Timing deposits with current situation
Discussion
A couple of weeks ago I started my investment journey by putting 10k in a S&S ISA. Obviously with what's going on in the world the value has come down this week. Not by much and I'm certainly not about to panic and withdraw funds, but it's dropping a little day by day.
I have another 10k to deposit before the end of the tax year. Do I wait until the start of April to see what happens? Is there any way of knowing if these downturns are usually very short or might it continue for months? Sorry, I'm new to this so have no experience.
In the next tax year I'll probably only put another 10k in. Now this means that I could afford to wait longer and still be able to put in the full 20k allowance at some point in the next 13 months rather than use my allowance up this year.
What would you do given the circumstances?
I have another 10k to deposit before the end of the tax year. Do I wait until the start of April to see what happens? Is there any way of knowing if these downturns are usually very short or might it continue for months? Sorry, I'm new to this so have no experience.
In the next tax year I'll probably only put another 10k in. Now this means that I could afford to wait longer and still be able to put in the full 20k allowance at some point in the next 13 months rather than use my allowance up this year.
What would you do given the circumstances?
If you’re investing for the long term I think worrying about short term movements is counter productive. If I had £x to invest in the market over a year then I would drip feed it in over the months so the ups and downs hopefully get smoothed out.
If you are focused on every little wiggle, the risk is you stay sidelined. It all depends on your time horizon but this is how I’ve always done with pension and Isa - trading is a different approach obviously.
If you are focused on every little wiggle, the risk is you stay sidelined. It all depends on your time horizon but this is how I’ve always done with pension and Isa - trading is a different approach obviously.
I hadn't thought of that! Thank you.
I had planned to invest the 10k next week then the other 10k after 5th April. But I don't really want to find that come May it's crashed and I'd have been better off waiting. I'm fairly sure it'll make little difference long term buy every little helps.
I had planned to invest the 10k next week then the other 10k after 5th April. But I don't really want to find that come May it's crashed and I'd have been better off waiting. I'm fairly sure it'll make little difference long term buy every little helps.
I just dropped £6K into a S&S ISA two weeks ago, next thing I know it's all kicking off in Iran and my investment is going south instead of north 
I'm blindly following the 'Time in the market > Timing the market' mantra and hoping for the best, obviously small sums compared to a lot of people, so I'm not losing any sleep.
I'm blindly following the 'Time in the market > Timing the market' mantra and hoping for the best, obviously small sums compared to a lot of people, so I'm not losing any sleep.
First, congratulations on keeping a calm head so early in your investing 'journey' when something doesn't quite go to plan. That's a good start.
Nobody knows what the future will bring (now as ever). Generally, when there's something rumbling in the world, be it war, Covid or anything else, 'uncertainty' happens and people start selling, so prices fall. However in the long run, markets recover and keep on going. The instinct is to stop buying and wait for the bottom. However, you don't know when or what the bottom will be, and markets can recover fast as we saw after the Tariff scuffle last spring.
Something you do know, though, is that last week you were happy to buy a product for (say) £10, and now it's cheaper to buy. Parallel - if there was something in a shop that you wanted to buy for £10, and then saw it reduced to £9, you'd be more likely to buy it.
If it was me I'd certainly be getting that remaining 10K in this tax year, if for no other reason than to use the ISA allowance because once it's gone it's gone. Whether you drip in weekly, or sit tight and watch is up to you, but I'd be getting it invested before 5 April. Also, have a look at money market funds and their performance - I regard these rightly or wrongly as 'savings accounts in investment form'; you could plonk your £10K in one now so your allowance is used, then sit back and decide when to switch it to another investment product. If you're not sure, just keep it as cash in your S&S ISA (though you may not get any interest).
This is all my view/opinion; you must make your own choices that YOU feel comfortable with. Good luck on your journey
Nobody knows what the future will bring (now as ever). Generally, when there's something rumbling in the world, be it war, Covid or anything else, 'uncertainty' happens and people start selling, so prices fall. However in the long run, markets recover and keep on going. The instinct is to stop buying and wait for the bottom. However, you don't know when or what the bottom will be, and markets can recover fast as we saw after the Tariff scuffle last spring.
Something you do know, though, is that last week you were happy to buy a product for (say) £10, and now it's cheaper to buy. Parallel - if there was something in a shop that you wanted to buy for £10, and then saw it reduced to £9, you'd be more likely to buy it.
If it was me I'd certainly be getting that remaining 10K in this tax year, if for no other reason than to use the ISA allowance because once it's gone it's gone. Whether you drip in weekly, or sit tight and watch is up to you, but I'd be getting it invested before 5 April. Also, have a look at money market funds and their performance - I regard these rightly or wrongly as 'savings accounts in investment form'; you could plonk your £10K in one now so your allowance is used, then sit back and decide when to switch it to another investment product. If you're not sure, just keep it as cash in your S&S ISA (though you may not get any interest).
This is all my view/opinion; you must make your own choices that YOU feel comfortable with. Good luck on your journey
Badda said:
Deposit but don t invest.
It was this idea I was responding too really.So in order to get my allowance in this year I can simply put in 10k cash without investing. Then the other 10k in April. In terms of investment I could then buy say £1700 worth each month over the year to even it out. Does that sound sensible?
Simpo Two said:
First, congratulations on keeping a calm head so early in your investing 'journey' when something doesn't quite go to plan. That's a good start.
Nobody knows what the future will bring (now as ever). Generally, when there's something rumbling in the world, be it war, Covid or anything else, 'uncertainty' happens and people start selling, so prices fall. However in the long run, markets recover and keep on going. The instinct is to stop buying and wait for the bottom. However, you don't know when or what the bottom will be, and markets can recover fast as we saw after the Tariff scuffle last spring.
Something you do know, though, is that last week you were happy to buy a product for (say) £10, and now it's cheaper to buy. Parallel - if there was something in a shop that you wanted to buy for £10, and then saw it reduced to £9, you'd be more likely to buy it.
If it was me I'd certainly be getting that remaining 10K in this tax year, if for no other reason than to use the ISA allowance because once it's gone it's gone. Whether you drip in weekly, or sit tight and watch is up to you, but I'd be getting it invested before 5 April. Also, have a look at money market funds and their performance - I regard these rightly or wrongly as 'savings accounts in investment form'; you could plonk your £10K in one now so your allowance is used, then sit back and decide when to switch it to another investment product. If you're not sure, just keep it as cash in your S&S ISA (though you may not get any interest).
This is all my view/opinion; you must make your own choices that YOU feel comfortable with. Good luck on your journey
Thanks for that.Nobody knows what the future will bring (now as ever). Generally, when there's something rumbling in the world, be it war, Covid or anything else, 'uncertainty' happens and people start selling, so prices fall. However in the long run, markets recover and keep on going. The instinct is to stop buying and wait for the bottom. However, you don't know when or what the bottom will be, and markets can recover fast as we saw after the Tariff scuffle last spring.
Something you do know, though, is that last week you were happy to buy a product for (say) £10, and now it's cheaper to buy. Parallel - if there was something in a shop that you wanted to buy for £10, and then saw it reduced to £9, you'd be more likely to buy it.
If it was me I'd certainly be getting that remaining 10K in this tax year, if for no other reason than to use the ISA allowance because once it's gone it's gone. Whether you drip in weekly, or sit tight and watch is up to you, but I'd be getting it invested before 5 April. Also, have a look at money market funds and their performance - I regard these rightly or wrongly as 'savings accounts in investment form'; you could plonk your £10K in one now so your allowance is used, then sit back and decide when to switch it to another investment product. If you're not sure, just keep it as cash in your S&S ISA (though you may not get any interest).
This is all my view/opinion; you must make your own choices that YOU feel comfortable with. Good luck on your journey
I'm with Vanguard and they do apparently pay interest on uninvested cash. Not a lot but it's something. So I think putting my 10k into this years allowance makes sense.
I can totally see why people get excited about investing now. I put 5k in 2 weeks ago and last week it gained 4.5%. So I put another 5k in and now the overall loss is sitting at -0.65%! It's a bit addictive keep checking it every day!
I have been putting money into a money market fund until things settle down - which should keep on paying 3%+ interest.
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-expla...
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-expla...
Get the money in the ISA wrapper before the deadline.
Assuming a long timeline current events are likely just noise but it obviously doesn't feel like it.
I would simply either lump sum it in and try and ignore the noise - or if you can't ignore the noise pick a timescale and just drip the money in slowly.
The beauty of Vanguard is you could just drip in £100/day or whatever you think means you are spreading out the investment.
You may not come out of it much better financially but it can help psychologically.
Assuming a long timeline current events are likely just noise but it obviously doesn't feel like it.
I would simply either lump sum it in and try and ignore the noise - or if you can't ignore the noise pick a timescale and just drip the money in slowly.
The beauty of Vanguard is you could just drip in £100/day or whatever you think means you are spreading out the investment.
You may not come out of it much better financially but it can help psychologically.
ChrisH72 said:
Badda said:
Deposit but don t invest.
It was this idea I was responding too really.So in order to get my allowance in this year I can simply put in 10k cash without investing. Then the other 10k in April. In terms of investment I could then buy say £1700 worth each month over the year to even it out. Does that sound sensible?
ChrisH72 said:
Badda said:
Deposit but don t invest.
It was this idea I was responding too really.So in order to get my allowance in this year I can simply put in 10k cash without investing. Then the other 10k in April. In terms of investment I could then buy say £1700 worth each month over the year to even it out. Does that sound sensible?
I take that a step further by putting a slightly lower amount in if the price has gone up versus the previous month and a higher amount in if the price has gone down (essentially overtime you are buying the dips heavier than the peaks)
ChrisH72 said:
So in order to get my allowance in this year I can simply put in 10k cash without investing. Then the other 10k in April. In terms of investment I could then buy say £1700 worth each month over the year to even it out. Does that sound sensible?
If you have ISA allowance to use, and the money to hand, put it in now. Then you have the full allowance available to use next year.The thing to watch out for is putting cash into a S&S ISA and leaving it as cash for most of the year, as any inerest paid is usually not competitive. If you want to leave it as cash for risk avoidance, put it in a cash ISA and then transfer it at a later date. Your £20kpa limit is a total across as many ISAs as you want to open.
butchstewie said:
Get the money in the ISA wrapper before the deadline.
Assuming a long timeline current events are likely just noise but it obviously doesn't feel like it.
I would simply either lump sum it in and try and ignore the noise - or if you can't ignore the noise pick a timescale and just drip the money in slowly.
The beauty of Vanguard is you could just drip in £100/day or whatever you think means you are spreading out the investment.
You may not come out of it much better financially but it can help psychologically.
This is exactly what I would do.Assuming a long timeline current events are likely just noise but it obviously doesn't feel like it.
I would simply either lump sum it in and try and ignore the noise - or if you can't ignore the noise pick a timescale and just drip the money in slowly.
The beauty of Vanguard is you could just drip in £100/day or whatever you think means you are spreading out the investment.
You may not come out of it much better financially but it can help psychologically.
Get the money into the wrapper in a QMMF to get the c.3% interest and then invest a little each day/week until you're happy putting in larger sums as things improve.
I started my own investment journey last year and it's certainly been interesting times to say the least.
Edited by Funk on Friday 6th March 11:48
Thanks for all the advice.
I think I'm going to get the money in then go for the money market fund for now. I'll keep an eye on it and drip feed over the coming months.
Makes sense to use the full allowance for this year as it is possible I might have the funds to use next year's allowance as well.
I think I'm going to get the money in then go for the money market fund for now. I'll keep an eye on it and drip feed over the coming months.
Makes sense to use the full allowance for this year as it is possible I might have the funds to use next year's allowance as well.
Funk said:
This is exactly what I would do.
Get the money into the wrapper in a QMMF to get the c.3% interest and then invest a little each day until you're happy putting in larger sums as things improve.
And unless it's changed the Vanguard platform has a "switch fund" facility so you could put the £10K in the MMF and then "switch" a little each day/week/whatever.Get the money into the wrapper in a QMMF to get the c.3% interest and then invest a little each day until you're happy putting in larger sums as things improve.
Best of both worlds perhaps.
ChrisH72 said:
A couple of weeks ago I started my investment journey by putting 10k in a S&S ISA. Obviously with what's going on in the world the value has come down this week. Not by much and I'm certainly not about to panic and withdraw funds, but it's dropping a little day by day.
I have another 10k to deposit before the end of the tax year. Do I wait until the start of April to see what happens? Is there any way of knowing if these downturns are usually very short or might it continue for months?Sorry, I'm new to this so have no experience.
In the next tax year I'll probably only put another 10k in. Now this means that I could afford to wait longer and still be able to put in the full 20k allowance at some point in the next 13 months rather than use my allowance up this year.
What would you do given the circumstances?
I have another 10k to deposit before the end of the tax year. Do I wait until the start of April to see what happens? Is there any way of knowing if these downturns are usually very short or might it continue for months?Sorry, I'm new to this so have no experience.
In the next tax year I'll probably only put another 10k in. Now this means that I could afford to wait longer and still be able to put in the full 20k allowance at some point in the next 13 months rather than use my allowance up this year.
What would you do given the circumstances?
This is the type of question that we all asked when we began.
My jokey answer would be, either ask the lady with a crystal ball on Blackpool beach, or a 'clever' City analyst.
Nobody knows, however smart they appear to be.
My suggestion would be pay in the other £10,000 to your S&S ISA and leave as cash until you feel happy to invest.
Trying to time the market is gambling, but history has shown equities have on average beaten other assets over the long term.
After gloomy periods there are often sudden increases, which it us easy to miss if not already.
I have been an equity investor for decades and in the present circumstances I am not selling. Selecting the right assets is the key.
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