Advice on ISA's and Investments

Iiyama

I have money invested in mid risk ISA's that I cannot check without contacting my financial advisor. I also have money invested with Vanguard which I can monitor. This week, as we all know, has hit the financial markets hard. I can see from my Vanguard it has lost around 8.5% in a week. I presume my other investment through a financial advisor will have also lost a large %.  I'm aware of risks investing but my question is this. Within Vanguard I can switch to a different fund. With such market uncertainty should I switch to a fund with more bonds than equity until the market settles or is it best to ride the storm?

Advice on this appreciated.

eskbanker

Iiyama said:

I have money invested in mid risk ISA's that I cannot check without contacting my financial advisor.

There's no such thing as a 'mid risk ISA' as such - ISAs are just wrappers, within which investments may be held, so it's the underlying investments that can be categorised by risk, rather than the wrapper.  Anyway, why can't you check the performance of these investments?

Iiyama said:

With such market uncertainty should I switch to a fund with more bonds than equity until the market settles or is it best to ride the storm?

The best thing to do is to invest according to your risk profile and stick to that, rather than tinkering in response to market fluctuations that should always be expected to happen at some point during the lifecycle of any long-term investment.  Your FA (hopefully an IFA) should have told you this....

kinger101

Iiyama said:

I have money invested in mid risk ISA's that I cannot check without contacting my financial advisor. I also have money invested with Vanguard which I can monitor. This week, as we all know, has hit the financial markets hard. I can see from my Vanguard it has lost around 8.5% in a week. I presume my other investment through a financial advisor will have also lost a large %.  I'm aware of risks investing but my question is this. Within Vanguard I can switch to a different fund. With such market uncertainty should I switch to a fund with more bonds than equity until the market settles or is it best to ride the storm?

Advice on this appreciated.

Was there an underlying logic to your split before last week?  Did this factor in your age and the inevitability that markets have downs as well as ups?  You should probably speak to your financial advisor, but I'd be worried if the porfolio you need now differs wildly (if at all) from the one he originally suggested.  

Iiyama

Lots of points for me to note.

My IFA did complete a risk profile that Im happy with and that's where the bulk of my investments are. I don't intend to do anything with that I'm just acknowledging that it may well have taken a similar dip in the last week.

I used this year ISA allowance in Vanguard as the fees with my IFA are a little high and I wanted to dip my toe in with Vanguard and their lower fees. I can see on Vanguard that you can transfer to a different Life Strategy fund. I was wondering if it made sense to do this during volatile times to reduce the loss. Given my age, these investments are intended to run for 5 years max.

jimjames

The time to switch would have been before the markets dropped. What happens if you now switch to bonds and the market jumps back up while you're in funds that don't?

Albermarle

Given my age, these investments are intended to run for 5 years max.

This is a rather short time frame for investing ( normally >10 years is best ) . In this case you should have initially gone for a lower risk /lower equity product as 5 years is not normally long enough to have a good chance of riding out equity volatility.

dunstonh

I have money invested in mid risk ISA's that I cannot check without contacting my financial advisor
Why not?
Most IFA firms have a client portal where you can log in and see your values.  And most platforms have client logins available.

Within Vanguard I can switch to a different fund. With such market uncertainty should I switch to a fund with more bonds than equity until the market settles or is it best to ride the storm?
Why would you want to do that?  Are you investing above your risk profile and regret it?
Buying high and selling low is not a good way to make money.