What % of your portfolio is in cash currently?

UpZord

Across my isas & savings it is around a quarter, but i'm wondering whether it should be more given the state of affairs, US elections, etc. Any thoughts? i'm in my late 30s.

bowlhead99

If you job is particularly at risk due to the 'state of affairs', a greater proportion of cash may be sensible, to avoid you needing to sell investments to get funds to live on.

The fact that there are are US elections coming up does not really change how much money a person in their 30s needs to have in their pocket vs in a bank vs in an investment fund ISA vs in a pension. There are US elections every few years and the market knows each one is coming, well in advance. There are UK elections every few years, European and Japanese elections every few years, none of which happen at the same time, and then there are things like trade wars, new trade deals, currency crashes, debt crises, credit crunches, pandemics Brexit referendums, Brexit implementations, stock market bubbles, emerging markets emerging or receding, etc etc.  If you think you ought to have more in cash and less in investments 'in case something comes up' or 'until this event round the next corner is past us', you will be waiting forever.

Whether 'a quarter' makes sense for you is not something we can comment on as we don't know your attitude to risk nor any of your personal circumstances. It is unlikely to exactly match the average of a person on a savings and investment forum who might offer an opinion. Some in their late 30s might have a six figure salary in an unstable job with a £400k mortgage, others might have a £20k salary in a stable job and be renting.  Might have kids or family to support, might have a partner or spouse with or without an income. The 'portfolio' might be £10k (in which case a quarter in cash is only a month or two's spending money) or it might be £250k (in which case a quarter in cash is about a year and a half of median household gross income).

If you have several months' expenses in cash and several more months' expenses in other liquid investments you could probably withstand most emergencies without touching the bulk of your investments. If your plans are all quite flexible (e.g. you want to spend £20k on a car or home upgrade or funding some time off for family in a couple of years - but could simply spend £10k instead, or not do that at all until markets or personal circumstances improve) then you will generally need less cash than someone whose plans and commitments were less flexible.

Albermarle

UpZord said:

Across my isas & savings it is around a quarter, but i'm wondering whether it should be more given the state of affairs, US elections, etc. Any thoughts? i'm in my late 30s.

Are you including any pensions you have in the 'isa & savings' ? If not then overall you will have less than a quarter cash .

JustAnotherSaver

Just wondering what folk do regards major expenses and cash in bank? 
From reading on here the advice seems to be about keeping a bit of cash ready, an emergency pot and then anything beyond in investments. 
You then need a re-roof and the car goes knackered and then the fridge stops working all within a short space of time. 

Not so bad if you earn enough that this can be put back in to the cash pot in no time at all but most people I know couldn't do that and I know it'd take us a good while to replace. 

I know everyone's different but how do you manage these PITA 'that's life' scenarios? 

Thrugelmir

JustAnotherSaver said:

Not so bad if you earn enough that this can be put back in to the cash pot in no time at all but most people I know couldn't do that and I know it'd take us a good while to replace. 

Little point in investing large sums. If that's going to require continual reliance on short term borrowings at high rates of interest. Maintain a continual flexible approach. 

tacpot12

I'm retired and of my net wealth I have: 
5.5% in Cash 
7% in Residential Property
3% in Commercial Property (via REITs)
69.5% in Equities
15% in Bonds 

Most of my cash is used a buffer to allow me avoid drawing down on my Pension when the market is depressed. 
I have savings "pots" for all the irregular expenses related to my Car, House, Pets, and Birthdays & Christmas. I save enough into these pots to mean that I can fund the cost of replacement cars, appliances and furniture from them without this being an emergency. My pets are insured, so with the insurance the "Pets" pot I can't be caught out by an expensive vets bill (I hope these are not famous last words!)

I don't actually have any saving pot for "emergencies" because I have sufficient cash to cope with just about anything, but I do have credit cards that could be used the direst of emergencies, but I would be loath to use them as I would have limited means of paying them off.

The roof needing replacing within the next 15 years would be the biggest emergency I could face (or subsidence that was not covered by insurance for some unexpected reason). If the "House" fund hasn't got enough in it, I would have to take out a loan for this - at 59, I'm young to hope to get a loan based on my pension income, and after 15 years, the "House" fund will have enough in it. I'm very lucky - my partner has also earned well over the years and has a good pension, so I would only have to pay for half the roof in any case.   

grumiofoundation

tacpot12 said:

I have savings "pots" for all the irregular expenses related to my Car, House, Pets, and Birthdays & Christmas. 

Flippantly I would say Birthdays and certainly Christmas are pretty regular!

AnotherJoe

UpZord said:

Across my isas & savings it is around a quarter, but i'm wondering whether it should be more given the state of affairs, US elections, etc. Any thoughts? i'm in my late 30s.

1 - 2%.

UpZord said:

 Any thoughts? i'm in my late 30s.

My thoughts are, in your 30's (I'm double that) you should be 100%. You have years to recover from any dips and its illusory to believe that you can time the market.

As for being clever enough to buy and sell to time the market (why else hold cash?) because you think that something will happen before election or after election or before or after "affairs" is an illusion. Maybe lucky, not clever.

DiggerUK

UpZord said:

Across my isas & savings it is around a quarter, but i'm wondering whether it should be more given the state of affairs, US elections, etc. Any thoughts? i'm in my late 30s.

To refer to cash as part of a portfolio, is a good example of how overhyped the portfolio fandango really is. Especially now.
Cash savings don't match inflation any more, they're a negative force on anybodies wealth creation strategies, the minimum of cash should be to hand. 

What is required are assets that are easily liquidated. Loans fall in to that category and are cheap as chips for now.

A better plan would be to buy your chosen assets as and when you have enough cash to do so. It doesn't  matter if you place your bets on equities, bonds, gold, antiques or old Lego sets, it's the ease of getting cash quickly you have to have a game plan for..._
Edit.
I didn't answer your original question, my apologies. As we are in the bucket list stage of our lives we are going nowhere fast for now. By next March we will have had our fourth holiday cancelled since this farce started   and will have the best part of £12,000 in deposits returned to us. 

They will be parked in  Premium Bonds. We only ever have funds there to cover big ticket items, small ticket items cash comes from 0% CC..._

Thrugelmir

14% cash holding currently and growing.  Uncertainty breeds uncertainty. 

ChesterDog

I'm in my late fifties, but retired 16 years ago.
Currently roughly 65% equities (target 60%), 7% gilts, 3% global bonds, 7% gold, 18% cash (target 20%).
Normally rebalance annually in April. This year I tweaked things in September as well.