What are you doing for the new 20/21 ISA / SIPP tax year?

[Phooey]

Things are very different today than they were this time last year. With the popularity of ISAs and the recent market dips I think many of us will be looking to *hopefully* invest in a way to achieve some healthy double-digit returns on our money when the market/s eventually pick up - whether that's this year, next, or so on. I thought it'd be interesting to start a thread on where you are investing in the new tax year starting Monday 6th April -




Me. ISA - nothing planned at the mo but thinking of waiting to see if markets drop further before deciding which company / platform to use. Pension - currently with Intelligent Money and will probably just top up as and when via company contributions into their Index 60 fund. Might add a bit of PH Equity to it.

Mrs Phooey - currently investing monthly into Vanguard LS80 but might switch this to either their FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund - Accumulation or FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (VWRL).


So what are you lot doing

[bogie]

Im doing PH Equity in my SIPP from this month. Already have plenty of fundsmith and a Vanguard US market tracker.

[Mr Pointy]

I don't see much (if any) indication that we're at the bottom yet so I'm tempted to hold onto the cash at the moment. I'm sitting on substantial 'losses' so I'm less worried about missing a few points in the recovery than preserving what I currently have.

[bitchstewie]

It's an interesting one as it's one I'm also debating.

With the current situation if I lost my job tomorrow I have six figures invested in reasonably cautious funds and I have around 8 years of living expenses in directly accessibly cash.

It makes it tempting to go in a bit heavier than usual in the new ISA year but the possible counter to that is that I'm in cautious funds so do you really see that much of a benefit dumping money into something similar to Troy Trojan/LifeStrategy 40 more quickly than you usually would?

I know I'm not about to go changing approach and investing into 100% equity funds any time soon as my allocations are around where I want them to be right now.

[bogie]

Long term its been back tested, that you are better of staying in, and just keep the money going in monthly (whatever you usually do) see a good article here . Trying to time it, jumping in and out rarely works....

https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/investing-idea...

I know not every crash is the same, and the market recovery can take a long time, but in the 2008 crash, due to a chance in circumstance i doubled my pension contributions when the market was near bottom, just by chance more than anything. Over the next 5 years my pension pot grew way more than it has at any other time.

So I keep a few months cash and just keep on investing in the pension as normal each month.

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

We’re going to do the usual and put the full amounts into my small selection of funds and just the one in my wife’s case, probably spread over the next 3-4 months. We don’t want to lose out if things pick up but also don’t want to ride any further crashes, so we won’t rush it.

We’re certainly not going to try to time the market as it’s impossible to do at the best of times. Same goes for GIA investing.

Edited by Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area on Saturday 4th April 15:23

[Phooey]

good point re the golden rule of timing the market, and 99% of the time I and the missus simply adopt the invest and forget monthly direct-debit drip into our investments - with the occasional top-up at year end if spare cash in the bank. However, if you strongly believe we are in for a tough time I think you can be forgiven for breaking the rules. I see absolutely no light at the end of this tunnel yet and am strongly convinced we have not seen the bottom. To hedge my bets I have cancelled *my* ISA monthly direct-debit, but kept mrs Phooey's still going - but at a slightly lower amount. Yes, I suppose you can call that "trying to time the market", and if the markets rise then great - I have money already invested which has lost 15-20%, but new money going in is what I will be paying attention to for the short to medium term. For the first time in over 10yrs my investment strategy this year is going to be different.

[anonymous-user]

Phooey said:

So what are you lot doing

Get the cash in there, poised for action. Then be ready to act on short notice,

• Further serious slump in markets? Invest the whole lot while it's down.
• Gradual climb as Covid statistics slowly improve? Invest cautiously over a period of weeks or months, in case there's a further downward shock.
• Early and then sustained dramatic improvement in statistics? Start investing as above and be ready to accelerate hard so you don't miss the boat.

[R33FAL]

Phooey said:

good point re the golden rule of timing the market, and 99% of the time I and the missus simply adopt the invest and forget monthly direct-debit drip into our investments - with the occasional top-up at year end if spare cash in the bank. However, if you strongly believe we are in for a tough time I think you can be forgiven for breaking the rules. I see absolutely no light at the end of this tunnel yet and am strongly convinced we have not seen the bottom. To hedge my bets I have cancelled *my* ISA monthly direct-debit, but kept mrs Phooey's still going - but at a slightly lower amount. Yes, I suppose you can call that "trying to time the market", and if the markets rise then great - I have money already invested which has lost 15-20%, but new money going in is what I will be paying attention to for the short to medium term. For the first time in over 10yrs my investment strategy this year is going to be different.

Thats a sensible approach but the problem with it is the way the market goes up (slowly) vs how it comes down (quickly). Stairs up, elevator down.

So you might average lower over time, but boy do you get hit when the market collapses. My thinking is more inclined towards putting a large lump sum as early as possible (provided we are not on year 10 of a 10 year bull market!).

Given all of the above i am sitting on cash and have been dripping in slowly but with 80%+ sitting in cash I am waiting for us to start seeing a bottom to the chaos (e.g. Italy industry restarting properly, NYC cases peaking etc etc)

[NickCQ]

I am not as smart as you guys - I’m just buying £20k of vanguard LifeStrategy 80 on Monday morning as I do every year.

[bitchstewie]

NickCQ said:

I am not as smart as you guys - I’m just buying £20k of vanguard LifeStrategy 80 on Monday morning as I do every year.

That seems perfectly sensible if that's your plan and you do the same every year.

I don't ever feel compelled to take a punt on pork bellies or individual stocks to try and "time" the market in that sense i.e. I'm not about to go buying Zoom shares.

I do struggle with having spare cash and being torn between deploying it into the things I'd ordinarily deploy it into at a slightly quicker rate or sitting on it as cash.

[anonymous-user]

NickCQ said:

I am not as smart as you guys - I’m just buying £20k of vanguard LifeStrategy 80 on Monday morning as I do every year.

And I'm willing to bet it's worked very well. There's no indication April is traditionally a bad time to invest and there's every indication the longer you're in the market the better your returns. My normal pattern is also to pile straight in but I'm a tad cautious this year, just in case the prophets of doom get a lucky break. I don't think they will. However,

"I've got balls but none of them is crystal." - Sebastian Vettel.

By the way, current conditions are a great opportunity for anyone who’s in a position to do Bed & ISA. You’ll potentially get a lot more future growth shifted into your ISA than would have been the case at prices 6 weeks ago.

[GingerMunky]

Mr Pointy said:

I don't see much (if any) indication that we're at the bottom yet so I'm tempted to hold onto the cash at the moment. I'm sitting on substantial 'losses' so I'm less worried about missing a few points in the recovery than preserving what I currently have.

Remarkably sound advice for Pistonheads In a very similar position, all cash in position waiting for the recovery rather than trying to guess the bottom of the market and get necessarily burnt.

[GingerMunky]

rockin said:

Get the cash in there, poised for action. Then be ready to act on short notice,

• Further serious slump in markets? Invest the whole lot while it's down.
• Gradual climb as Covid statistics slowly improve? Invest cautiously over a period of weeks or months, in case there's a further downward shock.
• Early and then sustained dramatic improvement in statistics? Start investing as above and be ready to accelerate hard so you don't miss the boat.

Agree. There is enough upside coming out of the recovery it almost negates the need to call the bottom and risk any loses.

[NickCQ]

rockin said:

By the way, current conditions are a great opportunity for anyone who’s in a position to do Bed & ISA. You’ll potentially get a lot more future growth shifted into your ISA than would have been the case at prices 6 weeks ago.

This is a very good point that I hadn't thought of!

[JulianPH]

I'm also doing PH Equity on Monday, though this still equates to a roughly 50/50 split between that and IM Optimum Global Growth overall.