Child Trust Fund versus Junior ISA

[Steve vRS]

Over the past 13 years, as part of saving up for my son, I have paid almost £3400 into an Investment Child Trust Fund. I have just had a valuation of this fund as being worth £4173. I have no idea if this is a good growth or whether I can improve on this with a Junior ISA.

I know that there are many variable in this and a definitive answer is impossible but do the PH experts recommend sticking with the Investment Trust Fund or are Junior ISAs seen as a better bet at the moment?

Thanks in advance!

[swatches]

CTF or JISA is just the wrapper.
This will not affect the performance.

What is important is what you are invested within the wrapper and the fees that you are being charged.

I moved from CTF to JISA for 2 reasons. Cheaper platform fees (0.25% v 0.7%) and access to wider range of investments.

[oldaudi]

Steve vRS said:

Over the past 13 years, as part of saving up for my son, I have paid almost £3400 into an Investment Child Trust Fund. I have just had a valuation of this fund as being worth £4173. I have no idea if this is a good growth or whether I can improve on this with a Junior ISA.

I know that there are many variable in this and a definitive answer is impossible but do the PH experts recommend sticking with the Investment Trust Fund or are Junior ISAs seen as a better bet at the moment?

Thanks in advance!

Is this a Cash Child Trust Fund or the Stocks and Shares one? Taking it from a cash one (if it is) and changing it to a Junior ISA will introduce risk and youll be buying funds/shares that could drop in value and therefore remove all of your current profit or even worse reduce it below the £3400 already paid.
I guess at 18 youll be handing it over so you have 5 years left to grow. Who knows what will go on with this Brexit stuff.

I have cash CTFs for my two and opened a Stocks and Share "In Trust" Fund and drip feed into that to ride out any market movements. I certainly wouldnt want to move the cash CTF into a stock and shares fund now purely cause Im not much of a risk taker. Could you keep the CTF where it is and open another stock/share account for your son and invest into that for 5 years? YOull keep your current capital in the CTF plus the possibility of good growth over the next 5 years for him.

If it is the Stock and Shares one (it probably is as you say investment in the description) you would need to see if you could invest into different markets and funds that your current provider does not offer. But who knows where the growth will be over the next 5 years!?

Looking at those numbers it looks like you've had about 22% return over 13 years which is 1.5% a year? Someone will be along in a moment to shout at me for being thick as im not sure how you would work out compound interest on that. But if it is 1.5% on a stocks and shares CTF, then yes you could do much better

Edited by oldaudi on Wednesday 29th June 18:03

Edited by oldaudi on Wednesday 29th June 18:04

[Steve vRS]

Yes, it is a stocks and shares CRF. It's fees are 1% which seem a bit high...

[swatches]

If you have been regularly investing £20 a month, then you average annual return is ~4.4%