PointedMarlin said:
Yes I have
We have a financial advisor & have done for several years - put in a monthly amount & generally see a steady increase
As Covid really hit in 2020 & went into lockdown 1 I lost 7k quickly.
This was recouped once the company started trading again & share prices bounced back - I would say it took a couple of months maybe three to return - I could check but you get my point
Since February (Russia’s invasion) I have noticed that my investment is not really growing at all even though my £400 per month is still being ploughed in
Firstly, how much of your £400 actually goes into investments each month, does your advisor take 1%, 3%, or 5% of each contribution, and/or an annual fee of the value? We have a friend who uses Ken Fisher, raves about them, has had 7% pa for the last decade after their 3% fee. He seemed disappointed when I pointed out my Vanguard tracker returned 10-11% pa for the last decade, but without the 3% fee removed. He paid nearly £250k in fees over that time! I pay £240/year to my platform and 0.09% OCF.
Any reason you're putting it into an ISA rather than getting the tax relief from a SIPP?
Now I have used an advisor, and quite recently when I stopped work. However it was a fixed fee, to review where I was at, and whther I was being realistic with my goals, and he made some suggestions I had not thought of that were blatantly obvious but we'd missed as we'd got a bit of tunnel vision on our approach.
As for this year, lwe ost 6% between Jan and Aug, but it has all come back in the last 6 weeks. I'm heading towards roughly 80% in VEVE (Vanguard Devloped World Tracker ETF as the fees are slightly lower than the Fund equivalent), 10% in BRK.B for excitement, and the rest in some odds and sods I buy and sell for a bit of fun.
To put this into perspective, I no longer work and live on investment income, ISA, SIPP, and unsheltered. I draw about 4% pa from my portfolio (although actually all of it is drawn from the unsheltered bit, no pooint in taking money OUT of ISAs and pensions until you need to - one of the really obvious things the advisor pointed out), and on a volatile week it can rise or fall by several months income. On Brexit vote day i was still working and my investments dropped by about 12 months' take home salary. In one day. It was hit early 2020 too, but not as badly, and in both cases has bounced back.
I don't think this will continue, trackers have done very well recently and going forwards I suspect a diversification into property or metals might be of benefit, but the one thing I learnt late last century for the dear old Motley Fool is that paying someone else to look after your money only helps one person get richer.
Paul