Investment ISA

bears47

I have an Investment ISA taken out in April 2002. It was taken out with Norwich Union, now Aviva for £7000.
My half yearly statement, dated 31/12/2009, Cash in value is now £7234.19 !
My question is should I leave it in for possible market recovery, or cut my losses and take the money!

My investments are in Aviva Investors Corporate Bond Fund Share Class 1 Income
and Aviva Investors UK Growth Fund Share Class 1 Accumulation

dunstonh

You dont say what investments you have. Just the adminstrator and tax wrapper. So, its not really possible for us to comment on the investments as we dont know them.

However, investments zig zag in value. Its what they have always done and always will. The last major drop was 2001/2. Depending on where you were invested, you may have caught the tail end of the last one.

So, you are basically looking at the value at nearly the worst point in the last 7 years (November was the bottom).

I wouldnt be surprised to see the investment all in one fund. That is what I would call bad investing but quite normal for newbie investors or those seeing tied agents of the company. That is easily resolved though if it is the case.

So, what funds are you in?

bears47

See Edit, as I have added the Funds

dunstonh

Corporate bonds had a bad year (in fact they havent had a good year for a while). That said, the outlook is looking better for them. UK Growth is fully linked to the UK stockmarket.

Whilst no-one knows the future, the general historic view is that you shouldnt sell when the markets are down. Its just part of the zig zag you get. We have had two large zig zags in quick succession and you are now looking at your value near the bottom of a "zag". Never a fun time to check your value. Its you choice but this sort of event is not unusal, although the scale this time is quite large. That said, the dot.com crash (and other events in that period) saw the FTSE fall 43%. This time round it fell 44%. It has since recovered around 12%. What was different this time was the speed of the drop and complete collapse of confidence. You have to really go back until the late 80s to see something similar (although there were plenty of drops in excess of 10% between then and now)