Am I expecting too much from my investments??

[DatGirlBellamy]

I've been wondering whether I'm expecting too much, or whether I need to rethink my financial adviser.
He's been looking after my investments for a few years and is very cautious. I appreciate that he's trying to protect my money, but last year my overall return was only about £11k, and it feels like my investments are just ticking along rather than helping me get closer to the life I'd like in the future.
He tends to stick with more traditional investments and doesn't seem very interested in newer products or different strategies. Maybe that's sensible, but I can't help feeling I'm missing opportunities.
Has anyone else reached a point where they questioned whether their adviser was too conservative? How did you decide whether to stay put or look elsewhere? Or is this just what investing is like these days?

Hi there. It would probably be helpful to quote your return in percentage terms rather than as a number.

hard to say whether 11k is fruitful or not without knowing how much has been invested. Definitely go with someone more risky if you are sure you would be okay with the loses as well.

£11k sounds good to me - then again I'm not wealthy so maybe not.

There’s no way to say. If OP had £5k invested then it’s amazing. If she had £10m then it’s not good.

Your financial advisor should be looking at your attitude to risk and investing appropriately.
Higher risk means potentially higher rewards but also higher chance of losses.

Agree with others 11k says nothing, you need to look at percentages.

How much do you have and what are you hoping to achieve? What's your risk tolerance?
For many people, a standard tracker is sufficient and has very low fees. Advisors rarely make more than market consistently in the long run.

11k in one year is about 4% on 275k (modest, barely above inflation. OK if cash, not good if equities), 6% on about 180k (fair), 8% on about 140k (pretty good, typical historical long-term return for global ETFs), 10% on 110k (very good).

I'd suggest a conversation with your broker.
Your risk profile may need updating, and you might want to look at the fees you're paying (on funds, account, and to your broker).

I had invested £162k, I think that's around 6%

It's not a huge return but around twice what you would get in most savings accounts.

Assuming your advisor has got you on a balanced strategy with a mix of low risk investments and some higher risk ones I don't think that is a terrible return.

Higher risk investments would have given you a much higher return over the last 12 months in hindsight but you would have been taking the risk that things had turned out differently.

I'd suggest you talk to him and review whether the risk profile he is using for you is one you are both happy with

Someone said to quote my post and input the amount invested and percentage, I'm not very tech savvy but I think this is how to quote and add more info, so I had invested £162k which is around 6%

I invested £162k

What is your money invested in?

6% isn't great, it may be fees pulling it back rather than the investments themselves. Is your money in isas or are you paying tax?

Just looked at one of my accounts, June last year I had £145k now I have £182k, that's self invested in vanguard ls100.

If you've told him you've a low risk attitude hell be investing in safer products, and his fees won't be cheap.

I was hoping he steered towards crypto for a bit, my colleagues are invested in crypto and they have trippled their investment capital, I approached him and he said crypto is risky, meanwhile I'm sitting here feeling left out

Are you a low risk investor? 6% isn't a huge return but better than a savings account. Mine is currently a 12% return in last 6 months.

That's a poor return when the major indices are returning much better value. You need to educate yourself about money - you can't just outsource it to an advisor and hope they are half decent.

Start on the UKPersonal Finance subreddit -there's an excellent flowchart. First start by identifying how long you can put your money away for, and what you want to use it for.

I wouldn't call myself a low risk investor, as a matter of fact I don't mind taking calculated risk

Crypto is risky but you don't need an advisor to invest in it.

I wouldn't touch crypto with a barge pole, because I won't invest in products I don't understand.

Do you need a financial adviser? I manage my own investments after doing a short course

I'm willing to bet they haven't tripled their money. The prices just don't move like that anymore and haven't for a long time. As you can see, they were all down last week.

I have, however, just helped a friend who really believed he had tripled his money on crypto. But it turns out his trading account and broker was completely fake. He would have zoom meetings where his 'broker' would share their screen, and my friend would see the profits in real time and 100% believed it.

However when I tracked the transactions on chain, my friend was withdrawing money to a designated wallet address (controlled by the 'broker'), and it was transferred out to an unknown address at 4am the next day, while my friend was asleep. I then tracked the funds through multiple addresses (similar to money laundering) where it was rolled up with other victims' funds and eventually cashed out at various exchanges.

All the while my friend is 'seeing' his money on screen, thinks it's still on chain, and thinks he's invested well so puts in more, but none of it was real and it was already long gone.

6% over this past year is definitely not great - I'm invested in the Vanguard Global All Cap which is a very popular index fund with low fees (very easy to self invest) and I'm up around 30% this year. It's not usually that high but it's been a great year for investments in general, so 6% is very disappointing. I'd definitely be having a conversation with your advisor about what value he's actually adding that you couldn't do yourself for free (and better!).

Crypto is definitely risky - my partner has been investing in it for about 8 years and is currently 50% down from his peak but he accepts it's a long term strategy. He has spent a lot of time studying and taking courses to ensure he's informed.

I invest in stablecoin which is more consistent and doesn't lose value but it only makes about 4%.

@DatGirlBellamy We use a big investment company but have our own personal adviser. The portfolio we have is via Lloyds Private banking and is with Schroders. We choose our level of risk and we are medium - high because low is a bit boring! We are retired though. We were high risk for many years but it really is not that risky. We have been happy with the service but have lots invested. Gains fluctuate but we have share ISAs and we sometimes spend our profits. I don’t really look at % each year as it’s not like a building society or
investment bond. You can get nearly 5% with them on a fixed term bond anyway so your adviser isn’t adding much.

If you want a more aggressively invested portfolio, you need to ask for one but diversity will matter.

Is your adviser part of a large organisation or not? We don’t choose the investments, just the level. We like the security of a larger company making the investment decisions and we can get IHT planning advice and they manage DHs pensions too.