No Santa Rally

coastline

fjh wrote: »

what one ‘measure’ do you use to monitor the financial world?
Thanks

I use the MSCI World Index to track the general global picture. It goes back decades so there's enough scope to compare against most funds. Entirely up to yourself where you invest in equities but if your choices are underperforming the global index then what's the point ? Might as well have a global tracker.?

https://www2.trustnet.com/Tools/Charting.aspx?typeCode=NM990100

The FTSE hasn't always underperformed the World Index. Set the chart to 10 years or more.

https://www2.trustnet.com/Tools/Charting.aspx?typeCode=NM990100,NASX,NUKX

Herbalus

Alexland wrote: »

Ouch. Across our accounts we are probably, on average, now around 3-5% down over the year having made some tactical allocation changes and carefully timed additional contributions.

We have a second child being born in April and I wanted to start a JISA and get it to the same value as our first child (2 full tax years of contributions) so in some ways I am hoping this continues for a while as it will make the job easier.

I am in no hurry to see any recovery - happy buying low for a bit.

Alex

Yes I agree with ouch, but as I’m 2 years into investments and still in my 20s, I’m using this as a learning experience as opposed to panicking.

For example one of my LISA funds is down 11%, which is £80. Not exactly shedloads, but enough to make me reassess my risk tolerance when I won’t access it for over 30 years....

Audaxer

Alexland wrote: »

If you are still in the HSBC GS Balanced fund the AJ Bell data is still showing YTD down 2.75% compared to VLS60 (data from the previous day) down 1.89%. That's not a bad result given the circumstances and flee to extreme safety in the bond markets. Tempted to take a bit more exposure now?

Not sure what you mean Alex. The HSBC GS Balanced is now over 67% equities. Are you saying they have done better by investing more of the fund in equities? Even although dividends are automatically reinvested in the Acc version, the price is lower now than when I bought it over a year ago.

Alexland

I was commenting that the HSBC GS fund hadn't done badly given it has the higher weighting of equities and corporate bonds which have otherwise underperformed government bonds so far this year. It has done it's job and avoided us seeing a bigger loss.

Audaxer

Alexland wrote: »

I was commenting that the HSBC GS fund hadn't done badly given it has the higher weighting of equities and corporate bonds which have otherwise underperformed government bonds so far this year. It has done it's job and avoided us seeing a bigger loss.

Thanks Alex. That's good to know as I had been a bit disappointed in the performance.

short_butt_sweet

newatc wrote: »

I think we can safely say no Santa Rally this year.

or can we ...

newatc

AnotherJoe wrote: »

If that's true and not tongue in cheek, you have a terrible investment scheme. .

That was not tongue in cheek. I would be the first to admit I'm not an expert in investment so perhaps rather than one liner you can explain why having a rough indicator inbetween reveiws is in itself indicative of a terrible investment scheme.

bowlhead99

newatc wrote: »

That was not tongue in cheek. I would be the first to admit I'm not an expert in investment so perhaps rather than one liner you can explain why having a rough indicator inbetween reveiws is in itself indicative of a terrible investment scheme.

Not wanting to get involved in an argument, but his comment was presumably that::

- if you can look at the FTSE to provide a general guide to how your portfolio is going, then by implication your portfolio is allocated in a similar way to the FTSE.

- the FTSE is a market capitalisation weighted index of the company equities that happen to be listed in the UK. It is heavily skewed to a few large companies and to certain industries like oil/gas, financial services and big pharma.

- by contrast, a sensibly allocated investment portfolio would normally include both equities and bonds issued by companies in a broad set of industries, which are listed in a whole load of different countries, and also perhaps government bonds, real estate, maybe some gold etc etc.

So while it's often true that "oh the FTSE's down again this week" can be synonymous with "oh the markets are down again this week", the daily movement in the FTSE can often move differently from a good, broadly allocated set of funds that aren't focused on UK listed companies or the oil price and dollar exchange rate.

newatc

Thanks Bowlhead. I understand what you are saying that but frankly as a rough guide it serves for me while I recognise it wouldn't for many including the poster I quoted.
I also recognise there are many posters in forums with varying levels of knowledge and different priorities. It would probably be rather boring if that wasn't the case.

steampowered

Alexland wrote: »

I am never going to sell an equity unit at a loss.

Alex

Out of interest, why is this important to you?

1 share in BP plc has the same value regardless of whether you bought it at 200p or 400p.