VLS 80 and 100 - time to take some profit?

Thrugelmir

Why are you holding both 80 and 100? 

adonis10

Thrugelmir said:

Why are you holding both 80 and 100? 

Essentially, this is a legacy of being a complete novice. My regular investments only really been into the VLS80 for the last year or so. I appreciate that holding 80 and 100 is a little pointless and higher risk, hence why I'm now re-evaluating. It's no issue as both have produced impressive gains so if I decide to duck out of the 100 I will be leaving a happy man, but I do now need to think about rebalancing which is what prompted my original post.

Thrugelmir

adonis10 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Why are you holding both 80 and 100? 

Essentially, this is a legacy of being a complete novice. My regular investments only really been into the VLS80 for the last year or so. I appreciate that holding 80 and 100 is a little pointless and higher risk, hence why I'm now re-evaluating. It's no issue as both have produced impressive gains so if I decide to duck out of the 100 I will be leaving a happy man, but I do now need to think about rebalancing which is what prompted my original post.

Within the funds will be varying degrees of sub performance. The fund manager will be auto balancing for you. Effectively top slicing the best performer and reallocating the money elsewhere. Unless your portfolio is in 6 figures I'd continue to go with the flow.  As there's a broad diversification of investments. You hold relatively little in any one company or investment directly. 

The time to take profit is when you've identified a better opportunity elsewhere. Investments also pay income they don't just generate capital growth. Long term compounding is an investors friend. 

pip895

I tweak my asset allocation as the market moves.  I am a reasonably adventurous investor - 75 to 100% equity in the various risk profiling questionnaires I have done.   However I have made the decision to consider my risk attitude as a range from 60 to 80% equity.  If the market crashes as it did in March I move into equity and towards 80% equity. If the market goes to all time highs I reduce my equity to 70% and if I think things look really risky I go to 60% equity.  
Right now I am down to about 65% equity.  

I am reasonably happy with how it has planned out this year - of course I didn't manage to hit the bottom of the market with most of the cash and some monies didn't get invested as I was convinced the US in particular would go lower - I got to about 75% equity though and the profits made have more than compensated me for 1. having a 25% of my equity allocation to the UK and 2 putting a part of my non equity portfolio into commercial property - not the best move as it turned out lol. 
   
This is my method of adhering to the often quoted investment advice to be greedy when markets are fearful and fearful when the markets are greedy.:)

As  far as I can see the risk is that I will spend too much time being fearful and miss out on potential profits but if that happens - I will just be missing out on money I don't need so I am relaxed about that.

AnotherJoe

adonis10 said:

I paused my regular investments this month as I want to take stock and I appreciate that this could be seen as trying to time the market (it isn’t, I just can’t see how they can continue rising as they are) 

AnotherJoe

BTW,  here's an article that shows what you are doing is fundamentally flawed even if you had perfect knowledge of rises and dips. 

Here's the scenario
Buy the Dip: You save $100 (inflation-adjusted) each month and only buy when the market is in a dip.  A “dip” is defined as any time when the market is not at an all-time high.  But, I am going to make this second strategy even better.  Not only will you buy the dip, but I am going to make you omniscient about when you buy.  You will know exactly when the market is at the absolute bottom between any two all-time highs.  This will ensure that when you do buy the dip, it is always at the lowest possible price.

TL;DR - just buying every month beats that.