Potential clients often approach me about their existing ISA investments with comments along the lines of; “My ISA portfolio is underperforming I would like to transfer it to another one” it’s a loaded question and one that I’m sure I could acquire loads of new clients from if I just replied “OK”
Unfortunately like most things, it’s never quite that simple. First of all, as an adviser, the question I have to ask and establish an answer to through thorough fund research is this. Is the ISA really underperforming or is it just underperforming your expectations? By this I mean is the fund or portfolio that you are invested in actually doing worse than ISA funds and Portfolios of a similar makeup and risk profile. If the fund has underperformed then we can discuss alternatives fund options with you, including whether these were the right funds types for you anyway, and the costs associated with making a switch.
If I find the ISA fund or Portfolio hasn’t underperformed in comparison to its peers we will look at the costs of the fund to establish if the cost of holding the fund is the reason that you feel your ISA has underperformed! Then we must assess whether the funds just aren’t the right type for you, are they more volatile than you can stand etc.
If you feel your ISA is underperforming I’d be happy to review it for you please just get in touch.
As always when discussing investments there are a couple of things I must point out that past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance and the value of investments can go up as well as down and an investor may not get back all of the capital invested.