25%), VERX (25%), VMID (20%), VUSA (20%) and VFEM (10%) and same split for my sons and we are all up around 6% from a low point of a 5% 'loss'. My daughter is invested in just VWRL and is 15% up but she has been in the market some time.

Good luck.

I put 20k into vanguard life strategy ISA, spread over 3 of the funds and it immediately lost £800! Pension’s losing money too. Decided not to invest anymore at the moment. Feels like I’m putting cash in the bin.

On the other hand, cash in the bank is losing value too. I'm 52, so feeling a bit tender about it. Effectively, it's delaying my retirement. I'll have to wait til the market recovers and then grows a bit. I try not to think about it.

I wouldn't mind so much, but I was planning to move on retiring so that's delayed too.

We have a few investment pots in our house between pensions, s&s ISAs and junior ISAs. All are significantly down, that’s the market at the moment. We won’t cash in though as that makes the losses real. As you say, it was worse in early stages of pandemic and recovered.

Depends when you need your pension.

I am early/ mid 30s so I don't worry about short term losses - historically the market has always bounced back eventually.

If anything it's good to put money in when the market is down as there is more scope for growth long term.

If I was near retirement age yes I would be more worried, although surely your strategy gets lower and lower risk as you get older?

Investments (pension funds, stocks and shares ISAs, etc.) go down as well as up but in the long term most beat other forms of 'saving', especially including cash which is devalued by inflaction. They are for the long term not for immediate returns so tracking them closely isn't always a good idea. Strictly speaking the time to invest is when markets drop not when they are at their peak. It's definitely not a time to withdraw.

Yes it's awful

It's hard, I've often seen amazing returns quoted on here & other places. However my 2 haven't performed well at all, only had them a yr though.

Mine are still declining
Only had them a short while but I've watched them drop from 9% to -5.5% and still dropping

Its important to keep paying in when it’s down, it means that money will make a larger gain and improve the overall performance.

Mine have gone from +16 to -8% or something depressing like that. Inflation is really hitting the bonds. My FA has advised if I need any in the next 3-5 years (!!) cash it out now and as some is earmarked for a house move hopefully soon I'm going to withdraw a chunk and stick in a savings account I've found with 1.25% interest.

This is me , my Vanguard was same figures as you but pension has lost £90k.
I'm now leaving them to it and building my cash reserves .
Investments fluctuate so I'm sure they'll recover it's just how long it will take .

Ours is down about 5.5%. We have an 80/20 split so at least our bond exposure is limited at the moment. It’s depressing, but we’re trying not to think about it. We know that downturns are good for us in the sense that the stocks and shares we are buying are a much better price than they were last year. Whether it’s just a ‘sale’ or a more lasting price correction is unclear, but either way, at least we know we aren’t being ripped off like we were back in August 2021. We just contribute the same monthly amount as we always do. The regular monthly drip feed is a win in the sense that it sort of smooths out the effects of volatility. We buy when it’s up and when it’s down. We don’t need the funds for at least another 10 years, so hopefully it will eventually bounce back. Savings rates are so bad that we don’t really have high expectations for long term returns, especially considering that inflation is actively devaluing the worth of cash anyway. If we come out at the end with even a modest return beyond what we’ve contributed, we’ll feel happy.

Now is the time to invest! It's the market on sale!
@TooManyPJs

Are those vanguard funds only with vanguard?

The market is cyclical and always will be.
You have to remember What your investing in.
I would be worried if all my money was in Tesla shares or something.
However a good spread bet, by sector and country... unless the whole world stop wanting things... you'll ne okay

I put money in ISAs and didn’t understand the risk of timing investments, down about 7% but should bounce back eventually, doing worse than cash at the moment, but I think the thing to do is not worry to much and drip more in as this is possibly a good time to invest? Very depressing that you’re losing everywhere.

Wonder my biggest mistake ( but still not huge) was buying some lindsel train fund at top Dollar.
It's taken yesterday for it to actually grow a little... year's! When it had made a very small gain I off loaded it.

A much better win was buying Scottish mortgage When it was v low and cheap.
It actually grew over 100% at one time!!

You can buy Vanguard funds via a variety of platforms.…

moneytothemasses.com/saving-for-your-future/investing/vanguard-investor-uk-review-is-it-the-best-in-the-market/amp

@ICanSmellSummerComing Ps There are also other even cheaper global index trackers. Such as the HSBC MSCI World UCITS ETF at 0.15% and Fidelity’s Index World Fund Acc at 0.12%

Both track the MSCI World Index.

I’m currently investing in the HSBC fund via InvestEngine who don’t charge a platform fee at all on their DIY portfolios. If anyone wants a referral code which will give each of us £25 if you invest £100 let me know! 😬

Same here, and put a big lump sum in last year that has done nothing but drop. No money to buy more at the moment. This is my last few years of pension contributions and I was planning on ploughing it in but can see it just being eroded.
Traditionally bonds are the safe end where you move funds as you near retirement - but those are really dropping. So what's the best approach now?

Also keen for advice, we have a couple of vanguard life strategy investments that are dropping. Nearly just took them out to cut our losses (lost about £1500) but now thinking we should leave them in? Any advice appreciated..