3 questions

gudda96 wrote: »

Bowlhead99
Not sure post #29 is the right reference.
(it answers his question about amount of portfolio??)

Post #29 was iglad's post, where he was quoting your earlier post #15. So post #15 was where you had said that it was a £40k portfolio, and the Vanguard fund was some smaller part of that, though subject to change as you tinker.

Anyway, what has happened to cause the confusion was you mentioned a couple of times that you had been reading up about CGT, 'keep hearing about CGT', etc.

CGT is the standard well-known acronym for Capital Gains Tax, which is a tax charged on gains you make when selling investments for more than you paid for them - if you are making profits in excess of an annual exempt amount, through those sales. it can be quite relevant when selling off your funds to make significant changes to your portfolio, as you are currently doing But whether you need to worry about it or not really depends on how much of your investment portfolio is actually exposed to tax charges (rather than being inside a tax-free ISA, or growing without being exposed to tax while inside a pension).

When you said "CGT is mentioned a lot, but with me changing to LS60, is there less need to consider it.", Malthusian presumably assumed you were asking a question about capital gains taxes, which could only be answered by you giving us some information about just how much money you had got invested in funds that you might now be selling to fund more VLS60 investment, how you plan to hold VLS60 in future (e.g. through an ISA, etc), and so on

However, eagle eyed readers may have noticed Dr Syn's post and your follow-up questions about Capital Gearing Trust, an investment product that trades on the stock exchange using the ticker 'CGT' which is confusingly the same acronym. There are many many more references in threads from newbie investors asking about CGT the tax, rather than CGT the unrelated investment trust.

although I think at times you were smiling at my comments? but as admitted requently, I am not as experienced as you guys.

Some people don't take kindly to receiving criticism or being told they are doing things wrong and feel the comments they receive are confrontational. As it's hard to convey mood in online posts, the smileys are just to show we are all a nice bunch here and we are not being unfriendly and calling you a fool, but some things may raise a chuckle from time to time. It's fine to not have much experience, because we all start somewhere; how else would you be expected to get it.

DrSyn wrote: »

That's exactly what many said and thought about

ENRON SHARES

Bernie Madoff fund

You should read up on both of these major scandals. Then you will never be so certain again.

I am familiar with both of those scandals and am highly confident that neither Fundsmith nor Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust will 'do an Enron' or 'do a Madoff' in the next few months, simply by the nature of their operations. So you are likely safe on that count, although, you never know I suppose.

The key point is that you are obviously exposed to market movements until you sell them -which can be erratic and outside your control. So the standard advice would be that once you realise that you have exposed yourself to higher investment risks than you think you're comfortable with, you should sell / derisk as soon as possible, to stop the risk turning into a reality.

That doesn't necessarily mean sell in the next half hour before market for SMT closes for the night at 4.30 this afternoon. But sooner rather than later. If you have already decided to sell, no need to prolong the anguish. You could have sold yesterday at over 520p. Now it's more like 516 which is half a percent to one percent lower. It may go back up tomorrow, or might go down another percent. If you know you want to sell, no real need to keep holding to the end of the week

DrSyn wrote: »

I deliberately did not include either companies names in that post. You made that connection not me.

We made the connection because OP was describing how there was two specific companies he would dispose of, but that "I dont think either will go bust tomorrow, so I am not going to panic"

Your reply to that, quoting his post, was

That's exactly what many said and thought about
ENRON SHARES
Bernie Madoff fund
You should read up on both of these major scandals. Then you will never be so certain again

But I expect after reading up on the types of issues involved in those scandals, he will still be so certain again: he can still make his statement that, "I dont think either will go bust tomorrow, so I am not going to panic..."

And therefore the "you will never be so certain again" (of the prospects for those companies tomorrow) is somewhat fallacious and scare-mongering, rather than being helpful to an inexperienced investor.

You can pretend that you didn't include the company names on purpose and we have jumped to the wrong conclusion due to our own inadequacies - but you were literally replying to a post you were quoting, which was talking about those two companies in particular not going bust tomorrow.

If they do go bust tomorrow I'll pay OP the value of his holdings from my own pocket. That's my level of certainty.

However, the offer is not valid beyond tomorrow 4 Sept 2019