Anyone else making a loss on all their S&S investments?

Pincher

Just as an experiment, buy some BNC Banco Santander shares.
It's fallen quite a lot, near its historic low, which seems to be the exact opposite to what you normally do.

I just bought 1,000 shares.

Choose the scrip dividend, which saves you some dividend tax on the Spanish end.

dunstonh

After a number of individual shares went bust (some recommended by the Investor's Chronicle) I started moving away from individual shares and into funds but they have done even worse; all are down apart from a Vanguard global income fund and that only because I bought it recently when it was 'cheap'.

When did you make the move into funds? (i.e. if it was at a peak and before the recent drop - which has taken us back about 3 years, then that will be the reason).

So do I sell all my heavily loss-making funds and shares, take a big hit and try something else (even just stick whats left back in the bank) or just let it ride and see if it recovers? Looks like its all going down more on Monday due to terror attacks in Paris.

i think it is time you employed an IFA and got some structure into your investments.

philng

I have a good number of successful picks over the last few years but who would have thought companies such as shell, tesco, centrica, bp all seemingly 'safe' dividend payers and strong in their markets would have fallen so much.
Certainly making me think a safer option is to move away from individual shares into investment trusts for a more low risk option

Thrugelmir

philng wrote: »

I have a good number of successful picks over the last few years but who would have thought companies such as shell, tesco, centrica, bp all seemingly 'safe' dividend payers and strong in their markets would have fallen so much.

When did shares become "safe"?

Only 26 companies remain in the FTSE from the 100 that were the constituents 25 years ago. Business is cyclical.

Kendall80

Thrugelmir wrote: »

When did shares become "safe"?

Only 26 companies remain in the FTSE from the 100 that were the constituents 25 years ago. Business is cyclical.

Although even Halfords are struggling at the moment.

Thrugelmir

Kendall80 wrote: »

Although even Halfords are struggling at the moment.

Managed to raise their half year dividend though. So not all doom and gloom. As with any share it's the entry point that is relative.

Glen_Clark

philng wrote: »

I have a good number of successful picks over the last few years but who would have thought companies such as shell, tesco, centrica, bp all seemingly 'safe' dividend payers and strong in their markets would have fallen so much.
Certainly making me think a safer option is to move away from individual shares into investment trusts for a more low risk option

You don't have to restrict yourself to Investment Trusts. Exchange Traded Funds usually charge you much lower fees.

coyrls

EdGasket wrote: »

Well I've got about 90 holdings in the pension

How can you possibly manage 90 holdings?

grey_gym_sock

if in doubt, buy a bit of everything. you do not seem to be properly diversified, across world regions (in funds), or across market sectors (in shares).

you have funds in: gold mining, far-east, europe, world. hopefully not at lot in gold mining, as that's very specialized and volatile. presumably you are covering the UK with individual shares. but what about the USA and japan? OK, there may be a lot of USA in "world". but if in any doubt, it's best to have a bit in every region. if you think a region is a bit expensive, you can go a bit light in it, but it's it a bit extreme to leave it out.

for shares, you mentioned (apart from property) these sectors: resources, retail, construction, pharma, engineers. pharma is the only 1 of those that i'd call a defensive sector; the others are all quite economically sensitive, so i'd imagine (without actually bothering to look it up ) that they've done relatively poorly in the environment of very lacklustre growth (in both the UK and the world) that we've had since the GFC. so what about other defensive sectors, such as: utilities, alcohol, tobacco, & companies with big brands in food & household goods? and never mind which sectors are best - you seem to have covered far too few sectors.

so i think you either need to make your shares a lot more diversified across market sectors, or indeed ditch the lot and stick to funds/ETFs/ITs. and for funds, make sure to cover all parts of the world, and put very little (if any) in specialized (single-sector) funds.

Malthusian

Thrugelmir wrote:

Only 26 companies remain in the FTSE from the 100 that were the constituents 25 years ago. Business is cyclical.

In case anyone gets the wrong idea, it should be pointed out that most of the companies that have "disappeared" were taken over by others, rather than going bust. Investors in those 74 companies would therefore now either own shares in different companies or would have received cash and invested it.

I happen to agree that is a mistake to think that any individual share is "safe". Banks were supposedly safe and boring, so was BP. Bookmakers are supposedly recession-proof yet William Hill has halved in value thanks to cack property investments. Tobacco may yet be destroyed by vaping. No company is safe from black swans or just bad management.