Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

EdGasketTheSecond

I bet you all wished you had liquidated your portfolio, even a week after the market started dropping. I wish too; I did liquidate some but by no means all. Have started rebuying but keeping some fire power. Still down hugely overall so I'm not being smug but if I had lived up to the thread title I would have been in a much better place now.

Kendall80

Prior to this correction/crash I had moved to a relatively low risk position of 50% equities. However, even that portfolio is taking significant hits now. Certainly saps the soul to see a sea of red every time I check CSD. VLS fund graphs are taking on an interesting appearance and I am interested to see how they deal with the first crash since their inception. The very popular fundsmith fund is performing as well as the VLS 60% year to date which is impressive.

tropic_of_Username009

EdGasketTheSecond said:

I bet you all wished you had liquidated your portfolio, even a week after the market started dropping.

Well, that's another bet you've lost

Alexland

EdGasketTheSecond said:

I bet you all wished you had liquidated your portfolio, even a week after the market started dropping.

Not really. I was aware fundamental market valuations were high to historical averages so was running a sensible asset allocation for my age and objectives and this has given me an opportunity to buy equity units at lower cost from tilting and further contributions. When I do the maths on what my higher equity unit quantities will be worth when markets next return to previous highs, however long that takes, I find the resulting profit from this event satisfactory.

My children will have done best from this when I get to invest their JISA money.

Ciprico

I too sincerely hope the market does bounce back to where it was, but think it might take a lot longer than people think. 
The American's have only just accepted the severity of CV, and the market downturn has shifted focus to their economic weaknesses.
For example the over-inflated stock market highs over the last few years were created partly due to the Fed printing money, they probably can't pull that trick off again. 
Situation not helped that there are inevitably going to be supply problems for "everything" as manufacturing slows down and then ramps up, which will increase prices, creating inflation, putting pressure to increase interest rates, which they will be reluctant to do.
Despite Trump claiming this morning the USA is the biggest and best country able to deal with the crisis it will be interesting to see how it copes with the "usual" % of Corona Virus sufferers needing hospital care plus the extra 10% of the population who are obese and more prone.
...And they have guns.... Are they going to queue up orderly in "parking lots" waiting for ventilators ? - Hell no...!

EdGasketTheSecond

On a more positive note, China reckons its 'peak' of the virus is over.

jacquelinestar

Was planning on buying a house this year, and had invested in some mostly-cautious stocks and shares to help boost savings a bit. However, I'm now at a loss and suspect I'll lose even more this year. Given things might take 2+ years to recover, and I may need my savings to cover potential income loss (I'm freelance), or the original plan to buy a house, would you disinvest into cash?

I have around £33.5k of my £53k savings for a house deposit (which was going to be used this year) in a Stocks and Shares ISA with Moneyfarm (on a relatively low risk level - 2 out of 5), with about £9.5k in an AJ Bell Lifetime ISA and a smaller chunk into Moneybox.

I have lost all interest apart from £200 in Moneyfarm now, have lost about £400 out of my investments in AJ Bell (split between a cautious account and a balanced account), and have lost £400 of my Moneybox investments (11% of the total amount, which is now £3.5k).

Given I was planning on this being my house deposit this year, I am not keen to lose any more. I have in practice lost about £600 in total of the money I invested, although if you count the average interest I was earning it's more like £1500.

Would you advise disinvesting now, to protect the money I do have, considering this was for quite a short time horizon? I'm tempted to disinvest all accounts apart from Moneybox, where I don't want to lock in an 11% loss. Maybe I could just leave this as a longer term chunk.

Also worth saying I may well not buy a house this year, due to potential market instability and loss to income (I'm freelance). But I just have no idea at the moment!

What would you do?

HCIMbtw

jacquelinestar said:

Was planning on buying a house this year, and had invested in some mostly-cautious stocks and shares to help boost savings a bit. However, I'm now at a loss and suspect I'll lose even more this year. Given things might take 2+ years to recover, and I may need my savings to cover potential income loss (I'm freelance), or the original plan to buy a house, would you disinvest into cash?

I have around £33.5k of my £53k savings for a house deposit (which was going to be used this year) in a Stocks and Shares ISA with Moneyfarm (on a relatively low risk level - 2 out of 5), with about £9.5k in an AJ Bell Lifetime ISA and a smaller chunk into Moneybox.

I have lost all interest apart from £200 in Moneyfarm now, have lost about £400 out of my investments in AJ Bell (split between a cautious account and a balanced account), and have lost £400 of my Moneybox investments (11% of the total amount, which is now £3.5k).

Given I was planning on this being my house deposit this year, I am not keen to lose any more. I have in practice lost about £600 in total of the money I invested, although if you count the average interest I was earning it's more like £1500.

Would you advise disinvesting now, to protect the money I do have, considering this was for quite a short time horizon? I'm tempted to disinvest all accounts apart from Moneybox, where I don't want to lock in an 11% loss. Maybe I could just leave this as a longer term chunk.

Also worth saying I may well not buy a house this year, due to potential market instability and loss to income (I'm freelance). But I just have no idea at the moment!

What would you do?

Your goals appear to be very short term and not suited to an investment in volatile S&S, even with the lower risk investment such a short term would typically suit a fixed rate savings account. 

Either you want the money for a deposit this year, in which case it probably shouldn't be invested. 

Or you don't, and the money was an investment for years, and you stick to the original plan. 

The exception to this would be if you have been investing for 5-10 years, this year is expected maturity and you have been very unfortunate with timing. In this case i'd analyse it based on the investments just being cash that I was sat on it a current account.. what would I do with that 30k cash right now. 

jacquelinestar

Hi there, yes I have been investing for around 5-6 years, and I did bring risk level right down on most of them given desire to buy this year. I am now wondering whether to hold off on buying anyway, to see what happens over the next few months with the housing markets and also my work, which is freelance. I feel that taking out as cash and sitting on it may be safer, given that in ideal world I'd still be buying next year anyway, and in event I need money to tide me over from loss of income, I'd have to start to go into this anyway?

jacquelinestar

I guess I hate locking in the losses, especially given that on the Moneyfarm account I had made a decent profit (well, about £1k), but in the grand scheme of things, perhaps this is a small price to pay for a feeling of security (I understand cash doesn't necessarily equal security). What would you do?