Strategy for a downturn

IronWolf

NotSkint wrote: »

If your s&s ISA is maxed out for the current FY and the market drops to create a buying opportunity what are your strategies for benefitting from the lower valuations. Do you just purchase outside of the ISA wrapper, ready to transfer next FY, do you tend to hold off using the full ISA limit in case such a downturn occurs, do you just average your purchases throughout the FY, or do you do something completely different. Interested in people's strategies, please share.

I try not to market time, but I usually keep cash in my S&S ISA (even though it earns nothing) for when opportunities come along.

If you are a small investor in theory you can ignore the market and only invest in small companies, they don't tend to have any correlation with things like the FTSE100.

For example the AIM Allshare has had a rubbish few years

You could have found plenty of good companies in there that have done well.

Also you have international markets like China which is pretty cheap at the moment compared to the West.

At any point in time I think there are plenty of good/decent buys around so you can pretty much ignore what the market is doing.

But coming back to your original question, there isn't much you can do besides invest outside an ISA. The CGT allowance is fairly generous so small investors probably wont have any tax implications and can just bed&isa the holdings in the next year.

lentrix92

you could always sell your holdings into cash and keep it within the ISA/NISA - then reinvest the same amount back into stocks/funds etc when you feel the correction has occured ....

delmar39

I drip feed my money into a S&S ISA monthly. If the market dips significantly then I may increase my monthly payments to max the gains.

NotSkint

Thanks all, my portfolio is fairly modest at the moment with £30k invested in ISA wrappers. I am fully in equities, but have tried to keep a good global diversity. As we can't predict what the market is going to do, I just invested with lump sums as soon as the allowance increased. As it is early days for me, and I am saving up for next years ISA limit (another £30k -joint with my wife), I think I will use that cash and invest outside of the ISA, if a good opportunity arises.:beer: