S&s isa

andyw3

Hi,

I opened a stocks and shares ISA, and it's fallen in value from approx £6000 to approx £5300 in the past 3 weeks.

The split is across three different funds:
Standard Life UK Equity Unconstrained I Acc - 70%
AXA Framlington Biotech Z Acc - 20%
Blackrock Gold & General D Acc - 10%

This is concerning as it's a large chunk of my savings. Is anyone able to advise on whether the value is likely to rise, or if I should close the account now / cut my losses? Atm, I stand to lose around £400 on amount invested. Is there some reason for this sudden drop??

Many many thanks in a advance

masonic

£6000 to £5300 is only a 12% loss. From here it could go either way - this is always the case. Over the long term 'blips' like this are immaterial. What is the maximum loss you could tolerate without losing sleep at night?

jimjames

Global markets.

It will rise again, but no-one can tell you when. If you're worried about a small drop then maybe a S&S ISA wasn't the right choice - even more so if £6000 is most of your savings. You really need to have a cash emergency fund before investing.

However if you close the account now, you'll be one of the people who posts about losing money on S&S from a bad experience when really it's because you've panicked and sold when it dropped. Keep invested, wait a few months/years and you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

andyw3

Thanks for the responses. It's around 50% of my savings now I've bought a house, so maybe wasn't wise! I don't really need the cash so I'll leave it for now.

It's just it had been steadily rising for the past 12-18 months and this sudden, fairly large drop really concerned me!

jimjames

Any reason you choose those funds? They're pretty much at the top of the risk scale

masonic

I would agree about the choice of funds. If you are young and planning to invest regularly over the next few decades, then in the context of your future savings and investments, this could be a drop in the ocean. But I'd consider adding some other funds that would give you a more balanced portfolio.

andyw3

It was on the advice of a friend who's more knowledgeable (I thought!) than me about these kind of things.. I never intended to invest this amount but the direct debits continued and it's risen to this. I'm hoping there'll be some rise towards the end of the FY/start of the new FY at which point I'll remove most of the money.

andyw3

Are there any threads in here you could link me to which recommend some lower risk funds?

jimjames

andyw3 wrote: »

It was on the advice of a friend who's more knowledgeable (I thought!) than me about these kind of things.. I never intended to invest this amount but the direct debits continued and it's risen to this. I'm hoping there'll be some rise towards the end of the FY/start of the new FY at which point I'll remove most of the money.

If you've no intention of keeping long term and want to sell out by April then consider your options carefully. It's just as likely to have dropped further as to have increased in that sort of very short timescale.

slowpoke_rodriguez

The Blackrock Gold and General will have gone up in value substantially in the last few weeks, and may continue to do so.

Hang on in there.

Edit: Gold and general up nearly 30% in the last month!

masonic

slowpoke_rodriguez wrote: »

Edit: Gold and general up nearly 30% in the last month!

...but still down 55% over 5 years.
http://www.trustnet.com/Tools/Charting.aspx?typeCode=FCPGGA