Invest for your future with a stakeholder pension

Advantages: Value for money, convenience, variety
Disadvantages: Value added, status

...payable on the value of the plan. CAN I TRANSFER MY PLAN? - At any time before you start taking your pension, you can transfer your plan to another pension arrangement free of charge. MY EXPERIENCE I have had 2 stakeholder pensions. My 1st with Virgin Money I took out in haste in 2002, I had 2 other pensions I wanted to tidy up (an occupational pension I wanted incubated, the other a private pension) I also wanted to make use of the tax advantages. The Virgin stakeholder pension offers simplicity with a choice of only 2 funds (and free movement between) and ease of use. I moved to my second stakeholder pension a few years later. I'd had some problems with Virgin and was looking for something more sophisticated. The TUC teacher's stakeholder's pension offered this. The scheme is organised by the Prudential. Giving more fund...

JeffreyB 30.12.2004 (17.05.2005) · Read review
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Review of Stakeholder Pensions

Pension Stankovic, Dubrovnik

Advantages: magnificent view
Disadvantages: you must climb a lot of steps

...I visited Pension Stankovic, Dubrovnik in the spring of 2009. We spent tree days in Dubrovnik an It is not easy to find the house We arrived in Dubrovnik in the evening. We were tired and it was dark. The navigation system showed us a road which was forbidden for the car. I get out of the car, took the navigation system in my hands and started to follow the commands. I was really surprised when I saw that to reach the address I had to climb at least 100 steps. I didn't have any choice and I climbed the steps. After climbing all the steps, I understood that this was not the right street. I went down and I tried the next street with the same number of steps... :-) After the third try I found the street which was at least 200 steps far of the car. At the end we found the address and we parked in fornt of the house in front...

nadia71 27.10.2009 (28.10.2009) · Read review
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Review of Pension Stankovic, Dubrovnik

The basic economics of pensions

Advantages: Certianty, less governemt relaince
Disadvantages: If prices go up, it's not worth it, takes ages to develop a fund

...and earnings from you reading this?) well I’d like to highlight the benefits basically, and that you shouldn’t rely solely on a state pension. Basically what happens in a funded (private) pension, you make contributions when you are in employment to a fund, held by the pensions company, and people invest your money and it grows, and when you retire there is a sum of money you own, i.e. you get what you give, great! Let’s say you end up with £50,000, and you don’t have any other asset like land etc, or kids that pay you, and each year you spend £5,000, then with a low rate of interest, you will probably live for 10 years, and have to rely on state payments, uh oh! Well the benefit of a pension is that you don’t have to worry, given the £50,000 your pension company will negotiate with you and determine...

Modena 05.01.2001 · Read review
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Review of Discount Pensions

A fund for the long term.

Advantages: tracks ftse uk index,low charges, spread risk , can be ISA'd
Disadvantages: covers all sectors, can miss out on sector over performance

...If you have read the weekend business sections of the papers you maybe forgiven for thinking every fund manager is after your hard earned cash. Your right, although ISA investment inflows have increased this year with the boyant markets, they are still well down on previous years, and with 4 (well nearly 3) days to go until the 2005/06 tax year end , they want your money. There is a vast and somewhat confusing array of funds available, each perporting to be the best investment choice. But take a closer look when choosing the fund for you. One very important thing to check is how much are they charging for investing your money? If you are not careful you could end up paying anything up 7 or 8% what with initial charges, management fees, bid/offer spread. So your fund would have to make 10% to make any investment worthwhile. So...

getscenic 02.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Fidelity Moneybuilder Index Fund

A Miami Miami; I'm a pensioner now

Advantages: Cheap, clean, central location, cheap supermarket nearby
Disadvantages: No breakfast, no windows, not wheelchair friendly, questionable neighbourhood

...~~~ Overview & Appearance ~~~ I have just returned from another of my legendary "shoe-string" budget tours during which I stayed at the Pension Miami hotel with Mrs Ben. We stayed two nights at said establishment for the princely sum of £68.29 via HotelClub.com. Admittedly the hotel was booked before finding out certain details which may have led me to choose another establishment such as the lack of breakfast and the "ladies of the night" who alledgedly ply their trade in the immediate vicinity (we did not see any of this however). The Hotel itself is located on an alley which none of the locals had heard of and it took us a little while to find the address. Make sure you print out a map before you leave home! The alley and the outside of the hotel are not hugely inviting as the alley precludes sunlight and the surrounding buildings...

ben-lloyd 25.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Pension Miami Hotel, Barcelona, Spain

A real dog fund

Advantages: May recover in the long term
Disadvantages: Perpetual has been taken over by Invesco

...I must admit I had never heard of Perpetual 5 years ago. It was my independent financial adviser who brainwashed me in thinking Perpetual was the best thing since sliced bread. The literature from Perpetual is quite mind-blowing. An entire page devoted to the awards and prizes received by the company in the preceding 5 years. The rest of the literature was marketed superbly. You got the feeling that if you did not purchase a Perpetual fund you were missing out on something big. Anyway I put £500 in the Perpetual Asian Smaller Markets fund. I had read an article in the Financial Times that the Tiger economies in Southeast Asia were ready to take off and investors should not miss out. Well two months later the Tiger economies had a massive market crash. Soon my £500 was worth £256. It was great timing on my part. Instead of selling...

mrpaella 08.12.2000 (17.01.2001) · Read review
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Review of Perpetual Asian Smaller Markets Fund

Fund Manager on the Move?

Advantages: Superb historic performance.
Disadvantages: Potential change of manager. Volatile sector.

...I have recently heard that the manager of this fund, Tim Woolley, is leaving to set up his own fund management company. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information but I am aware that when something of this nature happens, it can have serious repercussions on performance. The Henderson Global Technology fund has enjoyed amazing success over an extended period, and much of this has to be down to the fund manager. The fund has achieved 530% growth in the last five years alone, without undue volatility (until this year). The fund stands at one-and-a-quarter billion pounds, which is smaller than Aberdeen Technology, which could explain why they've out-performed Aberdeen over that period. A change of fund manager is always worrying, so if you haven't invested in this fund yet but were thinking of doing, it may be worth waiting...

petehall 28.09.2000 · Read review
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Review of Henderson Global Technology Fund

A large fund investing in high yield securities

Advantages: The fund tends to outperform in flat and falling markets, high dividend yield of around 3%, good long term performance and good manager
Disadvantages: Large £2.6 billion in size makes fund less flexible, 5% initial charge, underperforms when growth stocks are fashionable

...I invested in this fund in september 1998 for my final PEP allowance before PEP's were abolished by the New Labour government. I had been tracking this fund before investing in it. At the time of investing the financial markets were in turmoil caused by the Asian financial crisis, the collapse of the large hedge fund Long Term Capital Management and currency devaluations in emerging markets. I think interest rates in the UK were also on the rise at the time. My strategy in buying this fund was to try and make a purchase close to the bottom of the UK market and get a good price. I didn't quite manage to make a purchase at the absolute bottom of the market but was close making a purchase at around 138p per unit. The fund pays a dividend yield that aims to be in excess of the yield on the FTSE All Share index. The objective of the fund...

gorvifal3 27.06.2001 · Read review
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Review of Perpetual High Income Fund

A Fund With A Prosperous Future

Advantages: Young, small and flexible. Superb but brief historic performance.
Disadvantages: Little movement in price for several months.

...Jupiter European Special Situations fund was set up less than two years ago and has already seen growth of 140%. Virtually all of that growth was made in the first year but what sets this fund apart from many others, is that it has held on to those gains through what has been one of the most volatile years for shares around the world. Even though the Euro has slipped in value by 30% or so, over the last year, the fund has maintained its value in Sterling terms. When the Euro recovers, as we are led to believe it will, this will be translated into a 30% gain. I bought into this one in January of this year and have no qualms whatsoever about holding. The fund size currently stands at about £140 million, which is miniscule for a European fund. This means it is flexible and can react much more quickly to changes in trends as there is...

petehall 29.11.2000 · Read review
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Review of Jupiter European Special Situations Fund

Universities and Funding

Advantages: Tricky one
Disadvantages: only the well off can go

...A students cost at University at present.is around £7000, this would just about cover most things, and that is without buying clothes and things that youngsters buy. This is a really hard one to write as it is very topical and everyone as different view on it and after writing about it for 2 hours realised I had gone off at an tangent. Now in todays environment universities depend on student funding and also government funding but it is not working and many courses are underfunded. I think that Universities should be run as small businesses. There are a few things that could help:- 1) Universities be more productive and bring in a bit of money for themselves, which some do at the moment. Universities could have a branch that would promote their students and earn a fee rather like Temping Agencies. By placing a student in a job in...

BUBBLES171 12.01.2004 · Read review
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Review of How should university education be funded?