Realising gains in pension funds

gil13

For the pensions experts out there, is there a problem with the following.
background: We have a company group pension scheme, each member can decided in which funds they are invested in according to their attitude to risk etc. Now nobody knows where the stockmarkets are heading but the last few years have been pretty good by all accounts, would it not be a good idea to sell the units in some of the riskier funds and move the money into gilts/cash, lower risk type funds and then start again with the new monthly contributions back into the more riskier areas. Then if there is a market correction at least some of the big gains are safe. The stockmarket has pretty much doubled since the lows of a few years back and I cannot really see the UK market doubling again from here.

EdInvestor

The market hasn't recovered to where it was in 1999 yet.

gil13

yeah, I know. I am just wondering why not lock in the big gains of recent times, and then start again any futher gains you get but on new money and if there is a correction you have minimised the loss.

dunstonh

A sector allocated portfolio with rebalancing should be doing this annually anyway.

So, lets just say your investment spread is 60% stockmarket 40% non then each year you should rebalance back to that whether the markets have gone up or down.

There is little point pulling out completely.