Strategy for strange times

srcandas

While I'm almost 60 I have an investment window of I hope a good 15 years as most of my investments will remain in drawdown pots. I have property fully paid up but not enough income without the drawdown functioning.

But having amalgamated my PPs into a SIPP (accept for those with GARs which I will take as pension) I am now sitting on £60000 in a range of funds and £50000 in cash.

My thought is that in current zig zag times should I play the cash on shares with a quick buy/sell strategy - riding the waves? Or top up my funds? I change my mind every day :rotfl:

To give (or not) some of my thoughts on risk here are my funds:

Vanguard LifeStrategy 20% Equity GBP Acc 33%
Australian Natural Resources Income Units 18%
Aberdeen Emerging Markets Bond Class A Acc 8%
Investec Emerging Market Local Curr Debt Class A Net Acc 8%
Henderson China Opportunities Accumulation Shares 9%
Threadneedle China Opportunities Acc 8%
Troy Trojan Fund Class I Accumulation 8%
Invesco Perpetual High Income Acc 5%
Schroder Small Cap Discovery Class A GBP Acc 3%

Any help much appreciated as I sit looking at £50000 earning a meagre 0.1% interest

ps having everything at last under my control in a SIPP feels just great :beer:

bigadaj

Well equity income is supposedly he new black, so lumping some into that would give a higher return than cash, with the potential of capital increases, or losses of course!

Onawingandaprayer

While you're pondering - and being a similar great age, I know how hard serious decision-making is! - I'd certainly do something in the short term about that £50k earning 0.1%...

srcandas

Onawingandaprayer wrote: »

While you're pondering - and being a similar great age, I know how hard serious decision-making is! - I'd certainly do something in the short term about that £50k earning 0.1%...

but what is the issue? I don't want to just throw it in today because cash earns little. But yes I need to have made up my mind on a strategy.

My safe haven is the Vanguard 20% but that has a 0.33% entry so is not suitable as a quick hiding place. Guess I could find a fund with no entry/exit costs that is very very cautious.

I need something like that anyway if I go the share route. In the last 6 months I only had 20% on average in the market of my share buying budget.

Decisions, decisions

"similar great age" :rotfl:

JohnRo

srcandas wrote: »

My thought is that in current zig zag times should I play the cash on shares with a quick buy/sell strategy - riding the waves? Or top up my funds? I change my mind every day

Personally I'd be wary of piling everything into equities right now, there has been quite a relief rally after the recent greek elections and although the sovereign default fears have been somewhat delayed yet again, the wider debt picture and economic outlook seems little changed.

There might be further equity gains to be had when the central banksters fire up their printing presses for another round of counterfeit money printing but that's just going to create even more problems further down the road.

gadgetmind

srcandas wrote: »

My thought is that in current zig zag times should I play the cash on shares with a quick buy/sell strategy - riding the waves? Or top up my funds? I change my mind every day :rotfl:

How close do your GAR pensions come to covering your essential needs?

How many years of essential spending do you have as a cash buffer in case you need to cease drawing down from your SIPP?

Is that cash in the SIPP?

I use Strategic bond funds (Old Mutual and Kames) for some of my bond exposure, and ETFs such as SLXX and ISXF alongside. I also hold a fair few infrastructure funds such as HICL, JLIF and BBGI, though I'm not too keen on the premiums there are now on.

For cautious funds, Troy that you already hold is good, and so are the Ruffer ones. I prefer the Investment Trust versions, and if you go this route, Capital Gearing is also worth considering if you can stomach the premium.

BLB53

..in current zig zag times should I play the cash on shares with a quick buy/sell strategy

Not a good idea imho - it is tempting, but very difficult to time the markets up and down and my guess would be you will lose money.

Better strategy to start dripping the cash into a range of investment trusts - buy and hold for the 15 years should see rewards.

srcandas

gadgetmind wrote: »

How close do your GAR pensions come to covering your essential needs?

How many years of essential spending do you have as a cash buffer in case you need to cease drawing down from your SIPP?

Not really a problem for me. I have lots of options including a company I can keep working with for as long as I wish. I also have an option to a cheaper life style in Spain. And .... So I can't think like that but whatever I won't starve

gadgetmind wrote: »

Is that cash in the SIPP?

Yup and that of course is the issue. The costs mount the more I move away from funds. Outside I have my experiment share fund which in 6 months has risen to £7800 (+11.5%) and I could add another £5000 to that and continue to play with shares there. But playing with limited funds of course greatly increases my risk. For example I have three holdings at the mo and one of them is a gold mine

Also playing outside means my £112000 (and that will receive extra funds over the next 5 years) would have to be in funds or some of the investment products you suggest.

Whatever I see no future in being passive. Not my style and over the next 5 years I can see passive investing not doing too well. That said two of my funds have made 5+% in a week so perhaps I could ride the waves in funds :cool:

As you say the Troy looks balanced against most things except armegeddon (I can't worry about that too much ) so that might be my haven as it has no trading overheads. Hadn't looked at Ruffer as hl have so little info on them but I will have a deeper investigation.

But anyway thanks for the input. All food for thought :beer:

srcandas

BLB53 wrote: »

Not a good idea imho - it is tempting, but very difficult to time the markets up and down and my guess would be you will lose money.

Better strategy to start dripping the cash into a range of investment trusts - buy and hold for the 15 years should see rewards.

Tx for the negative as I'm overly tempted so anything or opinion that makes me question it before jumping in is most welcome.

I should say I'm not looking to be my own fund manager so reading the markets is a small part of my strategy. I'm after specific shares with very specific targets and being in and out in days or even hours is not an issue.

I have been in and out of Lamprell 3 times in three months and am back in now I get the feeling that really knowing all there is to know about say 9 companies and milking them is better than playing the field.

But every strategy has it's risks :cool:

BLB53

I have been in and out of Lamprell 3 times in three months and am back in now I get the feeling that really knowing all there is to know about say 9 companies and milking them is better than playing the field.

I have held a sizable chunk of Lam in my sipp for the past 4 years - picked up my first tranch for around 65p during the downturn of Nov 2008.

Luckily I sold up a couple of months back for around 350p as I was moving my sipp into drawdown and needed to sell shares for the 25% tax free lump sum. I was lucky, a couple of weeks later they issued a profits warning and the price droped to under 100p.

Each to their own and sometimes there is no other way than to learn the hard way - as you say, every strategy has its risks.

Good luck!

srcandas

Just to say thanks guys. Decision made. I'm going the fund route with the SIPP and will play the shares with my much smaller fund outside.

I've topped up my safety funds (Troy Trojan and Vanguard 20), added Invesco Perpetual Asia, and added a little top up to Australian (brown trousers) Natural Resources :cool:

The spare £30000 I will feed in along similar lines over the next 4 months.

Just hope my non Euro - heavy bond portfolio survives the Greek exit and what lies beyond.

Muchas Gracias :beer: