Savings and Investments thread

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

Only if you are heavily into equities. 

I can't access mine for another 13 years at a minimum, so not worried

LargeAddick said:

I want to start accessing mine next year hopefully ...

Well as long as you are not planning to take the entire amount out all in one go it won't make a great deal of difference. The remaining funds will stay invested & over time will go back up again. 

PragueAddick said:

WishIdStayedinthePub said:

PragueAddick said:

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

But look at it this way. Before the sell off most markets got to near record levels, taking your investments up that way too. And we were just discussing at that time that all the hot money has nowhere else to go, with such low interest rates. It might take a year or so, but they will come back. 

On top of that I was glad to read that you are actually 45% in cash overall. That puts you in a strong position compared with many. You could consider feeding a small amount of cash in, bit by bit, as i am doing. I choose a benchmark and then feed more in if the benchmark drops by another 3%, and repeat. Other people feed in a same amount each month, which has a similar benefit in less volatile times.

Then finally it does not sound like you need to cash your holdings any time soon, so I am sure in a year's time you'll feel a lot more sanguine. 

Once the markets do recover though, I would think about reducing your overweight in Lloyds, since none of us mug punters should be overweight in any one equity. 

You'll be OK...

I do think this might be a sell the rallies market, not buy the dip, though.

I'd be interested in why you think that, (at least from a perspective of people on this thread, as opposed to traders). It would presumably imply that not only do you expect markets to go lower than now (so FTSE100 going lower than 6500) - which I also expect - but that you don't expect a recovery from the bottom for a long time (i.e you might not expect to see above 6500 again for more than year. Is that how you see it?

And if so, the big unanswered question for ordinary retail investors is, where do they put the cash they have salvaged, when safe cash deposits continue to be eroded by inflation. 

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm here to learn...

I'd still keep the money invested & invest in decent equity income & bond funds and hope to benefit from dividends. Also, assuming you are not in a tracker fund, hope that your fund does better than its benchmark or index.

I hate the phrase but the old saying is true..... "time in the market rather than timing the market"

Rob7Lee said:

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

So you've gone from £170k to £149k, thats a big % drop, when this all settles I think you really need to get reviewed the funds you're invested in, you shouldn't be seeing that % drop. I think I'm fairly 'risky' compared to most and my % drop isn't a 1/4 of yours.

As I said I’m well overweight in Lloyds Bank with 72,000 shares they have gone from around 63 to 48p that’s 23.8% accounting for nearly half my losses. Trouble with Lloyds is its always going to be their day tomorrow, that’s been the case for 12 years now. 

I just see the market continuing to fall for some time as most countries are in the early stages of this virus. No end to the uncertainty.

golfaddick said:

PragueAddick said:

WishIdStayedinthePub said:

PragueAddick said:

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

But look at it this way. Before the sell off most markets got to near record levels, taking your investments up that way too. And we were just discussing at that time that all the hot money has nowhere else to go, with such low interest rates. It might take a year or so, but they will come back. 

On top of that I was glad to read that you are actually 45% in cash overall. That puts you in a strong position compared with many. You could consider feeding a small amount of cash in, bit by bit, as i am doing. I choose a benchmark and then feed more in if the benchmark drops by another 3%, and repeat. Other people feed in a same amount each month, which has a similar benefit in less volatile times.

Then finally it does not sound like you need to cash your holdings any time soon, so I am sure in a year's time you'll feel a lot more sanguine. 

Once the markets do recover though, I would think about reducing your overweight in Lloyds, since none of us mug punters should be overweight in any one equity. 

You'll be OK...

I do think this might be a sell the rallies market, not buy the dip, though.

I'd be interested in why you think that, (at least from a perspective of people on this thread, as opposed to traders). It would presumably imply that not only do you expect markets to go lower than now (so FTSE100 going lower than 6500) - which I also expect - but that you don't expect a recovery from the bottom for a long time (i.e you might not expect to see above 6500 again for more than year. Is that how you see it?

And if so, the big unanswered question for ordinary retail investors is, where do they put the cash they have salvaged, when safe cash deposits continue to be eroded by inflation. 

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm here to learn...

I'd still keep the money invested & invest in decent equity income & bond funds and hope to benefit from dividends. Also, assuming you are not in a tracker fund, hope that your fund does better than its benchmark or index.

I hate the phrase but the old saying is true..... "time in the market rather than timing the market"

@PragueAddick, mine is just another opinion in the mix.  Golf's advice is sound.

I trimmed at the top but used the cash to buy the dip (which is why you shouldn't listen to me and why I shouldn't listen to so called professional analysts!).  So I've been taking some cash (5-10%) on the way back up to feed in later at lower levels.  I'm about 9% down today but, as you said, we've had great years recently, so it only takes me back about 6 months.

My opinion is we'll see below 6500 (6250?) before a recovery and then it's not certain that recovery isn't followed by a big sell-off: 20-30% maybe.  If so, I don't believe it will be like the financial crash - more like 1987, given the cause.  The Cassandras have been calling for that for the last ten years, so they'll be right eventually.  But I got lucky and sold at the right time in 2007/8 (about 10% off the top), which is why I'm still 3% ahead of the FTSE YoY from back then.

As has been discussed - everyone is in a different situation, different time of life and with different risk appetites.  I'm not planning to take retirement for a few years, being long equities (allocated across sectors, geos and macro trends that I like), trimming and feeding back in has served me well the last 20 years or so and I'm quite happy to take the odd draw down.  I just got caught with no cash with this one, as I'd just put a few quid into some of my clients' businesses.

PragueAddick said:

RaplhMilne said:

Rob7Lee said:

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

So you've gone from £170k to £149k, thats a big % drop, when this all settles I think you really need to get reviewed the funds you're invested in, you shouldn't be seeing that % drop. I think I'm fairly 'risky' compared to most and my % drop isn't a 1/4 of yours.

As I said I’m well overweight in Lloyds Bank with 72,000 shares they have gone from around 63 to 48p that’s 23.8% accounting for nearly half my losses. Trouble with Lloyds is its always going to be their day tomorrow, that’s been the case for 12 years now. 

I also seen big drops on EasyJet, IAG, Wetherspoons, HSBC, Barclays, Fevertree, BP, SHELL. I also hold a significant holding in Utilities SVT, UU, SSE, NG which have held up well.  But as I say my largest holding is suffering the biggest loss. 

So @Rob7Lee, Ralphie is holding a lot of individual equities rather than funds, and what I notice there is he has two more banks as well as Lloyds, and two airlines. I think that goes a long way to explaining his relatively large hit. It's just my own choice and view, but my SIPP has a similar value to Ralph's stock and fund portfolio, and it seems to be holding up OK because it has no individual equities, and across the funds is quite diversified in terms of sector focus.

Yes @PragueAddick , I didn't realise he held so much in single equities. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, main point now is he re-evaluates and does something along the lines as Golfie suggests, personally I probably wouldn't liquidate the lot, but  large percentage for sure.

As at COP today I'm now down 2.1% compared to around a month ago now so holding up pretty well.

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

Well latest update some recovery to £153,000 as at close today.  

FTSE doing well again this morning. Just the 125 points down!

golfaddick said:

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

RaplhMilne said:

Well taking a start point of about 3 weeks ago, my £170,000 stock/fund portfolio is now worth £154,000 so a 9.4% loss in days.  I’m just glad I took my final salary pension as a pension.  I couldn’t imagine sitting invested with drawdown and seeing near 10% wiped off my future in a few days.  

Will it come back, I expect some stocks will recover quickly. Others may take years. As a Former Lloyds employee, I am overweight in Lloyds which is helping drag me down. 

Well update I am now down another £5000 to £149,000.  This is heads up as to how quickly  you can lose large sums in your investment. 

Well latest update some recovery to £153,000 as at close today.  

As I said upthread,  by summertime you'll be wondering what all this fuss was about.

And that, I fear, is a statement that may well come back to haunt you. (Dow down another 1100 points tonight - let's have a guess what the FTSE will do tomorrow) 

i_b_b_o_r_g said:

Anyone dabbled in property? Seriously thinking about buying a cheap place to do up and sell on, once I get back to the UK. Know research is key, but wondered if anyone had any genuine experience and advice. Cheers

Tough at the moment to buy, do up and flip, I have some BTL's but you need to pick your area carefully.