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

gadgetmind

EdGasket wrote: »

Well they do cover most of the globe bar the US which looks expensive so I avoided there!

How long have you been avoiding the US?

I don't want to be in any sort of fixed-rate investment with interest rates likely to rise.

And ditto, how long avoiding bonds?

I've seen significant gains from both over the last few years. Yes, I've been tweaking down, but avoiding totally is a massive portfolio tilt.

Linton

EdGasket wrote: »

Well they do cover most of the globe bar the US which looks expensive so I avoided there! Most 'reduced risk' funds have varying proportions of bonds and as explained above I don't want to be in any sort of fixed-rate investment with interest rates likely to rise.

Neglecting around 50% of the world because it looked expensive, presumably for the last 5 or 8 years, seems to show a bit of overconfidence in your economic judgement. Dropping the US % to say 35% possibly, but neglecting it completely seems seriously OTT. In the past 5 years a US tracker would have increased by around 90% and about 115% since just before the 2007/2008 crash.

On bonds - corporate bonds can still give a reasonable return. Sure they could well fall in value at some time in the future but in the meantime equity could fall further.

Dont try and be too clever and out guess the market in a big way. There are cleverer people out there with access to data and software resources far beyond anything available to us amateurs, playing with vastly greater amounts of money.

_CC_

The reason you're making a loss is probably because you're actively investing/speculating and unsuccessfully trying to time the market. You call yourself "financially savvy" yet your posts seem to indicate otherwise - I don't aim to say this in a provocative way, more to highlight the fact you're probably wrongly overconfident in your abilities.

You're likely paying quite high fees and your 'strategy' is flawed.

You would have had a much better performance had you simply invested in a handful of cheap trackers/funds for the main indices. Instead of a loss over seven years you could have easily doubled your fund.

Your posts about the FTSE not going anywhere in 15 years highlights the flaw in your thinking. You're missing the compounded benefits of reinvested dividends (not to mention the capital gain/loss wouldn't be as stark if you were paying in regular contributions over the time frame).

gadgetmind

Linton wrote: »

Dont try and be too clever and out guess the market in a big way. There are cleverer people out there with access to data and software resources far beyond anything available to us amateurs, playing with vastly greater amounts of money.

Yes, and their results speak for themselves.

jimjames

EdGasket wrote: »

Really? But FTSE was at 6800 in year 2000 and is at 6151 as I write. So in 15 years it too is down around 15%. Hence my post and question - is anyone else making an overall loss in S&S investments?

Apologies if this comes across rude but for someone who has so much invested in a variety of different things you seem to be fairly unaware of some key investment themes.

Have you checked any of your investments in the FTSE (assuming you have a tracker)? Mine FTSE index trackers were at 45p in 1999 and are at 80p now. That doesn't equate to a loss.

You also need to accept that your bet on the US market being overvalued hasn't yet paid off and that maybe the failure of your portfolio to grow is down to what you have chosen rather than markets as a whole. I need to check exact numbers but I'm pretty sure that I'm up around 50% since 2008 and that's purely using a mix of index trackers and a few managed funds.

How much do you think you'd now have if you'd bought something like the Vanguard LS100 fund instead of your mix of shares and funds?

ChesterDog

There's a whole load of great guidance there.

I would just add..,

I can empathise entirely with you and what you are/were trying to achieve and how. However, once you introduce timing, adjustments, avoiding sectors altogether and so on, in my experience it will start to go wrong. The market will always be ahead of you and often moving against you.

I would suggest trying to create a portfolio whose structure you can imagine leaving untouched for the next ten or twenty years.

That will give you a quite different perspective on it.

Fiddling, tinkering, timing... They all cost money and usually damage returns. So the moment you avoid 'x' because of this or that, or go heavily into 'y' for similar reasons, things are likely to go awry.

In my view, investment - as opposed to trading or speculating - is 50% about making good, broad, global, diversified choices and 50% about leaving them alone.

gadgetmind

If ever you look at your portfolio and feel like doing anything hasty, then you've got the wrong portfolio. You may think "hmmm, I expected better of you!" for some holdings, and "my, how you've grown!" for others - and that when you may want to rebalance. Sell high, buy low, rinse and repeat.

Thrugelmir

EdGasket wrote: »

Well I've got about 90 holdings in the pension; would be boring to list them all but about half by value are individual shares and the other funds.

Sounds as if you need to a thorough review. 20 funds should be sufficient to cover all major markets and provide sufficient diversification. Single share holdings need to be followed closely. Company fortunes can change very rapidly. Are you duplicating the funds with shares you hold.

[Deleted User]

no, still making profits overall. £8k today. I am an active investor but tend to be a contrarian and happy not to try and time the tops and bottoms. I sold all a couple of weeks ago and have been steadily buying back in, not always the same shares but always more at the total sell price. Bought pharma last week, friday I think, utilities earlier, anyway finished spending on friday, only £120 left in cash. My portfolio is 62% defensive, 10% perfs that have been held for about 9 years or so and the rest cyclical and sensitive. The stocks that I buy tend to be ones that I would happily keep in case I couldn`t get on the internet to trade, taken ill or holiday etc

However a caveat: a profit is not a profit until it is cashed. So far the profit is on paper only. When I sell, then that is when I take profits. Then I sit tight until an appropriate time to spend my profits on more stocks. I am holding 17 shares at the moment

gadgetmind

kittie wrote: »

The stocks that I buy tend to be ones that I would happily keep in case

In case a short term gamble turns into a long term holding.