Financial Channel

i have an rrsp at work which i started last march of this year. our company uses great-west-london life-canada-vie or commonly known as Group Retirement Services. you will select which type of funds to invest. i just checked the performance of my rsp and over the 2 month period of my investing, my personal rate of return is a mess at -8.94%. i have canadian and foreign equity funds. should i change my portfolio or just leave it for 1 year to see how it goes? or should i stop my contirbution and divert my rsp to ING RSP Savings? i guessed i am a conservative investor. what do you think?

IMO, let it ride...the negative return is based on 2 months and not YTD, and seeing what happened last week when the markets took a turn, you're probably not the only one with a negative rate of return.

RRSP's are a long term investment, just leave it there. I started at the same time as you and my rate of return is currently in the negative too.

I'd say let it ride out... my returns are pretty good and work matches quite well (50% matching program)... so win/win situation for me anyhow

I assume you were well aware of the type of fund you were selecting...thus, you should understand the volatility involved. Therefore, on first impression I would have a time hard time considering you a conservative investor (more info would be required).

The behaviour you are experiencing is referred to as Myopic Loss Aversion. This explains the psychological state of mind of an investor as they review their holdings. So my advice to you....Do not look at how your portfolio is doing so often. This will trigger you to become uncomfortable even though the portfolio has only been established for a few months. Just sit back.

The high majority of the market has taken a big dive. Don't worry too much about it. Though check the funds history to see roughly what its been capable of achieving. Since you are contributing monthly, you are using a method called dollar cost averaging. You will buy less units when the market is up, and more units when the market is down.