Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

Sebo027

bowlhead99 said:

Sebo027 said:

Thrugelmir said:

thegentleway said:

bowlhead99 said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. 

It can't be that surprising given that we are five months and more than 1250 posts on the topic of potentially liquidating part or all of a portfolio for a period in search of better overall outcomes. It's been discussed for the last 126 pages!

I think it's surprising, especially after that much discussion, OP still went ahead! (I'm not going to lie, I didn't read the 126 pages so I'm a bit late to the party).

When there's an express train coming down the tracks towards you. Taking avoiding action should be a natural instinct. 

The argument to that would be: by being well invested and diversified, you aren't even standing on the tracks.

Not really. The analogy would be that if you are well diversified then you are partially off the tracks, and whatever you have on the tracks will not cause terminal injuries if it gets hit by the express train. Perhaps you are an octopus or starfish with some arms/legs/tentacles/whatever on the tracks. After the train hits you, assuming you don't die from the shock of having some of your legs smashed to bits, they will regrow, and meanwhile you have a bunch of other legs that allow you to still get around the place. 

Still, in such a scenario, one might still have advised the octopus to swing his legs out of the way of the fast approaching train to avoid the physical and emotional trauma of having them smashed to bits. The problem is that in this convoluted analogy the other places near the train track offer potentially worse fates - if you swing your legs off the train tracks and into a vat of radioactive sludge which poisons your limbs, albeit without actually destroying them... and then with hindsight you find out that the train got diverted at the last set of points so wouldn't have hit you anyway, or the train was only a toy train so an impact wouldn't have caused much damage... then perhaps it wasn't such a great idea to meddle with the 'arms and legs all over the place' strategy because with hindsight you've caused more problems than you've solved.

If you're a large cube of gold bullion, you would derail the train. 

coyrls

bowlhead99 said:

Sebo027 said:

Thrugelmir said:

thegentleway said:

bowlhead99 said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. 

It can't be that surprising given that we are five months and more than 1250 posts on the topic of potentially liquidating part or all of a portfolio for a period in search of better overall outcomes. It's been discussed for the last 126 pages!

I think it's surprising, especially after that much discussion, OP still went ahead! (I'm not going to lie, I didn't read the 126 pages so I'm a bit late to the party).

When there's an express train coming down the tracks towards you. Taking avoiding action should be a natural instinct. 

The argument to that would be: by being well invested and diversified, you aren't even standing on the tracks.

Not really. The analogy would be that if you are well diversified then you are partially off the tracks, and whatever you have on the tracks will not cause terminal injuries if it gets hit by the express train. Perhaps you are an octopus or starfish with some arms/legs/tentacles/whatever on the tracks. After the train hits you, assuming you don't die from the shock of having some of your legs smashed to bits, they will regrow, and meanwhile you have a bunch of other legs that allow you to still get around the place. 

Still, in such a scenario, one might still have advised the octopus to swing his legs out of the way of the fast approaching train to avoid the physical and emotional trauma of having them smashed to bits. The problem is that in this convoluted analogy the other places near the train track offer potentially worse fates - if you swing your legs off the train tracks and into a vat of radioactive sludge which poisons your limbs, albeit without actually destroying them... and then with hindsight you find out that the train got diverted at the last set of points so wouldn't have hit you anyway, or the train was only a toy train so an impact wouldn't have caused much damage... then perhaps it wasn't such a great idea to meddle with the 'arms and legs all over the place' strategy because with hindsight you've caused more problems than you've solved.

If the octopus is out of the sea, it has a lot more than a fast approaching train or a vat of radioactive sludge to worry about.

EdGasketTheSecond

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. Have you had any sucesses/failures trying to time the market before?

Not really tried until this year. I did get shorting wrong around April, now realized there is too much QE inflating shares up despite the dire economy. Might try that again in the autumn, will see. The reason for moving assets now is the risks to over-valued stockmarkets and the better returns on gold/silver/miners than cash due to cash interest rates being below inflation; at least my view of inflation which is somewhere north of what CPI reckons it is.

Sailtheworld

Thrugelmir said:

thegentleway said:

bowlhead99 said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. 

It can't be that surprising given that we are five months and more than 1250 posts on the topic of potentially liquidating part or all of a portfolio for a period in search of better overall outcomes. It's been discussed for the last 126 pages!

I think it's surprising, especially after that much discussion, OP still went ahead! (I'm not going to lie, I didn't read the 126 pages so I'm a bit late to the party).

When there's an express train coming down the tracks towards you. Taking avoiding action should be a natural instinct. 

Express trains being on train tracks aren't exactly unexpected so easy to avoid. If you're daft enough to be eyeballing an express train coming your way that avoiding action is just as likely to see you jump in front of a train going the other way.

More difficult with investing but the unexpected is still 100% expected. Anyone who made major changes due to Covid should be realising they'd put themselves in harms way needlessly and, if they've done it once, they've probably done it again.

Obviously not applicable to those who have a timetable.

bowlhead99

coyrls said:

bowlhead99 said:

Sebo027 said:

Thrugelmir said:

thegentleway said:

bowlhead99 said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. 

It can't be that surprising given that we are five months and more than 1250 posts on the topic of potentially liquidating part or all of a portfolio for a period in search of better overall outcomes. It's been discussed for the last 126 pages!

I think it's surprising, especially after that much discussion, OP still went ahead! (I'm not going to lie, I didn't read the 126 pages so I'm a bit late to the party).

When there's an express train coming down the tracks towards you. Taking avoiding action should be a natural instinct. 

The argument to that would be: by being well invested and diversified, you aren't even standing on the tracks.

Not really. The analogy would be that if you are well diversified then you are partially off the tracks, and whatever you have on the tracks will not cause terminal injuries if it gets hit by the express train. Perhaps you are an octopus or starfish with some arms/legs/tentacles/whatever on the tracks. After the train hits you, assuming you don't die from the shock of having some of your legs smashed to bits, they will regrow, and meanwhile you have a bunch of other legs that allow you to still get around the place. 

Still, in such a scenario, one might still have advised the octopus to swing his legs out of the way of the fast approaching train to avoid the physical and emotional trauma of having them smashed to bits. The problem is that in this convoluted analogy the other places near the train track offer potentially worse fates - if you swing your legs off the train tracks and into a vat of radioactive sludge which poisons your limbs, albeit without actually destroying them... and then with hindsight you find out that the train got diverted at the last set of points so wouldn't have hit you anyway, or the train was only a toy train so an impact wouldn't have caused much damage... then perhaps it wasn't such a great idea to meddle with the 'arms and legs all over the place' strategy because with hindsight you've caused more problems than you've solved.

If the octopus is out of the sea, it has a lot more than a fast approaching train or a vat of radioactive sludge to worry about.

Yes, I did wonder if some smart alectopus would pick me up on that but I thought the analogy was verbose enough without adding further caveats...

thegentleway

EdGasketTheSecond said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. Have you had any sucesses/failures trying to time the market before?

Not really tried until this year. I did get shorting wrong around April, now realized there is too much QE inflating shares up despite the dire economy. Might try that again in the autumn, will see. The reason for moving assets now is the risks to over-valued stockmarkets and the better returns on gold/silver/miners than cash due to cash interest rates being below inflation; at least my view of inflation which is somewhere north of what CPI reckons it is.

How much did you spend on short positions?

EdGasketTheSecond

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. Have you had any sucesses/failures trying to time the market before?

Not really tried until this year. I did get shorting wrong around April, now realized there is too much QE inflating shares up despite the dire economy. Might try that again in the autumn, will see. The reason for moving assets now is the risks to over-valued stockmarkets and the better returns on gold/silver/miners than cash due to cash interest rates being below inflation; at least my view of inflation which is somewhere north of what CPI reckons it is.

How much did you spend on short positions?

It was a side speculation; some made a bit but overall it was the wrong time to be doing it and I cut my losses. I don't share actual numbers on here as I don't believe it is relevant sorry; it was less than 2% of assets put it that way.

thegentleway

EdGasketTheSecond said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

thegentleway said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

If gold/silver become expenses relative to other asset classes then I will switch but I think gold/silver and related stocks are the place to be for the next couple of years; plus possibly shorting the stockmarket when appropriate.

I can see the appeal of trying to time the market but the risk puts me off! Very surprising to hear you are doing it with most of your portfolio. Have you had any sucesses/failures trying to time the market before?

Not really tried until this year. I did get shorting wrong around April, now realized there is too much QE inflating shares up despite the dire economy. Might try that again in the autumn, will see. The reason for moving assets now is the risks to over-valued stockmarkets and the better returns on gold/silver/miners than cash due to cash interest rates being below inflation; at least my view of inflation which is somewhere north of what CPI reckons it is.

How much did you spend on short positions?

It was a side speculation; some made a bit but overall it was the wrong time to be doing it and I cut my losses. I don't share actual numbers on here as I don't believe it is relevant sorry; it was less than 2% of assets put it that way.

Fair enough; bit nosey of me to ask. Good luck with your investments!

Kendall80

Thrugelmir said:

In summary went 65% cash between mid Febraury and early March. After which I progressively bought back in , though my portfolio has a very different composition now to pre Covid. Now primarily back into cash accumulation phase again. 

Similar situation here. I've more than recovered my Covid losses but regret not putting more into equities at the time. I've more cash on hand than i'd like but 'uncomfortable' investing any more above the regular monthly amounts right now. Finding a place for that cash is my main focus - funds such as royal london cash plus (enhanced and non-enhanced)

Sailtheworld

EdGasketTheSecond said:

Is anyone else contemplating or have ever liquidated all their shareholdings and stayed in cash (or some other non-equity investment) while markets have crashed? I am thinking that this is probably only the beginning of a protracted bear market and we could see values drop by a third from here.

To drop 33% from then markets need to drop 45% from now.

I've been tracking an intrepid person who sold their portfolio of a FTSE All World tracker on 2nd March and went to cash. They're very very upset and feeling foolish. 

They could've gone for gold and they'd be level right now but be wondering if a vaccine might torpedo the price.

The do nothing All World investor has received two dividend payments since then (reinvested) and is looking at all time highs.

Of course tomorrow's another day.