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Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

Including Financial Independence and Retiring Early (FIRE)
CryptoPlankton
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Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309674

Postby CryptoPlankton » May 18th, 2020, 3:21 pm

If you were planning to transfer a personal pension in a Stakeholder plan to a SIPP with a different provider, how would you feel about doing it in the current climate? The transfer should supposedly take a couple of weeks or so, during which time the liquidated assets will obviously be inaccessible.

The Stakeholder plan has recovered to about 95% of its pre-crash value and the question is really whether there is any more likelihood of significant market movement right now than at any other time? And, of course, If it's not done now, when?!

Any thoughts?

Dod101
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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309684

Postby Dod101 » May 18th, 2020, 3:50 pm

I am sorry to say that my crystal ball is no better than anyone else's and of course in these volatile times you will be taking a risk if you need to liquidate the assets to do the transfer. I am not familiar with a Stakeholder pension but will the manager not be able to transfer in specie?

Dod

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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309690

Postby CryptoPlankton » May 18th, 2020, 4:06 pm

Dod101 wrote:I am sorry to say that my crystal ball is no better than anyone else's and of course in these volatile times you will be taking a risk if you need to liquidate the assets to do the transfer. I am not familiar with a Stakeholder pension but will the manager not be able to transfer in specie?

Dod

Hi Dod, thanks for the reply.

The reason for the transfer is so the funds can be self-managed - within the Stakeholder pension they are invested in the provider's own (proprietary?) funds so cannot be transferred in specie. I know that no-one can tell the future, but just wondered what hunches others may have. My thoughts are that the market has already recovered quite well and is unlikely to shoot up over the next couple of weeks (though it may well continue to edge up as it has and that would just have to be taken on the chin). Of course, the announcement of a vaccine could be a game changer, but we could be waiting for a long time to get that out of the way. I suppose I am wondering whether it is worth waiting as there is no guarantee that volatility will subside within the time frame (a year or two) when this move really needs to be made.

tjh290633
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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309699

Postby tjh290633 » May 18th, 2020, 4:16 pm

I think that the principal factor to consider, if you cannot transfer in specie, is the time you are likely to be out of the market during the transfer. The market is a little volatile and, whicle a fall would be nice, the prospect of a sudden rocket ascent is not appealing.

TJH

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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

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Postby dealtn » May 18th, 2020, 5:59 pm

Can you partial transfer?

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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309730

Postby JuanDB » May 18th, 2020, 6:16 pm

I had initiated a transfer in early March from my Scottish widows personal pension to my AJ Bell SIPP. When the markets went awry I asked AJ Bell to cancel the transfer which they kindly did without any questions. With hindsight, the bond heavy fund in Scottish Widows faired pretty well and I would have been a net gainer when investing into my target equity world tracker. I don’t however regret cancelling the transfer.

My plan is to wait until at least July before restarting the transfer process. The logic of July is we will then have a full quarter of Covid impact with hopefully fewer surprises in the news and therefore volatility lower. A market wide reduction doesn’t concern me, if everything is down 25% then the net impact is 0%. Getting caught on the wrong side of volatility is the concern.

Depending on confidence at the time I will either continue with a single large transfer or hedge my bets and split the transfer into 2 or 3 tranches.

Cheers,

Juan.

CryptoPlankton
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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309794

Postby CryptoPlankton » May 19th, 2020, 12:20 am

Thanks for the replies, I will certainly look at the possibility of transferring in tranches - not ideal, but probably sensible at the moment if it can be done.

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Re: Stakeholder to SIPP - timing

#309989

Postby CryptoPlankton » May 19th, 2020, 2:33 pm

Just to update: Having weighed it all up, the transfer request has been made. So expect a dramatic market crash sometime in the next few days and a huge bounce shortly thereafter (after the funds have been liquidated!).

Thanks again for your thoughts.


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