Markets - Minor Correction? (Edit: Question Answered)

scoot65

Thrugelmir  :- "Is that your one and only fund?  Portfolios should be diversified."

I also have VLS 60, but the majority of my holdings are HSBC GS.

I went with these two funds as I'm not suficiently knowledgable or experienced to pick individual stocks

ffacoffipawb

In most cases Covid19 is no worse than flu. Are our eyes being diverted away from something else happening behind the scenes?

Conspiracy theory ... 😀

marlot

ffacoffipawb said:

In most cases Covid19 is no worse than flu....

That's simply not true.  The death rate from seasonal flu is around 0.1%. 
The death rate from Covid-19 is still a little unclear, but is reckoned to be about 1-2%.

aroominyork

benbay001 said:

Despite what i said, i was hoping i would someone would post in disagreement.

Yes, someone might disagree too! (Same bracketed comment as above...) 

MarkCarnage

marlot said:

ffacoffipawb said:

In most cases Covid19 is no worse than flu....

That's simply not true.  The death rate from seasonal flu is around 0.1%. 
The death rate from Covid-19 is still a little unclear, but is reckoned to be about 1-2%.

I think that you missed the rider ' in most cases'. 
The virulence is about twice that of flu in terms of the infection ratio. 

benbay001

aroominyork said:

benbay001 said:

Despite what i said, i was hoping i would someone would post in disagreement.

Yes, someone might disagree too! (Same bracketed comment as above...) 

Forums are dull without discussion, wouldnt you agree?
Do you personally not have an opinion?

wesleyad

MarkCarnage said:

I think that you missed the rider ' in most cases'. 
The virulence is about twice that of flu in terms of the infection ratio. 

Yeah but that logic hold for a mortality rate of 49%.. in most cases it will still be as bad as flu ;p
But really, the problem seems to be not the mortatlity rate, but the incubation period. Flu incubates for 1-4 days. Its looking like Covid is well over 14, possibly 27. This already makes it extrememly hard to stop. And now news is coming out that it looks like it can go dormant and "hide" for an unknown length of time. If you are still infectious during this period then it's basically unstoppable until a vaccine is created.

Sailtheworld

I'm making a large pension contribution into VWRL / VGOV on 8th April because it's the new tax year and I'll have the cash.

I gave up thinking I could time the markets a while ago. If the markets recover between now and then or continue to fall I care not a jot. Realising you're not as clever as you once thought and admitting that previous gains were probably due to taking more risk and getting lucky really does clear the brain of clutter. More people should try it.

sparky0138

DairyQueen said:

sparky0138 said:

My mum was waiting on cashback from Fidelity (should be on 5th March) then was going to transfer platforms to Vanguard SIPP. As they don't keep you invested in the same fund during the transfer and she'd be out of the market for a while, I take it this would be a bad time to do it? Would you advise sitting tight until things settle down a bit and just continue monthly deposits with Fidelity?

Her pot's currently worth just over £61,000. She has no intention of selling but as a relatively new investor, it's scary seeing her returns more than half in just a couple of days. 😨

- What do you mean by 'cash back'? Is she making a withdrawal? If so, is the withdrawal amount already in cash inside the pension wrapper?

- She hasn't yet applied to transfer? So, no instruction yet to sell her Fidelity fund/s?

- Why have her 'returns' dropped by 50+%? Do you mean that her 'pot' has halved in value this week? Or do you means that the income from the pot has dropped by this %age? Or just that the %age increase over x time period has reduced by 50%? If the latter, over what period? Market investments don't increase on a linear trajectory. They can be very volatile - equities can decrease by 20%+ in a single day and 2+% is common.

Nobody here gives advice (that's against the rules) but you will receive information, ideas and the benefit of others' experiences.

The situation you describe isn't really a problem unless the value of her portfolio has halved this week! That would suggest she is invested in something very risky. More likely that she hasn't understood volatility. She must expect the value to yoyo each day/week/month/year. The upward trajectory can only be seen over the long-term (10+ years) and historically the average has been around 5%p.a over any ten year period.

In your mum's position I would sit tight for the moment. There is always a risk when out of the market but selling now would increase the risk IMO. This week may be a hiccup, or a sneeze, or a cough or full-blown flu. You can't time the market but a sea of red for several consecutive days would be sufficient for me to want to stay invested until things calm down.

Thanks for your reply and apologies for quoting the whole post. I haven't got the hang of this new forum yet.

The cashback was a transfer offer from Fidelty. She hasn't yet applied to transfer to Vanguard.

I may have got the terminology wrong but when I said her returns had more than halved, what I meant was that since transferring the money into Fidelity 4 months ago (she only recently got it after a pension sharing order) her pot increased by about £3000 but over two days that amount went down to less than £1500. On Fidelity this is shown as Total Return.

aroominyork

benbay001 said:

aroominyork said:

benbay001 said:

Despite what i said, i was hoping i would someone would post in disagreement.

Yes, someone might disagree too! (Same bracketed comment as above...) 

Forums are dull without discussion, wouldnt you agree?
Do you personally not have an opinion?

Do I have an opinion about whether markets will fall further? Not really. Maybe the markets have been looking for a reason to correct and they have used this; maybe, as some experts have said, this could become a global pandemic infecting 60% of the world's population (ie double the proportion who at any time are infected with TB). I've been DIY investing for less than three years so haven't self-managed my money through a serious downturn - I kinda think it would be good experience for that to happen.