Dumbledore wrote:
I am new to investing in shares & stocks. I have noticed that the FTSE 250 is at a 10 year high in March 2017.
Is it sensible to buy shares when the market is booming?
I was thinking that i should wait till the market goes down before i buy any shares for my Share ISA. Is that wise?
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks.
No-one knows the answer to your question, but what I would say is that you'll only really ever learn about personal investing once you've got actual funds in the market.....
You don't give any indication regarding the size of capital you're looking at investing, and you don't mention what your ultimate investment-aim is, with regards to income or capital growth, but once you've decided which way to go on that front, then I don't see much harm at all in taking a suitable percentage of your available funds and sticking it into a well-regarding Investment Trust, after carrying out some research into the most appropriate one.
There's certain elements of your investment-disposition that you'll only ever discover once you've got some funds invested, so the sooner you do that then the sooner it will be that you gain that very important insight.
From a personal point of view, I try very hard to stay invested with my existing equity holdings, and don't normally sell anything during times where I may feel markets are looking a bit '
toppy'.
However, I do wax and wane my further-investments from either accrued capital or incoming dividends, depending on how I personally feel about the current situation. I've currently got around 15% cash available after a period of sitting our of further investment and allowing those funds to accrue, which is a level I'm happy with now, and whilst I'll maintain that level for the foreseeable future, any
further accrued capital or dividends, over and above that 15% level, will get drip-fed into the market.
So I don't think it's ever a question of '
Do I invest or don't I?', and perhaps more one of asking yourself how much you may feel comfortable investing right now, and over what time-scale you'd like to do that.
Do remember my initial point though.....I honestly feel that
even if today is the '
wrong' time to invest in your own mind, if you plan on investing at some point in the future then going 100% in at some later date when you're initially more '
comfortable' with the market situation may well test parts of your personal comfort-zones that you'll only really discover
at that point.
I'm not sure that's the best idea, and no matter what your view of the market today, there's a sense of costing some of your initial investment-sums simply as '
personal development money', in the sense that you'll discover things once you're invested that you'dnever have known about by standing on the outside looking in.
Also, as a final note, I'll ask you to try to carry out a little mind-experiment. You seem to be looking at the market graph and statistics, and have formed a view that now may not be the best time to invest because '
it can't keep going up forever', is that more or less correct?
If it is, then try your best to imagine a scenario where we've just had 6 months of market-lows, and all the news programmes and all the printed media are howling at the state of the stock market, and how people have lost thousands, nay millions, on the current bear-market.
At that time, it's
really difficult to push against that doom and gloom and actually invest as well, simply due to the overwhelming despondency associated with financial investment during those periods.
Do you think you'd feel the opposite to how you feel now?
Best of luck with your journey, no matter which way you go. Start with small sums and get a feel for both the market and your temperament to it.
Even 100% losses with those initial small sums will be some of the best real investments you'll make....
Cheers,
Itsallaguess