Aviva Funds

Hi

I know very little about shares but I have a buy out bond in cash with aviva (withdrew it from equity funds last Jan after horrific losses). I am now looking to put back into equity to see can I make back some of my losses. This was to be my pension plan. I am 45 and before crash it was at 100k. Now in cash at 50k. I am wondering if anybody has any thoughts
on the best aviva funds to go back into - General Equity, International Equity, Pacific Basin etc. This is execution only, I do not have a broker. I have noted that had I got back in around June this year I would be back to 62k. I originally had a split of International and General Equity. Any help or thoughts on way forward would be greatly appreciated or should I stay in cash for longer.

What possessed you to take such a loss ?? Hindsight been the best thing, you can do nothing about it, so now you are sitting on a loss of 50%. You need to talk to a Non Tied non commission based Independent Financial Broker to discuss the best route forward. Try using a broker that is fee based rather than paying horrendous commissions from day 1 to when you liquidate the fund. There are enough posts on AAM of others who offer opinions and instances of who not to invest with. Standard Life are a good provider. No connection but I have policies with them for the past 16 years and never had any problems.

Hi Mercman

Thanks for the reply. Like many others the majority of the loss took place last year when global economy went belly up. From what I know (correct me if I am wrong) I cannot change this to another provider, it stays invested with Aviva as a buy out bond as part of a pension fund. I do intend talking to an independant advisor but I am also looking to seek advice from others as most of the advisors also seem to have got it wrong with the markets last year and I would like to be able to decipher truth from fiction.

TurningGreen said:

I know very little about shares but I have a buy out bond in cash with aviva (withdrew it from equity funds last Jan after horrific losses). I am now looking to put back into equity to see can I make back some of my losses.

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I presume this means you moved from equities to cash last Jan in the same policy? This would have been prudent as you avoided the losses equities suffered in Feb and Mar of this year. However, by remaining in cash you have unfortunately missed the markets' bounce since April of this year. [This shows the difficulty of market timing.] But, as you have 15+ years to go to retirement, this, while unfortunate, is perhaps not disastrous.

You should give serious consideration to switching back to equity asset classes, e.g. euro zone, international and emerging, and invest in these via index tracking funds. You would also need to work out a prudent allocation between these asset classes, and to work out a strategy for future investing in these and in other asset classes.
[Disclaimer: The above is comment / observation and is not a recommendation to follow any particular investment strategy or to buy / not buy any particular fund.]

Hi PMU,

Thats correct - I moved from equities to cash in the same policy and I did avoid further losses but also missed the bounce as you say. I know I need to get back into equities as the cash fund will not increase with any rate of return. Thanks for your thoughts.

TurningGreen said:

I know I need to get back into equities as the cash fund will not increase with any rate of return.

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When you move from cash to equities and other asset classes your asset allocation is all important. To assist you in this you could profitably look at a guideline ‘Constructing an EFT portfolio’ in the current (11 September) edition of the UK publication ‘Investors Chronicle’. I’m not suggesting you follow the asset allocation in the article, which is written from the perspective of an investor whose functional currency is GBP and not EUR, (and you may not be able to do so using just Aviva funds) but it should give you a steer on for what you should be aiming and the kind of decisions you may need to make.

Thanks PMU I will check out the Investors Chronicle and see what I do from there. At least I can compare advice from an advisor to whats in the article to see if anywhere close (unless he/she is using the same article!!!).