Time to sell Alphabet/Amazon/Apple?
max...
Forumite 41 Posts
I have a reasonably diversified portfolio of funds as my main investment but as much for fun I bought a few shares in these three two years ago. Best thing I ever did investment wise of course and a silver lining in these Covid times but having doubled in that time and with the whole Brexit/US election/unemployment/insolvency/winter of who knows what to come is it time to get out and maybe buy back later after the (inevitable?) crash?
0
Latest MSE News and Guides
Replies
What would cause a crash is if the growth expectations many have for these companies are not met, or become clear they won't be met.
The question then becomes a risk assessment. Are you happy to accept the risk of tech stocks tumbling in value, in order to benefit if they continue increasing? Or would you prefer to diversify your investments so that you do not have all of your eggs in one basket?
Username999 made a good suggestion. Perhaps it would be a sensible idea to sell some of your Tech stocks - so that you still have exposure to the Tech sector, but you are a bit more diversified into other parts of the global economy. In that case a crash in Tech stocks will still damage your portfolio but not as badly as currently.
I disagree that a crash is "inevitable". If that was the case, the stock price would already reflect that.
Yes, time in the market not timing the market and all that - I have that time but just feel this is rather a unique situation of much greater magnitude.
I have plenty of exposure to these techs in funds anyway - these stand alone shares were the first I have bought in maybe 30 years and are a small part of a portfolio - under 5% in truth but just thought it would be interesting to hear opinions.
Maybe best to sit tight and as always mitigate any losses by just buying more if they do come steeply downwards.
"Going to work at 7am this morning I drove out of my drive straight into a bus. The bus was 5 minutes early.".
Amazon has some interesting products in the pipeline that could further growth - its new contactless payment system for example.
Apple - 300m mobiles were sold in Q1 2020, and only 40m were iPhones, so a lot of room to expand still, and they are making headway in India (20% import tax on goods, however Apple are looking to produce in India). Then you have their subscription offerings - Apple TV, iTunes, news and soon Fitness. The fact they have a large cash war chest that I think is roughly 10% of the mCAP, they have a lot of room to manoeuvre.
Alphabet - not so sure on this one. I think they are still used for over 60% of internet searches, but I cant see where their future growth would be generated from. They have dabbled in mobile phones with little success, and I think their attempts to monetise a subscription based model for YouTube similar to Netflix I also see as a flop.
In all honesty, there are worse companies to hold at the moment. You could top slice and diversify, but that also then just averages out your returns. I think it all depends on your exposure to each company, and your appetite for risk. I wouldn't have any more than 5% of my investments in each, but that's just me.