Current market carnage - anyone selling or buying?

Kendall80

TheTracker wrote: »

Mine is within a percent of my end of April and May 2015 values. So 10 weeks after this thread started we're at or near an all time high.

FoS will return.

Which is why i've started selling down my equities to cash while slowly increasing bond/property allocation. A play on volatility if you will.

Glen_Clark

gadgetmind wrote: »

And the sum of my ISA, pension and unwrapped pots is only 4% behind where I was predicting it would be in March 2016 despite my naive and ambitious "absolute growth of 5% pa" assumption.

So its made 1% instead of your predicted 5%? (thats only a profit if you believe the official inflation statistics)
I have never predicted carnage, but I do feel that asset prices have been inflated by QE to the point where safe assets like bonds from strong economies guarantee a return below inflation.
So only an optimist could expect returns over the next few years to be as good as past ones.

Kendall80

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I have never predicted carnage, but I do feel that asset prices have been inflated by QE to the point where safe assets like bonds from strong economies guarantee a return below inflation.
So only an optimist could expect returns over the next few years to be as good as past ones.

Global growth hasn't really got going since the financial crisis. Its only central bank monetary policy that has kept things ticking along. Ticking along towards a ticking timebomb perhaps?

gadgetmind

Glen_Clark wrote: »

So its made 1% instead of your predicted 5%?

I wouldn't call "5% a year, straight line" a prediction, more a box that needed a number and got one.

Capital values are still way under their peaks from around 10 months ago, so for my portfolio to be where it is, shows what drip feeding, rebalancing and investing dividends can achieve.

So only an optimist could expect returns over the next few years to be as good as past ones.

Well, maybe. But how do I turn a hunch such as this into an asset allocation?

Glen_Clark

Kendall80 wrote: »

Global growth hasn't really got going since the financial crisis.

We have so called 'Growth' in UK as Osborne keeps reminding us. But since his 'Growth' includes the huge rent increases on existing properties, which is a drain on the productive side of the economy that we need to pay off his fast rising debts, thats hardly reassuring to me.:(

Glen_Clark

gadgetmind wrote: »

Well, maybe. But how do I turn a hunch such as this into an asset allocation?

I don't know. So I just spread my eggs around lots of baskets, trying to make use of my tax allowances whilst minimising middlemen's fees, and hope for the best. As you put it 'Diversify and Chill '
Otherwise I might find myself selling equities because they are risky, then buying them back again when I realise cash is risky too.

Glen_Clark

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

It's all going south. I keep telling people.

But they don't listen.

I listen.
Please come back and predict another crash.
Every time you do my shares go up.
I love you