Do I stay or Do I go?

Pestie

You gotta love the clash...!!

But anyway, I'm a newbie to this investing malarky, and cant help but be fished-in by the alarmist media. Especially by the frenzy that seems to be in regards to Lehman Brother in America and the resulting Tsunami the news say is on the way....

I have a virgin Climate Change ISA (yea, I know I got fished in by thier hype) Which tracks 'enviromentally friendly companies shares. I Invested £4k in March, and watched it steadily erode since then. (As of this morning it's down to £3k)

I'm concerned now that the value will drop further. This is my only 'lump' of savings, with little prospect of more on the way, so it mreans alot to me.

So what should I do? Do I write off £1k and go and find a more stable option? or do I stick with it and wait for the market to recover? If anyone could pass on some advice or tips I be grateful, as I'm so torn as to what to do......

Regards
P.

dunstonh

The Virgin Climate Change fund is medium/high to high risk (mainly due to its focused objective). The fund is quite capable of losses of 70% a year.

Your problem is in 3 bits:
1 - the risk level you have chosen appears to be higher than your tolerance for risk. 2 - you are looking short term. Investments should be 5-10 years minimum not 5 months.
3 - you put all your eggs in one basket. You should have done 4x£1000 to diversify.

At the moment you have a paper loss. If you sell, you crystallise that loss. The loss could get worse before it gets better but we may not be far off the bottom (the markets price in future earnings potential). Only time will tell in the short term.