What are my options in a Vanguard SIPP, if I wanted to give stocks a rest for a little while?

Pipthecat

How old or how far off retirement are you?

Now that bonds have adjusted themselves you might want to consider one of the Lifestyle funds giving you 20% to 100% equity e.g. LifeStrategy® 60% Equity Fund - Accumulation (vanguardinvestor.co.uk)

One of the criticisms I've seen levelled at these are that whilst they are worldwide funds, they are is bias towards the FTSE

L9XSS

As with @Bravepants I’ve got a sizeable chunk in the MMF at present to take advantage of 4% interest (or thereabouts). I’ve also dipped my toe into VJPN VMID and some investment grade bonds. I’m happy with how I manage my retirement funds.

peterg1965

Similar to the original poster. I have opted out of the stock market for the crystallised part of my SIPP (£220K) and sold my holdings.   I am now getting a guaranteed 4.3% a year growth for my pot for the next 3 years, which i am happy with as it gives me certainty.  To add, this is not the totality of my retirement savings/pensions, so i haven't stepped away completely.

This strategy does help me with future planning though, and I value the certainty of knowing where i will be in 3 years with regards the this element of retirement savings.

AlanP_2

peterg1965 said:

Similar to the original poster. I have opted out of the stock market for the crystallised part of my SIPP (£220K) and sold my holdings.   I am now getting a guaranteed 4.3% a year growth for my pot for the next 3 years, which i am happy with as it gives me certainty.  To add, this is not the totality of my retirement savings/pensions, so i haven't stepped away completely.

This strategy does help me with future planning though, and I value the certainty of knowing where i will be in 3 years with regards the this element of retirement savings.

How are you / what are you using to get 4.3% guaranteed for 3 years within a pension wrapper?

MM funds follow overnight SONIA rates normally, which have a relationship with base rate so are variable.

jim8888

Draxdomax, I feel your pain! A long time ago I decided to stop looking at daily market moves and resultant changes to my investments and pensions as it was driving me slightly nuts. Nowadays I only check my portfolio, oh, maybe only two or three times a week    As I approached retirement I wanted less volatility so decided to keep two to three years of household budget expenses in cash (each year in April I sell an equivalent amount of equities to cover a year's expenditure, which is a relatively small part of the pot.) The rest I have sitting in a Vanguard Lifestrategy 80/20 fund (20% bonds) which I think is as diversified as I need to be. When the market plummets, as it did when Covid hit, I can tell myself that I can wait three years for it to recover without selling any of that fund, which was some peace of mind when Covid happened. 

peterg1965

AlanP_2 said:

How are you / what are you using to get 4.3% guaranteed for 3 years within a pension wrapper?

MM funds follow overnight SONIA rates normally, which have a relationship with base rate so are variable.

My pension is now back with InvestAcc - Minerva SIPP, which is a FULL SIPP and permits access to 3rd party fixed rate savings bonds/accounts, so I have £220k in a 3 year fixed rate bond with United Trust Bank - current rate is 4.35%.  

I use the Investsense website which has an up to date list of all SIPPable savings accounts.

Even the Metro Bank SIPP account, which is where my other cash sits, pays an 'instant access' 1.95%

dombarker75

peterg1965 said:

AlanP_2 said:

How are you / what are you using to get 4.3% guaranteed for 3 years within a pension wrapper?

MM funds follow overnight SONIA rates normally, which have a relationship with base rate so are variable.

My pension is now back with InvestAcc - Minerva SIPP, which is a FULL SIPP and permits access to 3rd party fixed rate savings bonds/accounts, so I have £220k in a 3 year fixed rate bond with United Trust Bank - current rate is 4.35%.  

I use the Investsense website which has an up to date list of all SIPPable savings accounts.

Even the Metro Bank SIPP account, which is where my other cash sits, pays an 'instant access' 1.95%

Could you link us to the investsense table of SIPPable savings accounts? 

shortseller09

peterg1965 said:

My pension is now back with InvestAcc - Minerva SIPP, which is a FULL SIPP and permits access to 3rd party fixed rate savings bonds/accounts, so I have £220k in a 3 year fixed rate bond with United Trust Bank - current rate is 4.35%.  

I use the Investsense website which has an up to date list of all SIPPable savings accounts.

Even the Metro Bank SIPP account, which is where my other cash sits, pays an 'instant access' 1.95%

Investacc Minerva SIPP also offers third party cash management platforms e.g. Insignis. Insignis currently offer a 3 year fix with Investec at 5.45% (fee max 0.25%).

DraxDomax

Pat38493 said:

DraxDomax said:

I guess I should have made the point more clear:
I struggle with my own anxiety right now and cannot deal with hearing about S&P500 going up or down.
Long term, I intend to reconfigure my portfolio to something more risk-on.

Of course it'll shoot up the moment I sell After decades of trading as hobby (mostly technically driven swing trades), I've learned to live with that effect.
They key is to concentrate on the realised profits - no body gone broke from taking profits

Thanks for the very thoughtful answers here. I really appreciate it!

This may be part of your risk tolerance that you don't want to take losses even in the short term. 

Out of curiosity, did you keep a long term record of how much profits or losses you made from your swing trades in total?   

I'm not a trading or investments expert by any means but I'm a bit confused that you are saying you have been investing as a hobby for decades, but in your OP you kind of seem to be saying that you don't understand the descriptions of the funds on the Vanguard website.  Maybe I'm wrong but I would have thought you would have needed that kind of knowledge to be successful in such trading.

Let me unconfuse you about my profile as an investor/trader
Stocks are straightforward - Buy Low, Sell High (I wrote a whole essay about my strategy but it's beside the point).
I don't even wait for the dividend from these stocks.

Bonds/Gilts/MoneyMarket - I guess they aren't too difficult to work with, either - but I never did!
I have a ROUGH idea of what bonds are but never done this myself with real money and an intention to grow.

Another thing is that the Vanguard description of the bond funds is just not explaining me anything.

When I trade stocks, I know what to look for (mostly technical but also some speculation, if it's a market that I understand). And there's really only one number to look at: Stock price.

With bonds, I am not sure what number to look at, especially in the Vanguard information packs

I got especially confused when I saw that some bond funds made considerable losses during some periods?
I thought the idea is:
Government needs money so they ask you for some money upfront and promise a % interest.
Being a government (of a somewhat serious country) that can print money, they'll always return their debt.
So, how do these funds generate a 7% loss YTD?

DraxDomax

Thanks for the suggestions for a mixed fund.
But as I said, I am not interested in even 1% exposure to any equity, at this point.
This is a short term break.
I salary sacrifice 30% of my earnings as an employee and I am focusing on my job, in these difficult times.
The salary sacrifice gives me a 40% profit, guaranteed and I am just interested in putting it somewhere safe and quiet until I settle in my new job.

If I go back to equity, I will do that as my own active fund manager  
Unlike the big funds, I can choose to buy/sell whatever, whenever. Funds can't do that due to scale issues and they also charge a larger fee. Not interested.