Anyone else selling...?

BananaRepublic

mooneysaver said:

123mat123 said:

I liquidated half my holdings when Corona first "happened", after the markets had sunk about 5%, my logic Corona could only be bad news, and nothing positive could come out of it, so at worst I would incur the transaction costs, I wasn;t looking to profit, just reduce losses
I bought back a large chunck of VLS a few weeks later, I didn't hit the high or the low, but made a nice margin. I also bought a large (for me) chunk of SMT, RioTinto and Shell.
SMT and Rio up 30%, Shell down 20%, luckily biggest purchase was SMT.  I'd been after some more SMT for a while, so no hesitation weekly drip buying throughout the drop.
I am not, and don't want to be a trader, but now felt uncomfortable having so much in high risk investments, so today sold SMT and Rio, (hoping for more recovery from Shell...)
I'm inclined to sell more funds, and maybe even buy some UK Gilts, as I can't fathom why the stock market is rising against, it seems every possible logical arguement. 
I am expecting a chorus of the MSE massive saying they will hold at all costs and the market will go up and down as sure as day is day, but I prefer to try to avoid some of the downs, and have a feeling a drop is coming...
Anyone else nervous, or got any views to relieve my nervousness 

No need to be nervous, a lot of people fall for the propaganda of 'buy and hold'. Asset management companies make a lot of money from people holding their investments so it is in their interest to push this narrative. You are aware the best strategy is instead to buy low and sell high and your current gains are evidence that this is indeed the best strategy. Just ensure you stay in the market as long as possible before the next drop to maximise your profits.

And how do you know when a share/fund is low and when it is high? You don’t except in retrospect which is why that strategy is totally useless. You can try to time the market. Some people manage it, perhaps by luck, many don’t. Neil Woodford managed it many years ago and became a hero. He tried again recently and has failed miserably. 

Alistair31

BananaRepublic said:

mooneysaver said:

123mat123 said:

I liquidated half my holdings when Corona first "happened", after the markets had sunk about 5%, my logic Corona could only be bad news, and nothing positive could come out of it, so at worst I would incur the transaction costs, I wasn;t looking to profit, just reduce losses
I bought back a large chunck of VLS a few weeks later, I didn't hit the high or the low, but made a nice margin. I also bought a large (for me) chunk of SMT, RioTinto and Shell.
SMT and Rio up 30%, Shell down 20%, luckily biggest purchase was SMT.  I'd been after some more SMT for a while, so no hesitation weekly drip buying throughout the drop.
I am not, and don't want to be a trader, but now felt uncomfortable having so much in high risk investments, so today sold SMT and Rio, (hoping for more recovery from Shell...)
I'm inclined to sell more funds, and maybe even buy some UK Gilts, as I can't fathom why the stock market is rising against, it seems every possible logical arguement. 
I am expecting a chorus of the MSE massive saying they will hold at all costs and the market will go up and down as sure as day is day, but I prefer to try to avoid some of the downs, and have a feeling a drop is coming...
Anyone else nervous, or got any views to relieve my nervousness 

No need to be nervous, a lot of people fall for the propaganda of 'buy and hold'. Asset management companies make a lot of money from people holding their investments so it is in their interest to push this narrative. You are aware the best strategy is instead to buy low and sell high and your current gains are evidence that this is indeed the best strategy. Just ensure you stay in the market as long as possible before the next drop to maximise your profits.

And how do you know when a share/fund is low and when it is high? You don’t except in retrospect which is why that strategy is totally useless. You can try to time the market. Some people manage it, perhaps by luck, many don’t. Neil Woodford managed it many years ago and became a hero. He tried again recently and has failed miserably. 

I don’t think Woodford failed through failure to time the markets correctly.

Prism

Alistair31 said:

BananaRepublic said:

mooneysaver said:

123mat123 said:

I liquidated half my holdings when Corona first "happened", after the markets had sunk about 5%, my logic Corona could only be bad news, and nothing positive could come out of it, so at worst I would incur the transaction costs, I wasn;t looking to profit, just reduce losses
I bought back a large chunck of VLS a few weeks later, I didn't hit the high or the low, but made a nice margin. I also bought a large (for me) chunk of SMT, RioTinto and Shell.
SMT and Rio up 30%, Shell down 20%, luckily biggest purchase was SMT.  I'd been after some more SMT for a while, so no hesitation weekly drip buying throughout the drop.
I am not, and don't want to be a trader, but now felt uncomfortable having so much in high risk investments, so today sold SMT and Rio, (hoping for more recovery from Shell...)
I'm inclined to sell more funds, and maybe even buy some UK Gilts, as I can't fathom why the stock market is rising against, it seems every possible logical arguement. 
I am expecting a chorus of the MSE massive saying they will hold at all costs and the market will go up and down as sure as day is day, but I prefer to try to avoid some of the downs, and have a feeling a drop is coming...
Anyone else nervous, or got any views to relieve my nervousness 

No need to be nervous, a lot of people fall for the propaganda of 'buy and hold'. Asset management companies make a lot of money from people holding their investments so it is in their interest to push this narrative. You are aware the best strategy is instead to buy low and sell high and your current gains are evidence that this is indeed the best strategy. Just ensure you stay in the market as long as possible before the next drop to maximise your profits.

And how do you know when a share/fund is low and when it is high? You don’t except in retrospect which is why that strategy is totally useless. You can try to time the market. Some people manage it, perhaps by luck, many don’t. Neil Woodford managed it many years ago and became a hero. He tried again recently and has failed miserably. 

I don’t think Woodford failed through failure to time the markets correctly.

Not the markets but trying to time the fall and rise of individual shares was certainly one of his big things as a value investor. Most of his commentary when things were not going well was about how cheap his holdings were and soon they were going to recover. Trouble is, that kind of investing is very difficult in todays world of instant information. Those cheap shares just kept on getting cheaper. Had that fundamental strategy worked then we probably would have all dismissed the fact that a chunk of the fund was invested in some pretty risky stuff. Its only because the 'buy low sell high' part became 'buy low and watch it go lower' that the unquoted's became a big issue. 

BananaRepublic

Alistair31 said:

BananaRepublic said:

mooneysaver said:

123mat123 said:

I liquidated half my holdings when Corona first "happened", after the markets had sunk about 5%, my logic Corona could only be bad news, and nothing positive could come out of it, so at worst I would incur the transaction costs, I wasn;t looking to profit, just reduce losses
I bought back a large chunck of VLS a few weeks later, I didn't hit the high or the low, but made a nice margin. I also bought a large (for me) chunk of SMT, RioTinto and Shell.
SMT and Rio up 30%, Shell down 20%, luckily biggest purchase was SMT.  I'd been after some more SMT for a while, so no hesitation weekly drip buying throughout the drop.
I am not, and don't want to be a trader, but now felt uncomfortable having so much in high risk investments, so today sold SMT and Rio, (hoping for more recovery from Shell...)
I'm inclined to sell more funds, and maybe even buy some UK Gilts, as I can't fathom why the stock market is rising against, it seems every possible logical arguement. 
I am expecting a chorus of the MSE massive saying they will hold at all costs and the market will go up and down as sure as day is day, but I prefer to try to avoid some of the downs, and have a feeling a drop is coming...
Anyone else nervous, or got any views to relieve my nervousness 

No need to be nervous, a lot of people fall for the propaganda of 'buy and hold'. Asset management companies make a lot of money from people holding their investments so it is in their interest to push this narrative. You are aware the best strategy is instead to buy low and sell high and your current gains are evidence that this is indeed the best strategy. Just ensure you stay in the market as long as possible before the next drop to maximise your profits.

And how do you know when a share/fund is low and when it is high? You don’t except in retrospect which is why that strategy is totally useless. You can try to time the market. Some people manage it, perhaps by luck, many don’t. Neil Woodford managed it many years ago and became a hero. He tried again recently and has failed miserably. 

I don’t think Woodford failed through failure to time the markets correctly.

He is known for investing according to how he believes the markets will go, in other words on the basis of his convictions, which is essentially what timing the market is. He called the dot com bubble correctly, and avoided much of the 2008 crash. His recent problems were in part based on an incorrect prediction of the outcome of the Brexit farce/pantomime/mess. The alternative is to research companies to find ones you think will do well, and not try to outsmart the markets. 

Thrugelmir

BananaRepublic said:

mooneysaver said:

123mat123 said:

I liquidated half my holdings when Corona first "happened", after the markets had sunk about 5%, my logic Corona could only be bad news, and nothing positive could come out of it, so at worst I would incur the transaction costs, I wasn;t looking to profit, just reduce losses
I bought back a large chunck of VLS a few weeks later, I didn't hit the high or the low, but made a nice margin. I also bought a large (for me) chunk of SMT, RioTinto and Shell.
SMT and Rio up 30%, Shell down 20%, luckily biggest purchase was SMT.  I'd been after some more SMT for a while, so no hesitation weekly drip buying throughout the drop.
I am not, and don't want to be a trader, but now felt uncomfortable having so much in high risk investments, so today sold SMT and Rio, (hoping for more recovery from Shell...)
I'm inclined to sell more funds, and maybe even buy some UK Gilts, as I can't fathom why the stock market is rising against, it seems every possible logical arguement. 
I am expecting a chorus of the MSE massive saying they will hold at all costs and the market will go up and down as sure as day is day, but I prefer to try to avoid some of the downs, and have a feeling a drop is coming...
Anyone else nervous, or got any views to relieve my nervousness 

No need to be nervous, a lot of people fall for the propaganda of 'buy and hold'. Asset management companies make a lot of money from people holding their investments so it is in their interest to push this narrative. You are aware the best strategy is instead to buy low and sell high and your current gains are evidence that this is indeed the best strategy. Just ensure you stay in the market as long as possible before the next drop to maximise your profits.

 Neil Woodford managed it many years ago and became a hero. He tried again recently and has failed miserably. 

Didn't time the market. Avoided the excesses of the Dot Com boom. Bought into good quality profitable companies that no one else wanted to buy. 

Buffett said he would never own airlines. Yet bought in and suffered a huge hit. 

Everybody has their frailties. 

yellow1231231

what woodford did in the last few years at his fund is not what he said or what did previously 

Prism

yellow1231231 said:

what woodford did in the last few years at his fund is not what he said or what did previously 

Thats probably because what he did previously wasn't working any more. Which is kind of the point I guess - its really hard to find cheap stocks time after time and then sell them at the top, and then go and find more cheap stocks and repeat. So his style slipped down the market cap quite and bit, until that didn't work and then everyone wanted their money back. Buying low and selling high isn't easy, even for someone who had been good at it.

itwasntme001

All fund managers by definition are trying to "buy low" and "sell high" because by buying low they see growth potential in a share and by selling high, they have realised the gains and see no further upside for the risk taken and so the proceeds are invested in something else that is worth the risk given upside potential.  Woodford did this and did well until he failed miserably.  Fundsmith has been doing it and doing it well thus far.  Different approaches in terms of value vs growth, but they all try to buy low and sell high (whenever that may be).  All styles go out of fashion one day and sooner or later it is the growth/"quality" fund manager that will underperform.

Ciprico

I'm not focused on buying low selling high (though it would be nice), I'm concerned that the fall out from CV will be significant, ie when furlough ends there could be mass redundancies, some industries will take a long time to recover (if ever to the same levels), higher taxation, permanent lifestyle changes (less travel, more working from home?) most of which will result in less money in people's pockets, so ultimately less money to the the companies that supply us "stuff" which surely will impact the value of these companies and their share price. Or put a simpler way, what justification exists for a company or fund to be worth more now than it was 3 months ago before CV ?

Reaper

Eventually the Covid-19 effect will play out at which point everyone will remember Brexit again, remember Boris set a fixed timetable in law that isn't achievable and that crashing out with no deal is inevitable. So if you do start buying again my feeling is to avoid pure UK stocks.