Correction in progress!

economic

GT85 wrote: »

Of course, my first foray into investing was transferring a £40k cash ISA into a Vanguard S&S ISA, and putting it into VSL80. The transfer purchased on the eve of this current dip !!!!!!. :rotfl:

Rather than gleefully enjoying my returns, within the first fortnight I've seen a 5% loss. Seeing such minor volatility has been beneficial, as it slightly tests my risk, and I haven't been phased at all. At 32, and not wanting the money for 18-25 years to help my son out at uni/house deposits etc, I'm in for the long game. I've gone out to the library and read Tim Hale's 'Smarter Investing' which has been a great read.

I still have £110k sat in cash, which I plan to invest in a general account before moving it into the ISA with each financial year. I've really had to sit on my hand this weekend to stop myself going all in or even with smaller lump sums in stages. I have a quid pro quo arrangement with a friend, his IFA owes him a good turn and is meeting with me free of charge to give advice. He knows I'm a passive investor (especially after reading that Hale book :rotfl:), so I expect as much impartial advice as possible.

It'd be interesting to read other investors opinions, especially against those of a professional fund manager. So what would you guys do? Go in now adopting the "time in the market" approach, or observe further and attempt the "time the market" angle and take advantage of further downward trends? Or other?

What i do is this:

My stock portfolio consists of roughly:
50% in index trackers
30% in active managed funds/trusts
20% in single stocks

i dont own any bonds whatsoever (i am 34). I have a fairly large cash pile looking to be deployed into stocks in the near future.

Plan is to hold active managed funds long term but keep an eye on the performance. Rarely would i exit the fund but if i do see performance issues or manager changes then i would consider exiting.

Single stocks i mainly hold long term but i have short term positions i "trade". Usually these are positions where i want to be more overweight in certain names to get exposure to them e.g. I own amazon stock. Also dividend paying stocks too in order to diversify and build up cash.

Index funds is where the fun really starts - this is my core position which i plan to use to either be "heavy" in stocks or "light" in stocks. Any smell of a bear market and i would reduce this position and keep reducing as the probability of a bear market rises. and vice versa as we enter into a bull market. I also sometimes chose to trade when things get a bit overheated (i cut some last year and got back in profiting from it and i also did the same before the recent correction).

My positions are across my ISA, pension and normal trading accounts.

eskbanker

GT85 wrote: »

Of course, my first foray into investing was transferring a £40k cash ISA into a Vanguard S&S ISA, and putting it into VSL80. The transfer purchased on the eve of this current dip !!!!!!. :rotfl:

Rather than gleefully enjoying my returns, within the first fortnight I've seen a 5% loss. Seeing such minor volatility has been beneficial, as it slightly tests my risk, and I haven't been phased at all.

Time to dig out the lump sum v drip-feeding debate again perhaps?

Alexland

GT85 wrote: »

I have a quid pro quo arrangement with a friend, his IFA owes him a good turn and is meeting with me free of charge to give advice. He knows I'm a passive investor (especially after reading that Hale book :rotfl:), so I expect as much impartial advice as possible.

It'd be interesting to read other investors opinions, especially against those of a professional fund manager.

I would imagine the advisor sees this as a perfectly normal presales meeting for which they do not normally charge. This is highly unlikely to be a favor other than the friend referring a potential customer. There are differences between a FA, IFA and Fund Manager. Also if you are considering using an advisor then check they are truly Independent to offer you whole market choice.

Alex.

planteria

GT85 wrote: »

So what would you guys do? Go in now adopting the "time in the market" approach, or observe further and attempt the "time the market" angle and take advantage of further downward trends? Or other?

your desire to use your ISA allowance guides you to 'regular contributions over time', and i think that is a good idea. you can always keep an eye on things and decide that it makes sense to put additional money into equities too, perhaps if the market drops significantly.

Glen_Clark

Long winded article in the FT attempts to explain the current volatility.
It basically suggests the fall was exacerbated by automatic stop losses kicking in - principally from Insurers guaranteed return pension funds.
Doesn't say what caused the initial fall that kicked it all off.
I guess someone got the wind up again about QE being withdrawn?

ValiantSon

planteria wrote: »

your desire to use your ISA allowance guides you to 'regular contributions over time', and i think that is a good idea. you can always keep an eye on things and decide that it makes sense to put additional money into equities too, perhaps if the market drops significantly.

How does investing inside an ISA "guide you to 'regular contributions over time'"?

I'd invest the money I intended to invest.

As I type, FTSE All Share up 1.18%, S&P 500 closed 1.49% up and Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.38% up.

bowlhead99

fun4everyone wrote: »

bowlhead99 wrote: »

fun4everyone wrote: »

Deutsche bank share price below it's lows during the GFC. Please go bust.

Why

Don't like them.

ValiantSon wrote: »

Why on earth would you want Deutsche Bank to go bust? The ensuing fallout would have a vast and massive negative impact on the economy. Was 2008 not enough impending economic chaos for you?

Fun4 mentioned in another post that they weren't planning on either buying or selling stocks if prices fell further, so it wouldn't affect them, they just thought it would be fun to watch. Not sure if that makes them naive.

The DBK share price only came back a couple of percent so far this morning so I did as promised upthread and added a few hundred shares to my pension holding. Not because I have any particular love or loyalty for the shares (though I did make money from them when they last took a dive to this price range a couple of years back).

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

Eco_Miser

LHW99 wrote: »

Of course a problem for those in retirement is that they are likely to be wanting to live on the dividend income, hence they won't benefit from being able to reinvest them. Hence why 100% equity may not be the best option in retirement unless you can cut down / stop taking the dividend income during the worst of a major crash.

While 100% equities leads to high volatility, this won't bother anyone who is taking an income purely from the dividends, although those relying on natural yield are unlikely to be 100% in equities anyway.
It does mean that we won't be able to take advantage of lower prices, but we weren't planning on buying any more anyway, nor were we planning on selling any.

Alexland

ValiantSon wrote: »

As I type, FTSE All Share up 1.18%, S&P 500 closed 1.49% up and Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.38% up.

...and more significantly this thread seems to be running out of steam!

So well done to the OP for judging the correction let's hope the markets are starting to stabilise and I hope to get back to my previous more conservative asset allocation sooner than expected.

Alex

Audaxer

Alexland wrote: »

So well done to the OP for judging the correction let's hope the markets are starting to stabilise and I hope to get back to my previous more conservative asset allocation sooner than expected.

Alex, as you are young and still in the accumulation stage, I would have thought you would be happy for a bigger correction so you are buying at cheaper prices?