Richard Smith, my heart goes out to you. You have created feeds into your measurement tool so that you get a daily update of your “pot” valuations. You are killing yourself with information. Take a step back and ask yourselves some questions. You are a middle aged man with a lengthy life expectancy and you’ve people who you may consider you responsibility (pension actuaries call them “liabilities”.
You cannot measure your capacity to support you and your loved ones through at least thirty years of life by measuring your DC worth like this…
There have been a few time in the 2020s when we have had falling pots (remember March 2020 when we went up to Edinburgh for an investment conference at a time of COVID (we didn’t know it till a few days later).
I remember at the time thinking that what was happening to my DC pots was as awful as what was happening in the country. But the falls were only a representation of people’s uncertainty and over time, the uncertainty dissipated, the markets came back and now – six years on, we hardly think of those times and of the market fall.
It is not possible to predict the future and our futures should not be exposed to short term downturns, any more than we should feel happy because the market is up. We should be in pension schemes that pay us pensions.
This means taking a long-term view and not a daily view of our pension wealth!
So – my dear friend, I ask you not to worry about your pot values and get on with the many wonderful things you do , to help us plan ahead , considering our pensions on a dashboard!
Unless you are looking to take cash out , the value of your pot- day to day – is of little importance! The spurious system of DC saving that we have today will be surpassed by a return to a system of pensions before too long and your pot value will cease to dominate you as it clearly does today!
Monitoring daily valuations isn’t “information overkill”; it’s essential risk management. In a Defined Contribution (DC) system, the individual bears all the risk.
Waiting for a “return to pensions” is a speculative gamble.
Real-time data allows for tactical rebalancing and protective hedging, ensuring long-term “liabilities” aren’t decimated by sudden, unrecovered market shocks.
The UK is about to get hit from multiple sides due to the actions in the middle east and the 12 countries seen to be effected and other actors yet to disclose positions.
Funds are already restricting withdrawals.
I agree about daily monitoring if we are talking about genuinely self-invested DC. And also if we are in the process of divesting or rearranging our deckchairs.
But trustees of DB and DC schemes tend to look at valuations and hedging quarterly rather than daily or even monthly.
Because (with some exceptions among very large schemes and a few others) they employ managers to risk manage on an hourly or daily basis.
Yes, the individual bears the ultimate risk in DC (as the sponsor does in DB), but if market intermediaries are involved (fund managers, master trust overseers) then I suggest the individual may be able to relax the need for daily monitoring most of the time.
This was identified in Q3 2025 as a problem at UBS
NEW YORK – BlackRock (BLK.N) said on Friday it has limited withdrawals from a flagship debt fund after a surge in redemption requests, as investor worries mount around the $2 trillion private credit industry.