Timing the Market

fizio

AlanP_2 said:

fizio said:

I'm taking the opportunity to re-balance (rather than time the market). I have had a decent decade as my portfolio(DC+isa/etc)has been 50% S&P, 30% USA, 15% rest-of-the-world, 3% UK and 2% EM. I am ok with risk due to having a decent DB but now that I have retired, I plan to change the mix and have 10-20% bonds and some more UK. Hence, I am taking profits from some S&P to re-balance - not necessarily in one go but over next 6-12 months. 

What is the distinction between S&P and USA, or are you actually 80% USA?

I mean I am 50% directly in S&P and the 30% USA is due. to being heavily invested in global trackers so these are 60-70% USA hence I calculated about 30% USA to get to 80%

Spivo46

Spivo46 said:

I know this is not something generally recommended, however, given the talk of market crashes and market corrections would it not make sense to lower the investment risk for the short term? I am due to fully retire in 6 months. I currently have a diverse pension portfolio, 57% of which is in stocks. I do have a 2 year cash buffer.  - thoughts please?

Thank you all for the interesting and useful feedback. I now conclude that my appetite for tampering or gambling with my current plan isn't there. There is no right or wrong answer, its personal preference, with winners and losers. I kind of wish that there wasn't so much choice!bSounds similar to gambling really. Yes,, barring a disaster i should have enough to see me through with a very decent standard of living. 
I have retired from my full time career at 63. I am now 65 with state pension 7 months away. I have a 2 day a week part time job which i enjoy. 

Bostonerimus1

I began investing for my retirement in the late 1980s and so I've been through several crashes and managed to survive and prosper on the other side...but I did pick up some grey hairs along the way. I never tried to time the market, but I did rebalance my simple index fund portfolio of 60% equity and 40% bonds whenever those percentages drifted by more than +/-5%. This had me selling bonds and buying equities in 2007-2008 which turned out ok in the end. 

I think the most important thing is to have a set of rules to take you through the challenging times and try not to second guess yourself. I've also basically stuck to a simple 4 broad index fund portfolio and never worried about individual stocks or high flying active funds. So I took what I was investing in out of the equation. Approaching retirement I made sure I had ample fixed income sources from pensions SP etc and then went 80/10/10, equities/bonds/cash and have mostly left it alone for the last 10 years.