£ 100K STEPHEN EDWARDS

‘Almost 95pc of my £3.2m pension is now in oil’

Losses Mr Brown’s pension lost nearly £100,000 in value. It has been revived in the last month, regaining half of its losses, he said. favoured single stocks over funds, investing in mining firm Rio Tinto, insurer Legal & General and investment firm M&G, in order to cash in on dividends and cut his fees.

London-listed companies now dominate his portfolio, as he has returned to domestic favourites. He said: “There’s an awful lot of value here so I’ve put a lot in good solid British companies.”

Market-wide falls, across both bonds and stocks, have also pushed Mr Brown to new sectors, such as property funds, infrastructure and private equity, he said. “I’ve done lots of online digging to understand everything I put my money into.”

His pension has since regained half of the almost £100,000 that was lost.

American oil companies

Stephen Edwards, 55, has invested 95pc of his £3.2m pension in oil companies, in a major portfolio overhaul. But he says the bold call has paid off so far. “Oil is a commodity that people are going to need for the rest of the decade. It is an inflationand-war-proof investment and there are significant dividends on the horizon,”

he said. Millions of pounds of his pension savings have been poured into just two American oil and energy companies: Occidental Petroleum and Devon Oil.

Shares in Occidental Petroleum have almost doubled in price, gaining 90.5pc since the start of the year. Berkshire Hathaway, run by global investing superstar Warren Buffet, owns more than 19pc of all the shares in the company, which has been a major draw, according to Mr Edwards.

Meanwhile, shares in Devon Energy Corporation gained 138pc in value over the past 12 months.

“I started making the switch 18 months ago on a very small scale and have since put most of my money into oil,” said Mr Edwards.

Inflation-beating investment: