Pension taking a hit

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From the start of the year
Why not the start of last year.
Or 10 years ago?
And it's an apples and oranges comparison given that everybody's pension investments, timeframe, charges etc. will vary so much.
Pointless exercise.
 
Encouraging people to try to time the market?
Hmmmm.... :confused:
Nobody’s encouraging anyone to try and time the market.

It all depends on the time horizon? If, as it is for most people, it’s multidecade, then investing in a diversified portfolio of quality companies makes sense.

Markets are off by 20%+. So the “things” that one wants and needs to own over the next number of decades have gotten cheaper.
 
Why not the start of last year.
Or 10 years ago?
And it's an apples and oranges comparison given that everybody's pension investments, timeframe, charges etc. will vary so much.
Pointless exercise.
It's simply to gauge whether I'm doing OK relative to other people. For example if I was down much more than others well then I would have to question whether I am invested in the correct pension funds.
 
So the “things” that one wants and needs to own over the next number of decades have gotten cheaper.
But who knows future price and whether todays price is good value. It might not be. Price could be 50% less in 6 months.
 
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Encouraging people to try to time the market?
Hmmmm.... :confused:
What?!!!

Did you read what I said? First of all, it was an explanation of what someone else said and secondly, it was encouraging anyone to time the market. It was shares are cheaper than usual. That is a fact and isn't reliant on timing anything. Buy them today, tomorrow or the day after and they will still be cheaper than December 2022.
 
"When prices fall, people tend to buy more" is in all fairness the most basic of all the rules of economics.
 
Encouraging people to try to time the market?
Hmmmm.... :confused:
It's the opposite of timing the market. It's encouraging people to continue buying while the price is down, in anticipation of the price going up again over the lifetime of the pension. If you're not anticipating the price going up in the future then why invest at all?

It's easy to say "buy low and sell high" but a lot of people now are realising why this is harder than it sounds - things are low because of negative sentiment and you need to have conviction and courage to swim against the tide and continue to invest in the expectation of future highs. Or maybe you do believe prices will go up again in the future, but you think we have further to drop and try to time the bottom, but you miss it because you keep waiting and end up buying in again at a higher price than if you had just gone for it in the first instance.
 
If you remember back to the “financial crash”, Equity markets fell c30% in 2008 and the largest drawdown from Equities into Cash by Pension investors was in the first 3 months of 2009. Had those people stayed invested, they would have recovered their “losses” in the following 2 years. But many got out at the bottom (crystallised their losses) and then missed the recovery. History may or may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.
 
But who knows future price and whether todays price is good value. It might not be. Price could be 50% less in 6 months.
No, it couldn’t.

You think that after prices have fallen by 20%-ish year to date, they’re going to fall by 50%?
 
Its possible
As possible as aliens landing on the steps of the GPO tomorrow and telling us who’s going to win next year’s Masters.

Most things are “possible”.

Markets are not going to fall by 50%.

That would represent a 60% fall, given what’s happened already this year.
 
As possible as aliens landing on the steps of the GPO tomorrow and telling us who’s going to win next year’s Masters.

Most things are “possible”.

Markets are not going to fall by 50%.

That would represent a 60% fall, given what’s happened already this year.
The point is markets could continue to fall significantly. Who knows by how much or whether they will in fact rise. Tis hard to predict loike.
 
My DC pension has done nothing but fall since i changed it from cash to high risk global equities fund.It's down 10% since i amended it last August. As others have said though the units are cheaper I'm getting more. Also i'm 13.5 years away from retirement so not too worried.....yet
 
I think though this time you really need to know where actually the pension funds have money invested because of the inflation not being a big factor since early 80s. If for example it is a "low risk" fund, that means a higher proportion of bonds but bonds are not the place to be with high inflation and bond values are falling. Also you don't want too much exposure to tech or growth stocks in this inflationary environment.
I think this "low risk" "high risk" categorization is completely out dated now we need more information than that
 
I'm also down 12% this year but I'm not worried about that.

When my company set up the pension plan (2018 or 2019), I picked the two funds with the highest risk/reward ratings (6/7), at a split of 50/50 each;

*A passive global equity,
*An active and passive diversified mix of assets - (which is still at least two thirds equities).

Now I'm wondering if it's a good time to just move everything to the passive global equity fund and leave it for 20 years (I'm mid 30's).
 
My DC pension has done nothing but fall since i changed it from cash to high risk global equities fund.It's down 10% since i amended it last August. As others have said though the units are cheaper I'm getting more. Also i'm 13.5 years away from retirement so not too worried.....yet

I'm curious as to why you were in cash before August 2021 and what prompted you to switch then?
 
No, it couldn’t.

You think that after prices have fallen by 20%-ish year to date, they’re going to fall by 50%?
The DOW ultimately fell by 89% from its 1929 peak.

I'm not saying it's going to happen, but a further fall of 50% in real terms from where we are today is certainly within the realms of possibility.
 
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