My S&S diary - investing from February 2026

LHW99

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82085787#Comment_82085787

The "cloudy crystal ball syndrome" is why regular investing tends to work better over time. The market may drop more - or it may go back up again for another month, year, 3 years…..

When do you stop waiting?

aroominyork

When do you stop waiting?

To avoid the physiological risks associated with extended bated breath, I suggest forumites take that as a rhetorical question.

LL_USS

@LHW99 @aroominyork we never know when there's a substantial fall it will be, so I have set a date within this year for me to just force myself to divide the whole load of cash into smaller portions to drip in bi-monthly to World Index majorly and a number of satellites (energy, healthcare, gold). If the market is still very high then, I'll divide the readily available cash into smaller fractions to drip in each half month.

Now I still play around a bit, buying a few indexes - or stocks that are fundamentally strong but have come down to very low (a few even year-low); when the profit % reach a threshold then sell a portion, when the price drops past a certain predetermined threshold then buy a bit more, risk management looking at the proportion of each over the total investment.

I have dealt with the process a lot better, just keep to the plan and do not regret when I have already given margins for when the stocks go either way. Though I choose carefully and stay very conservative, sometimes I am still wrong but those stocks in my research are okay to keep a bit longer than planned.

LL_USS

Forgot the note I was about to write down when coming online before. Dodl is actually quite decent. They tend to sell and buy both at good prices, for both indexes and shares, when I compare with live prices on Trading 212. Perhaps T212 has a very big spead to cover free features. And it seems Dodl has optimise the timing and process to buy or sell for customers.

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82087718#Comment_82087718

T212 doesn't have a bigger spread than others and in my experience it only shows a single price (last traded?), not the bid and the offer. You're probably just trading within the spread when executing an order with dodl; you should execute a trade with T212 at the same time and compare. You should find the prices are the same or very similar.

If you want to see something very close to live prices showing the bid and the offer for free you should open an account with IG Invest.

LL_USS

@wmb194 I'll check again thanks. A few times I look at the price movement on T212 for the stock I was selling or buying on Dodl and I could hardly see how Dodl could buy slightly cheaper or sell slightly higher than T212 prices during the time between the transction was in progress and once the money is confirmed.

Dodl is the platform for my lifetime ISA - not a lot of choices when I moved to S&S LISA earlier this year. T212 is just a cheap option to try investing after I used it for my ISAs when there was a very good fixed rate. I have heard of IG invest, ii, Kraken… but never have tried them

LL_USS

4 August

Another level of hype in the stock market today, SP500 All Time High, other areas all greens, both tech and semi stocks are green. I just stay cautious, selling the temporary stocks and shares I keep on Dodl Lifetime ISA (I just check the prices on Trading 212 for ease). I have sold all MSFT, Meta, only keeping the portion of Robotics ETF I want to keep for the long term (yet will still sell more if the price pushes higher and buy back later), a bit of Healthcare ETF (need to buy more as I need to keep more for long term - sold too much and it keeps rising so I have not had a chance to buy back) and Energy (I sold all, before the hights but it was good enough). Still keeping a bit of Emerging market ETF, China ETF and will sell all at some stage to replace by World Index later this year. A few US shares also to be sold in the next few days. Scared when the market is in euphoria I suppose.

cloud_dog

I know there was a previous conversation on this but, what is your method / triggers for selling a rising stock, e.g. is it a set percentage increase, do you use stochastic, moving averages, crossing patterns, britishbulls?

The reason for the question is in your plan to sell and then buy lower, but some of your investments haven't gone lower (and may not drop back down below your sell price; until the next crash).

I suppose I'm asking, is this just a 'feeling' action or is there a defined method behind it?

LL_USS

@cloud_dog I admit it's more about the feel at the moment when I am learning. In fear of all the market ATH whilst there are problems, I am still on alert to exit most of what I am holding, so I only buy in lows when the portion for that stock is still low in the portfolio and it still has reasonable PE (for e.g. AMD already enough, already high, so even when I unfortunately bought it before it came down enough, when it came down even further I decided not to buy more). When the profit is high enough I sell (again this is adjustable depending on the stock - for e.g. China I bought at year low whilst I believed it would have upside coming, so when it kept rising I only sold half… then half of the other half again… and then today when it's about 12% profit I don't wait any more and have just sold the rest, going out of the position completely and do not intend to buy again - it was just a temporary stock when I saw opportunity. But for others, it could be 5-7%, some even just 3%, once for risk management I sold half the holding when there was not even enough to cover the costs yet - depending on whether it's a share or index, where I feel in the cycle it is, how much it is in my whole investment etc.)

You are right I sold Emerging markets a while ago and it never came down to the same level since. I just saw it up up up to about 4.3 and yes true a bit of FOMO so I bought back in a bit when it was down to about 4, still quite higher than what I last sold, when I felt it could go further - and if not, tough, I'd keep longer. It did go up more, then down - I sold a bit, bought a bit…. and today I am selling most of the rest, only keeping a tiny bit. Total still good profit from EM (this buying-back at higher price brought the EM profit closer to those for EU, and Japan whist total investment for each has been similar. MSFT has brought most profit so far, about 20% total profit on total investment first buying in February, as I exited it yesterday). Note that my total profit for everything in my LISA is still lower than the increase in world index if I keep WI from the start and doing nothing.

This morning I sold all left-over China index, most EM, all robotics (I could be wrong but I was observing - yesterday when AMD a part of robotics kept raising very high before earnings, robotics crept up well. But after AMD earnings, after US market hours AMD dropped drammatically yet robotics did not drop this morning when UK market opened. Perhaps this drop only factors in after the US market opens later today. So I just sell. I do want to keep robotics for long term but hopefully it will go down again enough for me to buy back in. And if not - tough- I'll wait longer, or may not have it at all and find opportunities elsewhere).

PS: Nooope am wrong. Robotics kinds of went up a bit compared to this morning after 2:30pm then basically the same after 3pm.

LL_USS

7 August

Emerging markets and China are still on downtrend whilst EU, UK, Japan, Pacific, US are all All Time High.

Selling a bit more of NVDA to keep the holding to a level that I feel safer, as it goes up quite considerably today.