Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

BrockStoker

I've decided to keep my powder dry today, and hope for continued falls. I really can't see the markets recovering any time soon. Cash is king right now.

Masomnia

Stargunner said:

So glad that I didn’t take any notice of all those advising to hold equities a couple of weeks ago when I decided to sell mine and invested the money in gilts, bonds and gold. The bonds and gilts have done really well for me with my Vsnguard gilts up around 8% in 2 weeks. They are up 3.95% today alone. Good luck to all you holders and I hope the equities don’t fall too much further.

I'm in the not trying to time markets camp, albeit I did put a bit extra into my pension last month and will probably put more in this month too.

You still have the problem of when you buy back in. You're not showing the paper losses that you would be had you held on to the equities and showing the gain in gilts, but at what point do you switch back? After a 10% recovery? Could fall back again. When it's recovered? Then you've gained nothing.

Ciprico

Other major resultant issues are now emerging, for example, China's shutdown created excess of oil, so price drops, Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil $ to survive, so when price reduces they increase volume to pay for their internal government programs. (ie they compensate for lower margin through larger volume, when you have unlimited oil why not) - So Russia reduce their prices to compete...
...Remains to be seen what happens when the price of oil goes lower than the price of shale gas in the US, we could find out soon...
On the plus side cheaper oil has many positive benefits to other industries and individuals

coastline

bostonerimus said:

coastline said:

tropic_of_Username004 said:

coastline said:

I'm not making bold claims its over and we recover from here. All I posted recently was SP 500 has a low of 2855 and over a week its never been broken. A line in the sand but next week who knows.
 

So what you're saying is: the recent low is 2855, and either that will remain the recent low, or there will be a new, lower low. Wow, I'd never have know that without the help of technical analysis

All TA gives us is some terminology to describe what's happened when markets have gone up or down. It doesn't tell us what will happen next, or even the probabilities of different outcomes. So what is the point?

You might argue that the terminology is meaningful in the sense that it is describing the mood of traders, which is itself one of the factors which does influence future market moves. And that may be true. But that doesn't make TA actually useful (i.e. predictive).

If the market had gone down for 7 straight sessions then no line in the sand could be suggested. The fact that 2855 was a low a week gone Friday is just about all we have to go on. Both Fridays there was a massive rally from lows and I think this Friday got around 2880 ?
The 2008 crash ended in a similar fashion with a massive daily rally from a low and this is the nature of things market related. Recently the 2019 correction ended similar.
Did you know 2855 was a low without it being posted here and did you know about the daily reversals both Fridays ? It's hard to see this behaviour without looking at a chart and candle charts show Open, High, Low and Close of the daily price. Very useful to me but for other people 
I doubt it ?
Everybody to their own I suppose and I happen to like charts and indicators. Buy and hold ain't for me anymore.

Such short term numerology doesn’t interest me, and I’d say it shouldn’t interest anyone with a sensible long term plan either. I do arrange my finances so that I have a high probability of success according to all the ways you can slice and dice historical data on an annual basis, but I make no claims to have any idea where the markets are going on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. And I have organized my finances so that stock crashes as large as 2008 or 1929 will not compromise my retirement income.

If you are trying to see trends or pick out selling opportunities are you looking at any derivatives of the data or statistical moments. These would give you even more rope.

No I'm not using derivatives and I don't intend to. After buy and hold for a few decades and averaging 8% with funds I decided to look at charts and the use of the many indicators. When brokers moved online years ago I started to look at the charting extras included on the website. From there I found other indicators which I've added to my toolbox. My favourite set up is in the link below with the slow stochastic and 10 day moving average. Its never perfect but if you play the extremes and think walking stick handles curling up or over then I simply buy and sell. The link isn't the best but many sites don't allow copy and paste but this one does. For the FTSE I use the ETF ISF.L . At the present moment I haven't got anything in the market and yes you can get caught just like anybody else. I'll no doubt get even more questions about this kind of stuff and they won't  be in my favour. 
https://investing.thisismoney.co.uk/charts/?epic=UKX&compareTo1=&compareTo2=&period=YEAR1&type=2&indicator[]=SlowSTO&indicator[]=AreaRSI&draw=
Anyway we have another blow to markets as if we didn't have enough with the virus. That line in the sand of 2855 is in big trouble. When we have falls like today then who knows as its not feeling like a minor set back. Many posters and investors won't have gone through bad times but so far its not as bad as late 2018-2019 correction.

Stargunner

I'm in the not trying to time markets camp, albeit I did put a bit extra into my pension last month and will probably put more in this month too.

You still have the problem of when you buy back in. You're not showing the paper losses that you would be had you held on to the equities and showing the gain in gilts, but at what point do you switch back? After a 10% recovery? Could fall back again. When it's recovered? Then you've gained nothing.

As long as I switch back at a lower price than I sold, which I am confident that I will be able to do, then I would have gained.
It doesn’t matter if after I buy back that the markets drop another 20% as I will still be a lot better off than if I did nothing. 

This was a perfect opportunity to time the market which seldom ever happens.

2010

LobsterMemory said:

ProDave said:

So FTSE100 now down a total of about 20% from it's peak.

Do the holders still say that was the right thing? 
Yes
 Too late to sell now but surely they must agree it would have been a smart move 2 weeks ago?
1/ I think it's a bit pointless to look back with hindsight
2/ It will only be seen whether it was a smart move after making the re-investing decision

  

Why is it too late to sell now.
Ftse at 6000 now, when it falls to 5000, the current level will look a good time to sell.
This is probably the best opportunity ever to short sell.
Like the big hedge funds are doing.
Dow futures showing a 1,250 drop on opening.

tropic_of_Username004

coastline said:

My favourite set up is in the link below with the slow stochastic and 10 day moving average. Its never perfect but if you play the extremes and think walking stick handles curling up or over then I simply buy and sell. The link isn't the best but many sites don't allow copy and paste but this one does. For the FTSE I use the ETF ISF.L . At the present moment I haven't got anything in the market and yes you can get caught just like anybody else.

OK, so you have a trend-following strategy, holding the market (e.g. ISF) when the trend is upwards, or otherwise cash. Do you follow this mechanically, or with some "judgement" about when to buy and sell? And is there judgement about how much to buy each time, or is it just always 100% of the capital assigned to this strategy? And are there fixed amounts of capital assigned to ISF and to other indexes, or is that also varied, on specific criteria or with judgement?

John_

ProDave said:

So FTSE100 now down a total of about 20% from it's peak.

Do the holders still say that was the right thing?  Too late to sell now but surely they must agree it would have been a smart move 2 weeks ago?

Yes, trying to time the market doesn’t work.

Saying, after a fall, that you should have sold before it it pointless, it’s like seeing the winning lottery numbers and saying that you should have picked them.

tropic_of_Username004

John_ said:

Saying, after a fall, that you should have sold before it it pointless, it’s like seeing the winning lottery numbers and saying that you should have picked them.

Hindsight is 2020 ... no wonder it's so popular now

2010

John_ said:

ProDave said:

So FTSE100 now down a total of about 20% from it's peak.

Do the holders still say that was the right thing?  Too late to sell now but surely they must agree it would have been a smart move 2 weeks ago?

Yes, trying to time the market doesn’t work.

Saying, after a fall, that you should have sold before it it pointless, it’s like seeing the winning lottery numbers and saying that you should have picked them.

You don`t need to time the market.
You sell now at 6000 and buy back at say 5000, you`ll still be better off than now.
I`m just using the ftse as an example but it applies to all indices which will be down in line.