Has anyone invested in shares/unit trusts etc via a Financial Adviser

Whatever the advice I reckon plenty will get sued.

SHARES CAN GO DOWN AS WELL AS UP AND YOU MAY GET BACK LESS THAN YOU INVESTED

Hard to sue with these words plastered all over the contract

An IFA's job is to risk profile, and recommend investments commensurate with that risk. Not 'recommend you sell'

i had 80% in a   very low risk , and 20% in a higher risk,  gone down 20%  in 2 weeks, if go down another 20/% in next 2 weeks might well take most out

don't do that. by taking out you'll make the losses real. keep money in there. even add more to it once we hit a bottom in a couple of weeks' time. the worst time to get out is after a huge crash. you'll have to ride this one a bit longer

Financial advisers are for lazy "people" not investors or those of high-net-worth individuals. Some are just after commissions esp just before x'mas. But, how many financial advisers actually risked their own monies? Excuses aplenty though eg during dotcom era.

i know little john, but id bail asap, you can get back in at lower if you wanted, can see no upside for a long time tbh, and everyone will be thinking i'll bail anyway..

i know little

masta, thats true, but all bets are off here............

This is a strong cautious fund, around 25/75. Dipped less than 10% over the past month.

.https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/charts?s=GB00B84DV184:GBP

So 'very low risk' is probably not too accurate.

thousands will die

what does that tell ye

ill say no more

agree there cider, i know nought about these shares, but ive got a really small pension with nest only opened a few years back with work, and thats hardly lost a penny,

we,ve done this to death Geoff,my story well,documented on here
but spent 30 mins on phones yesterday with standard life and I  have never told a lie in my life the only advise was
it,ll be alrite sit tight
and if you mention selling up giving you all sorts of numbers you to ring,prove you've sought advice from a registered adviser, I thought you could do it online through the dashboard,unsuprisingly you can only put money in thtrough the dashboard
and he said if you want a proper discussion with a standard life advisor it will cost you 100,s
its like phoning sky tv talking to a snotty school kid and if you want proper advice pay extra to talk to jeff stelling,

i was logged in the standard life dashboard at time and on my wife,s life was 2 grand poorer when i came off,

ive 4 over 85 parents ,grandkids and spinning plates everywhere in my mind at present and thery dont give a fook

i really believe at the current rate of losses i could do my lot 188,175, 147,134, grand has been the trajectory  since jan the times ive looked in, no comfort to me but their must be millions out there with pensions completely  oblivious to all this
was reading the mail today who said contact your providers for advice,but unless you pay 4,5,600 its generic advice and in most cases you understand more than the lad/lass your talking to,
they talk to you as though this is a slow down over a few months not 1000 points ranges on dow up or down in mins,
i think its an absolute disgrace that providers arnt contacting customers i sent an email and they said expect a reply in 3 or 4 days but that will be generic ,ive written down for the wife what it will day,
i asked the lad ,tried to explain yesterday if there was anyway i could park/freeze pot for a while pause take breath,but he just kept banging on about freezing this months contributions, i was trying to safeguard 140 grand and he was  banging on about saving 150 quid he just couldnt comprehend grasp it
ok lads another rant over,ranting on here is a release valve for me
stay safe

The thing is elis, that probably has more risk in the long run.Risk the you don't beat inflation. In normal times.

What we're seeing now is a risk to civilisation as we know it. Hyperinflation in the west is becoming a serious prospect. Not because of the virus, but choosing to cripple the economy to fight it.

betting masta your talking salesmen patter shoite all based on past history do you think in great wall street crash the bottom wasn't real, these falls are happening whilst countries are going bankrupt in todays terms to try and give the markets confidence,
those who can ,have the skills are going balls deep in cash paying governments to shield their cash,do you think their worried about missing bounce ups on the way,

If a pound becomes worthless where do you put it? As this is global, USD or EUR is not safe either. The volatility in the leading currencies over the last few days has been incredible. The market doesn't know either.

i had a pension  that ive just looked  at the contract with my f adviser in 2012, it reads, my objective is to safeguard over 80%of my fund, and the remainder in an aggressive manner
then he adds , the funds will be set up as 80% in a cash equivelent fund  and the remainder on 50/50split basis between aggressive fund and balanced fund.
Seems a lot to go down from around 50,000 to under 40,000 in a few weeks ?

What's the 80% in?

This is my 'safe' fund, though it has currency and Rishi risk, so I'm considering hedging .https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/historical?s=GB00B65F6586:GBP

everyone in those markets are arbing for their life whilst it is still possible

but it will all fall apart when the big funds start going

and they will, id say many are pisshing blood as we speak

cider all it says is cash fund, i havent a clue sorry?

Sounds a bit odd, it's worth investigating exactly where it is invested.

good luck elsijohn hope it comes right for you,
I was in a pension fund in 2010 just put a 120 a month in for 25 years ish and it had 72 grand in I thought that's done ok, but later found out it through various closures,mergers unbeknowns to me my serps had ended up going in same fund,might have got a letter didn't register back then etc
anyway I got made redundant from steelworks wife was panicing so I mentioned this pension pot and I,d just turned 50 so new I could access it ,before it changed to 55 ,and worked out I could take the tax free bit about 18 grand had about 12 grand savings and pay mortgage off to give wife piece of mind,also copped for about 2 grand early redemption fee it was only a small mortgage back then about 32 grand to pay it off
when the advisor came round house to sort it out my dad was there for a bit of help the 49 grand left was the start of the sipp I,m currently in, but as he was writing things down he quickly mentioned and moved on without any great detail and we were togreen to interrogate him that the old pension had a guaranteed income increase of 4% a year, mortgaged paid served a purpose but I,d kill for that 4% guarantee now,although my auld man said last week when we were discussing recent problems that they probably had ways of circumnavigating the guarantee in certain circumstances,best not to prey on it

cider, i will if it gets hammered again in a few weeks.Ive  taken some out of it already last few years, i just hope hes not taken it  out of the safe cash fund , i bet thats what hes done , it should be 80/20 split , if hes made bollocks who could i investigate with,?thx

Here are the steps .https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/how-complain

Not via a financial advisor as do my own as had one come round to my house 20yrs ago when I was younger and after mortgage advice via FA.

Bloke knew nothing and after 40 mins excused himself, if he had stayed another minute I'd have thrown him out anyway.

Commission culture back then, might still be the same, but not for me thanks

took few thousand out few years back, took family cruise etc, we were on low pay etc and getting nice family tax credit , i was naive didnt know that my money taken out was classed as income for the year, anyway had to pay all the tax credits back over the year .

cash funds are rarely just cash...if you think about it cash earns practically nothing. Almost certainly the fund will hold short dated gilts and treasury bills and will have an extremely low volatility range.

My pension pot which was (before the crash) 50% equities 50% fixed interest has dropped 15%. My advice is to forget about it for 6 months ;looking at it on a daily basis whilst it's dropping is liable to send you into depression. The markets will come back ;the only question is when.

posy I cant comment on your financial abilities but yourdr,s skills are unapproachable its depressing me and the wife ,
but if you and lots of others including me are  dropping 15%  in a month, 6 months
should be like endowments get red,orange,yellow warning letters

If elis's theoretical 80% 'cash' fund has lost 20%, I wouldn't be inclined to forget about it. It's only when the tide goes out we discover who has been swimming naked.

Not sure what you mean by...dr,s !

Seriously though I've been through a number of crashes ,some being worse than this one and they're scary because the market always overshoots ,but it always reverts back.

doctor

some being worse than this one,you think this is over ?

posy, whilst it may recover, a paying pension suffers because each month they take an income, they are effectively selling at a lower price or using more units for the same income. That can never be recovered. This is going to hurt a lot of people, regardless if turns around or not.

I doubt very much that it's over ;ftse could well drop below 4000 who knows , but if it does it'll be a good time to buy. Impossible to call the bottom but once China starts to recover and/or a vaccine is thought to be near available the market will rebound...expect a V shaped recovery.

For me, if I was still in the market, this is an excellent time to commence pound cost averaging. A monthly premium could earn some very favourable returns, even if the market does drop a little more.

Aspro take your point but the converse also applies...you sell fewer units when the price is high.

this is the worst crisis we have ever seen,governments are having to do things that we have never seen before and probally wouldnt have believed government would or could do,they didnt try to put things right after the 2008 crash just kept pumping cheap money into the system which artificially pushed up the stock markets and now when this is all over the numbers will be mindblowing and unlike a normal crash when the garbage companys close down in this one they are being bailed out to carry on and do the same thing again.

Here is a simple tip for folks considering buying a new policy off an independent financial adviser (IFA). The IFA will encourage you to put us much as possible in the pot to start off with. He may use little charts or drawings (sales pitches) in order to convince you that you need to put in as much as possible in the first two years to grow the pot rapidly. The reason for this is that he only gets commission off the first two years contributions. Put the absolute minimum in to start. Increase it after two years.

The swings are not so good in a with profits fund posy, because of the 'smoothing' process. The problem with these, although safer, there are times when adjustments have to be made and this is one of those times. By the time the fund recovers many months pension would have been paid at lower rates. For other funds your reply is 100% accurate

That isn't true PP. I was an IFA and now retired. What IFA's actually get paid is an up-front commission that has a two (or more) year consolidation. What this means in reality is that the commission repaid is pro-rata so if 12 months premiums were paid then 50% would have to be returned. Also, if a policy gets topped up the IFA will again earn the commission over the same consolidation period for the top up.

Aspro I certainly based my comments on unit based funds ,certainly not so called with profit funds.
My experience is through having been a trustee of both a defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.

There's been a lot of research into whether lump sum or drip feed works best. Most of the evidence points to lump sum winning 2/3. However, it's not something I would entertain in this crash.

I appreciate your comments were unit linked posy, but my point was just highlighting that some funds will unduly suffer, even after a full recovery.

As for DB and DC schemes, I know what one I'd rather be in now. This could reignite the market for annuities.

Not if sterling is spanked and/or a sustained period of high inflation.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is well intentioned but it could bankrupt the country. I can't see what can stop people taking the 80% and working another job for cash, or off the grid anyway. Or even colluding with small business owners and getting 80% and cash for the same job.

Fear will stop a few, but greed will most certainly win the day... it always does.

cant see nothing wrong to take the 80%, and if your employer doesnt want you, just take another job anyway, it would be just  classed as 2nd job , wouldnt it,

Mar 21, 2020 -- 10:13PM, Aspro wrote:

That isn't true PP. I was an IFA and now retired. What IFA's actually get paid is an up-front commission that has a two (or more) year consolidation. What this means in reality is that the commission repaid is pro-rata so if 12 months premiums were paid then 50% would have to be returned. Also, if a policy gets topped up the IFA will again earn the commission over the same consolidation period for the top up.

Well, let's put it another way. If someone paid their first two years of their policy upfront, would the IFA get 50% of that amount?

Mar 21, 2020 -- 10:43PM, elisjohn wrote:

cant see nothing wrong to take the 80%, and if your employer doesnt want you, just take another job anyway, it would be just

It depends on a combination of the size of the pot ,any 'other income' and level of investor sophistication ,but there's often a place for using part of the pot to acquire an annuity.

in an ideal world, index linked are very expensive though.

I've got a DB index linked, capped at 5% unfortunately.

PP... I'll give you an example. A client takes out a life assurance policy at a cost of say £30 per month. The IFA will get approximately £600 for this, a part of which could go to the brokers, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he pays up front, the monthly cost is what it is and the commission for the premium/term is set, however; the consolidation period for this life assurance is (say) two years, but the guy only pays one year's premium and then cancels the policy, then the adviser would then have to pay half of the commission back. If the client had cancelled after just 6 months then the adviser pays back 75%... it is all pro-rata.

However; after the two years is up the adviser continues to get paid a 'trail commission' for every 'single' premium thereafter, until the policy ends or is cancelled beforehand. This is only a few pence, but pennies turn into pounds and a lot of clients, paying a lot of premiums, means a lot of trail commission, which is basically an IFA's basic wage.

Mar 21, 2020 -- 11:06PM, Aspro wrote:

PP... I'll give you an example. A client takes out a life assurance policy at a cost of say £30 per month. The IFA will get approximately £600 for this, a part of which could go to the brokers, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he pays up front, the monthly cost is what it is and the commission for the premium/term is set, however; the consolidation period for this life assurance is (say) two years, but the guy only pays one year's premium and then cancels the policy, then the adviser would then have to pay half of the commission back. If the client had cancelled after just 6 months then the adviser pays back 75%... it is all pro-rata.However; after the two years is up the adviser continues to get paid a 'trail commission' for every 'single' premium thereafter, until the policy ends or is cancelled beforehand. This is only a few pence, but pennies turn into pounds and a lot of clients, paying a lot of premiums, means a lot of trail commission, which is basically an IFA's basic wage.

So the IFA would get £600 from the first two years contributions but only pennies after that?

The IFA would get £600 within days of the policy starting and would only have to pay something back if the policy was cancelled within that two/four year period (life assurance is generally 4 years). After that then no it isn't pennies; it could actually work out to a few pounds for just one policy with a decent monthly premium, but it is paid on every individual monthly payment thereafter. A good friend of mine, who is still an IFA, has a trail commission of £60k per annum.

Mar 21, 2020 -- 11:28PM, Aspro wrote:

The IFA would get £600 within days of the policy starting and would only have to pay something back if the policy was cancelled within that two/four year period (life assurance is generally 4 years). After that then no it isn't pennies; it could actually work out to a few pounds for just one policy with a decent monthly premium, but it is paid on every individual monthly payment thereafter. A good friend of mine, who is still an IFA, has a trail commission of £60k per annum.

He must have been in the game for a long long time with many many clients.

Not really as that isn't the whole story, trail is made up of a lot of things, and lump sum investments, transfers etc is where the real money is. A good adviser who has his client's interests at heart will offer a service, which includes an annual face-to-face review, which ensures that a client can keep in touch, once a year, with our without spending any more cash, in addition to the adviser keeping track of their funds throughout the year. For this service the IFA will add an agreed charge to the fund of (variable but let's say 0.25%) - If just one fund is £1m (highly likely), that's £2,500 income, per annum and a seasoned IFA will have many clients with many investments all paying an annual fee... £60k is quite modest.

And even on top of all of this there is the 'general branch' side of things, which is home and car insurance. The IFA could get up to 20% of these premiums and as they are renewed every year, usually by direct debit, then every year he will get paid without doing another thing. One guy at the Prudential (when I worked for them) was earning £30,000 per annum off general policies alone. The shrewd advisers have a large general insurance base.

As I said, he must be a "seasoned" IFA with many clients.

Indeed, but just to confirm your original post, an IFA will get paid at all levels of investment and if the client increases two years later then they'll get that £600 again with another two year consolidation. Every top up has an up front, a consolidation and then a trail.

if you're getting 80% why would you take a second job ?   ...you already have enough to live on .


otherwise it's greed ,taking a job someone else might need.

...  worse even  than the food and toilet roll hoarders   imo .

7 so called guru,s in mail basically saying stay put
all this talk of rebounds, tick ups etc ,if your over 60 not 66 ,not in work place and your pots have gone completely not even sure if than can happen, do you really think people even over 50 are going to carry on paying in 200 quid a month,even if they had the 200 to put in ,its the talk of madness for the every day jo public,auto enrolment etc the investing game will be over for us and them,  these guru,s woint have the billions of peoples money to invest with, do they think people will be saving for years waiting for the next crash, the era of  DB CONTRIBUTIONS is over for most,everyones in the market in some form,even those in DB SCHEMES will feel the squeeze when all this unwinds pressure on pension black holes etc

just buy shares yourself,the experts tell you to not put all your eggs in one basket and you should diversify so do the opposite,pick a few shares yourselves and keep buying those monthly,you then have total control over when you sell and buy them,shares should come back in time but the worry i have over them coming back quickly this time is that before this crash a lot of social unrest was appearing around the world,hong kong,chile,iran and the yellow vests in france and possibly more and could see it getting worse if it looks like we just revert back to the so called norm

Seen a few press articles over the past few years about the share platforms letting an unregulated friend or family member login and do your investing for you. Going to be some bad arguments there.

The Financial Advice industry is a racket. A centre of hindsight, hedging, hypocrisy, aftertiming, sanctimony, condescension and, above all, self-interest.

If you have to use one, to assay the viability of transferring a DB pension for example, you will pretty soon see through their b*****it to the underlying interest that governs pretty much all they do and say: their own.

As far as protecting your wealth in turbulent financial times, forget it. That's not their job. Their job is to reconcile you to poor performance.

As stated upthread, some people are paying more for an ongoing relationship with their FA than for their car or mortgage. Needlessly.