S&P500 at record highs - time to stay in or pull out?

[S1MMA]

dingg said:

Ah reading the thread, S1MMA sat on his hands, he updated 1st August, good call

Hello! yes I stayed in, still in now and plan to stay in long term. I do have an eye on the GBP/USD rate tho......

[S1MMA]

Right then, 6,000 this year already breached, what could happen next year?

I am still 100% in and didn't pull anything out thankfully!

Anyone tempted to pull out at 6,000?

[S1MMA]

bhstewie said:

Anything could happen next year.

What's so magical about the number 6000?

Genuinely

Exactly right. Us humans love a round number don't we?

I sometimes challenge people on age in the same way. Turning 40 for example. If you convert your age to days it's 14,610 days (40 years) so why do we care about these round numbers so much? We just do........

[S1MMA]

okgo said:

Quite bizarre to have your own thread answered by the market. Then go and ask the same question again.

It's just a resurrection as the S&P has hit 6,000. I am not pulling out or trying to time the market. I also didn't ask if people thought it was a good idea that I pull out, I asked if anyone has pulled out.

[S1MMA]

S1MMA said:

Just under 6 months since I started this thread, I wanted to revisit to see what the current state of play is.

On 6 Feb 2024 when I started this thread, the S&P 500 closed at 4,954.23, today we are at 5,522.30.

If I'd pulled my pension savings out of the S&P 500 to cash back in Feb, I would have lost just under £27k in investment gains.

Now in 6 months time the story may be substantially different, but I think the lesson learned is that you shouldn't try to predict highs and lows for long term investing and the DCA method of drip feeding your pensions/investments is the way to go, for me at least! Even tho I was using some sort of logical argument as to shy we may see a crash, I discounted the flip side of stock price gains - nvidia as an example has more than doubled its market cap since Feb 2024.

I learned a lot from you guys on this anyway, so thanks for the points and advice and for sharing.

Good point to reflect now we are just a year over when I started this thread, thanks for noticing that simon800.

So, another 6 month check up: I have sold nil, and continued with DCA investing in the S&P500. Where are we today.... 6,026 at time of writing.

Quite a lot has happened with Trump taking office, crypto has been very interesting for the last few months also.

I have taken on board some comments about not being in the S&P500 100%, and I have diversified out with some individual stock picks in my pension, but this only makes up around 1.4% of the overall pension investment portfolio, but this will grow with time. All long term picks.

I haven't gone "fully "international" yet but will look at some of the Asian markets for inspiration to diversify a bit further.

Keep the chat and comments coming................

[S1MMA]

Alickadoo said:

Well, if you had stayed in the S&P500, you would be up around 13%.

Is that what you did?

I stayed in, agreed you can't time the market, and using a DCA method with sticking more in if you can during dips is the way to go long term.

Interesting seeing the recent dip, hasn't changed my view and I'm not responding to it.

[S1MMA]

Interesting few days.

I made no moves at all on the pension investments, and whilst all down from their peak in line with S&P500 movements, I have no great concern with the current market drops.

I did put some money into a vanguard S&S ISA and fully invested in the S&P at approx the 5k mark.

Slight recovery today, let's see what happens with China and if other countries come to the table to negotiate. Exciting times none the less...