Is it possible to cash in on a funds growth like with shares?

Voyager2002

isayhello said:

Thanks for the replies, one question as I've opened these funds in an ISA, if I do buy and sell them, are they still held within the isa for instance if a 20k initial investment goes up to 24k and I sell those funds, am I still in the ISA? can I still invest 24k? or back to 20k again?

Yes: everything is within the ISA until you withdraw it. So in your example you have £24K to invest (plus any income from dividends).

EdSwippet

Thrugelmir said:

Within each of the underlying funds the dividends received from the underlying companies will be reinvested back into the same fund. Though much a little of the cash received will be used to pay management fees etc. 

Fixed that for you. Vanguard's LifeStrategy 100 fund information indicates 1.93% effective dividend yield after paying 0.22% OCF.

Rom

I came to ask a similar question, thought probably best to piggyback here than start another, very similar thread.

I have a Junior S&S ISA for my daughter, I'm very fresh with my knowledge of these if I'm honest. Just saw it as a better alternative to savings / cash isas since they pay very little the last few years.

It's with Fidelity, Inedx World Fund.
It's gone up over 15% since investing, which I know will likely fall at some point, as that is way over the guide returns estimate when opening.
Is there any feasible way to 'see' that return, or am I better off just riding it out? This is a longterm saving for another 8-10 years most likely.

I don't know enough, nor have the time to be trying to get back in at certain points. Plus like has been said, the purchase and sale isn't immediate.

Hope it's OK hopping on here, rather than cluttering with a new thread. 

AnotherJoe

isayhello said:

I've just begun to invest in a S&S ISA with Vanguard and it's the first time I'm investing in funds, I wanted to understand something around the growth of the fund and how to take a profit, might be best to explain with an example, with a share lets say Apple, if the price goes up from 1 dollar to 2 dollars and you sell, then you've cashed in your 1 dollar profit. You can then wait if the share price drops again and buy back at 1 dollar again in the future but your profit of 1 dollar is now yours.

Is it possible to do something similar with funds inside or outside an ISA say like the life strategy 100%, where if you see the fund growth has gone up by £100 to somehow cash that increase out and buy again when the fund value drops?

For something like Apple, I know you can track the share price and company news to make a decision, how do you track the price of a fund e.g. life strategy 100% and its investments to decide if it will go up or down? I don't see any easy way to do this.

Am I right in thinking then that the only way to make money from the fund is to just keep invested and hope that the value keeps increasing, without being able to cash out any increases in the fund value beforehand?

 What would  be the point of investing in a fund if you cant sell it or part of it ??? !! ???

There is no real difference between funds and shares other than you cant determine the exact price of funds when you sell, but unless you are buying and selling with hours or less this is irrelevant for either.

And yeh, if you are a financial hot shot you can time the market and make profits by selling high buying low though note that when you do that the value of the funds you didnt sell has fallen so you are likely no better off unless you sell all of it.

eg say you buy at £1000, it rises to £1100, you sell £100 giving you £100 profit.

Then it falls 10% so you buy back at the same price you bought, meanwhile your £1000 is now £900 and you are back to £1000 (roughly)

The trick is to buy, buy more if it falls because in the long run you expect it to rise substantially. If you didnt expect it to rise substantially there would be no point buying it in the first place.

AnotherJoe

Rom said:

I came to ask a similar question, thought probably best to piggyback here than start another, very similar thread.

I have a Junior S&S ISA for my daughter, I'm very fresh with my knowledge of these if I'm honest. Just saw it as a better alternative to savings / cash isas since they pay very little the last few years.

It's with Fidelity, Inedx World Fund.
It's gone up over 15% since investing, which I know will likely fall at some point, as that is way over the guide returns estimate when opening.
Is there any feasible way to 'see' that return, or am I better off just riding it out? This is a longterm saving for another 8-10 years most likely.

I don't know enough, nor have the time to be trying to get back in at certain points. Plus like has been said, the purchase and sale isn't immediate.

Hope it's OK hopping on here, rather than cluttering with a new thread. 

Ride it out unless you are a financial whizz that has the ability to know what future moves in global markets will do. In which case you woudlnt be posting here anyway

The main time to sell is when you have reached a target, eg say you need £50k for when she is 18 and you absolutely must have that £50k then, and she is now 16 and its £50k. Then sell.

But if she doesn't absolutely need it then and can wait a few years, then wait or maybe sell some % if that £50k is needed over say the next 5 years from 18.

Rom

AnotherJoe said

Ride it out unless you are a financial whizz that has the ability to know what future moves in global markets will do. In which case you woudlnt be posting here anyway

The main time to sell is when you have reached a target, eg say you need £50k for when she is 18 and you absolutely must have that £50k then, and she is now 16 and its £50k. Then sell.

But if she doesn't absolutely need it then and can wait a few years, then wait or maybe sell some % if that £50k is needed over say the next 5 years from 18.

 Thanks for the advice.

Absolutely not a whizz! I'd like to think I'm OK with money, I'm debt free, overpaying mortgage, have savings for myself and daughter etc.
But stocks and shares are not an area I know much about. 

The money is just to give her a better start than I had. There is no rush, it won't be until she is at least 18. We haven't decided on it's exact use, if we wait until she buys a house. Or give at 18 etc.

There is no fixed target really, as much as we can afford. We save a fixed monthly sum. That will increase as we have more free funds. Ie house renovation is finished. 

VXman

isayhello said:

Thanks for the replies, one question as I've opened these funds in an ISA, if I do buy and sell them, are they still held within the isa for instance if a 20k initial investment goes up to 24k and I sell those funds, am I still in the ISA? can I still invest 24k? or back to 20k again?

When you sell the cash goes into the cash pot of that ISA. As long as you don't remove the cash from within the ISA you be OK. If you move the money out of the cash pot of the isa say to your bank account then you won't be able to use that 4K.

In fact, I'm not sure is you can actually top up an ISA once you have removed the cash from it completely????? Maybe someone else can enlighten me.

Voyager2002

Rom said:

I came to ask a similar question, thought probably best to piggyback here than start another, very similar thread.

I have a Junior S&S ISA for my daughter, I'm very fresh with my knowledge of these if I'm honest. Just saw it as a better alternative to savings / cash isas since they pay very little the last few years.

It's with Fidelity, Inedx World Fund.
It's gone up over 15% since investing, which I know will likely fall at some point, as that is way over the guide returns estimate when opening.
Is there any feasible way to 'see' that return, or am I better off just riding it out? This is a longterm saving for another 8-10 years most likely.

I don't know enough, nor have the time to be trying to get back in at certain points. Plus like has been said, the purchase and sale isn't immediate.

The last year or so has been very unusual for stock markets, and of course the guide returns estimate is based on an average over many years. I do not think there is any reason to expect that the whole 15 per cent gain will fall back, just that next year and the year after the gains will not be anything like as high. So riding it out would be sensible, and the chances are that over the whole 10 years or more it will give you something close to the guide estimate.

Eco_Miser

VXman said:

In fact, I'm not sure is you can actually top up an ISA once you have removed the cash from it completely????? Maybe someone else can enlighten me.

If it's a Flexible ISA you can put the money back during the same financial year, otherwise you are limited to paying in a total of £20,000 across all ISAs each financial year. For the avoidance of doubt, you can only pay into one ISA of each type in a single financial year.

isayhello

Thanks for the replies. One related question, when trying to time the market for buying and selling shares I can see the value of the share price on the stock exchange but when I invested in the Vanguard ISA I only remember seeing the value of the fund units and how many units I could buy once I'd got them. Is there a recommended site people use to see the value of fund units for index trackers or something like VLS 100?