This correction-type thingy...

le_loup

ChesterDog wrote: »

Diversify, diversify, diversify.

I do so agree with all that you said ... except the above!
No, of course you are right but when EVERYTHING now appears to move with amazing synchronisity it is difficult to really diversify.

atush

Damage wrote: »

Because relative to the possible eventual extent of the downturn, it could well constitute having sold at (or near) the top of the market. That remains to be seen. I bought it at what appears to be right near the top of the market, so to sell further into a downturn would be buying high and selling low, wouldn't it?

If you buy now, then the market falls by another 10 or 20%, how mad will my sale and 1.3% shortfall look like compared with your 10 or 20% loss? If that happens, then how would my re-investment at the lower level look madnesswise, compared with your early-downturn investment?

But as I said earlier, I'm not going to lose any sleep over being down 1.3%. My ISA is only just over 13% of my total capital, the rest of which is (effectively) in cash, and I won't be risking any of that until I know a lot more about investing.

If you bought at the top of the market, why did you buy and then sell? why invest anything to sell so short term?

the facts are, if I buy now (or last week or next week) it makes no difference. As I WOULD NEVER SELL at a 10-20% loss as I would never have invested so short term.

When and if I buy, i hold for the long term. I only sell early when I have profits to bank.

Seems to me, you should have never invested with your short term attitude/timescale.

atush

Damage wrote: »

Yes, I appreciate that is a possibility. We will have to see how things turn out in the coming weeks or months. I'm just happy to have got myself more or less back to where I started, so I can hang on until I've learned a bit more before I make any more decisions.

Never invest for weeks or months.

Gadfium

Damage wrote: »

If you buy now, then the market falls by another 10 or 20%, how mad will my sale and 1.3% shortfall look like compared with your 10 or 20% loss? If that happens, then how would my re-investment at the lower level look madnesswise, compared with your early-downturn investment?

But as I said earlier, I'm not going to lose any sleep over being down 1.3%. My ISA is only just over 13% of my total capital, the rest of which is (effectively) in cash, and I won't be risking any of that until I know a lot more about investing.

You should question if investing in the market is for you. Selling when there's a bit of blip is madness...thats when you should be buying. Over the lifetime of an investment strategy, what's happening at the moment will be long forgotten in 5, 10 or 15 years time.

Investing is not for the short term- think 10+ years. If you are thinking in terms of months, then you stand to lose a lot of money, especially if you start chopping and changing funds.

Glen_Clark

Damage wrote: »

Because the stage of being approximately £200 down is less than how far down I was before I sold the other funds (that were down further), then put the remaining amount into this fund to recover some of the loss (which was reasonably successful)! I sold this last fund after it did what it needed to do in order to prompt me to sell it (i.e. close down on the previous day a number of times), according to what I had decided in advance.

This was me minimizing my losses rather than potentially chasing them to an even worse level. Initially I made a few mistakes messing about with the funds in this ISA, but I think my more recent moves have been more sensible - or at least less stupid.

If you sell now, how will you know when to buy back in?

Damage

atush wrote: »

If you bought at the top of the market, why did you buy and then sell? why invest anything to sell so short term?

the facts are, if I buy now (or last week or next week) it makes no difference. As I WOULD NEVER SELL at a 10-20% loss as I would never have invested so short term.

When and if I buy, i hold for the long term. I only sell early when I have profits to bank.

Seems to me, you should have never invested with your short term attitude/timescale.

Because, as I acknowledged earlier, I acted a bit prematurely, before I knew what I was doing. Once I started reading up on investing I realized I should have waited before I set up my ISA. The intent wasn't to do anything short-term, but that's just how things turned out as I have backtracked a bit in order to start again when I have learned more.

My timescale is 15 to 20 years.

badger09

@ atush and Gadfium

If you have a look at some of Damage's earlier posts, you will see that he/she was rather impetuous and leapt into investing through HL without much basic knowledge. He/she very soon acknowledged this and has embarked on substantial research.

I hope I'm not misrepresenting, but he/she has opted to get back as soon as possible to where he/she was before the 'blind leap', in order to make a fresh start armed with some more knowledge. I have every sympathy with their thought process, even though I chose a very different route, but was in grave danger of paralysis by analysis

Damage

Gadfium wrote: »

You should question if investing in the market is for you. Selling when there's a bit of blip is madness...thats when you should be buying. Over the lifetime of an investment strategy, what's happening at the moment will be long forgotten in 5, 10 or 15 years time.

Investing is not for the short term- think 10+ years. If you are thinking in terms of months, then you stand to lose a lot of money, especially if you start chopping and changing funds.

As I have mentioned already, I am thinking in terms of 15 or 20 years. I'm not 'selling when there's a bit of a blip', I'm selling in order to start again when I've learned some more. The fact that a blip has occurred around about the time when I was arranging to sell my funds and start again is incidental.

badger09

Damage wrote: »

Because, as I acknowledged earlier, I acted a bit prematurely, before I knew what I was doing. Once I started reading up on investing I realized I should have waited before I set up my ISA. The intent wasn't to do anything short-term, but that's just how things turned out as I have backtracked a bit in order to start again when I have learned more.

My timescale is 15 to 20 years.

Phew

I took longer than I thought, to compose my reply Damage, but at least I was on the right track:D

bottleandahalf

Damage wrote: »

Because, as I acknowledged earlier, I acted a bit prematurely, before I knew what I was doing. Once I started reading up on investing I realized I should have waited before I set up my ISA. The intent wasn't to do anything short-term, but that's just how things turned out as I have backtracked a bit in order to start again when I have learned more.

My timescale is 15 to 20 years.

I am in the exact same boat mate. I jumped in without reading up etc and have decided to sell 90% of my funds at this time and start afresh as I was more or less level from where I was at the start of the year.

I see it as a fresh start to be able to drip feed in for the next 18-24 months, instead of 'Investing like a bull in a China shop'. Pardon the pun.

Timescale is 25-30 years.