The Lemon Fool

We(my wife and I) currently have a bunch of ISAs we have invested in over time with a current value of approx £300k. They are invested in SMT, Personal Assets, caledonia, Mid Wynd, Smithson, Law Debenture, RIT. Obviously since the start of the year SMT, Smithson have taken big drops, RIT a small drop everything else is sort of even or up slightly.
We are going to cash in the ISAs at the end of this year to pay for a new house. Fortunately the house is fixed price so don't have to worry about inflation there.
Question is do we keep them invested as is in the hope that those that have gone down go up in this time or at least don't go further down? Cash in the losers and stick it in the bank? Move the losers to Personal Assets or something else that might fare better this year like RICA?
Cash in the lot and stick it in the bank then we cant lose anymore?
On the basis that i think this Ukraine thing is going to drag on for the rest of the year, China isn't going to get better soon and the markets are all spooked by inflation which investments will give me more than bank savings rates? I am not looking for the 20% we enjoyed post 2008 just don't want to lose more and preferably get more than bank rates.
Thanks in anticipation.

DavidA wrote:just don't want to lose more

If you have enough then you must cash in now. Anything else is a risk.

Do you feel lucky?

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

DavidA wrote:just don't want to lose more

If you have enough then you must cash in now. Anything else is a risk.

Do you feel lucky?

Scott.

I was going to post exactly this.

I was in the same position in 2013, and the second* we made the buying decision, I liquidated everything to lock in the value. We may have lost out, but the risk of not having the necessary funds three months or so later was just not a risk I was prepared to take.

*Well, the same day, at least

DavidA wrote:We(my wife and I) currently have a bunch of ISAs we have invested in over time with a current value of approx £300k. They are invested in SMT, Personal Assets, caledonia, Mid Wynd, Smithson, Law Debenture, RIT. Obviously since the start of the year SMT, Smithson have taken big drops, RIT a small drop everything else is sort of even or up slightly.
We are going to cash in the ISAs at the end of this year to pay for a new house. Fortunately the house is fixed price so don't have to worry about inflation there.
Question is do we keep them invested as is in the hope that those that have gone down go up in this time or at least don't go further down? Cash in the losers and stick it in the bank? Move the losers to Personal Assets or something else that might fare better this year like RICA?
Cash in the lot and stick it in the bank then we cant lose anymore?
On the basis that i think this Ukraine thing is going to drag on for the rest of the year, China isn't going to get better soon and the markets are all spooked by inflation which investments will give me more than bank savings rates? I am not looking for the 20% we enjoyed post 2008 just don't want to lose more and preferably get more than bank rates.
Thanks in anticipation.

Obviously since the start of the year SMT, Smithson have taken big drops, RIT a small drop everything else is sort of even or up slightly.

This so reminds me of the British tabloids and house prices. They go up and up and up... and nobody bats an eyelid. But they come down a bit and all hell breaks loose.

Caledonia, Law Debenture, Smithson and SMT have gone up like a rocket over the last few years. They may have come down a bit recently, but not nearly enough to worry me.

So buy your house quickly!

Steve

Cash in now. To me there is no other way. Your problem is FOMO but that is too bad and it could go either way.

Take the cash now. It does not matter what you get on it by way of interest; you will have the security and nothing beats that, unless you love the thrill of gambling that is.

Dod

It all depends on your attitude to risk, and loss aversion. If a market slump will cause you problems with your purchase, cash out. If you can ride a fall, you are likely to be richer if you stay invested. I held back the price of a house during the 2008 crash, and lost out because I didn't buy the house and missed the bounce.

Like most posters, I would err on the side of caution and redeem the shares. There is a risk the market Cound drop 50% at any time but you never know when.

Not knowing the full picture doesn't help either. There might be other options open to you although you might have discounted them as you are in the picture.

Eg Get a cheap mortgage to fund the house purchase then use the shares to cover it and or pay it off at times convenient to yourself and market whims.

Obviously age, deposit and other factors need to be added to the equation but might mean you need to redeem less.

You still have plan A which is a known known and avoids any cliff edge scenario.

Thanks everybody. I kind of reached the same conclusion having looked at yet more depressing news. Therefore started turning all the ISA investments to cash to be on the safe side. Makes you less anxious when you know you have the money banked for the transaction.

Next exercise is to re-assess my SIPP which will start drawdown soon to ensure all the investments will give a good income in this turmoil. I will have a look at the SIPP board for advise on this.

DavidA wrote:We(my wife and I) currently have a bunch of ISAs we have invested in over time with a current value of approx £300k.
We are going to cash in the ISAs at the end of this year....

Pretty much as commented here https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32663.
What did you do with the other £300k? That might be relevant.

There were also some thoughts on a similar proposition here in March https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=33600

It's hard to suggest anything that is without risk, and inflation will eat your bank deposits.

Of the six suggestions I made in that latter March thread, DEC is a little higher now so the SP is more of a toss-up although the divi is safe, ENQ1 has been replaced by ENQ2 which should offer a safe 9%ish coupon but the spread will take a bite when you sell, BP is 10% up but should still be a safe bet, Shell is 10% up but again should be a good bet, BAE has gone nowhere so hmmm, and Chemring hasn't done much either, otoh they haven't fallen.

It's hard to suggest anything without risk. The way the housing market is going you could do worse than buy a house in need of some cosmetics, spend the next six months tarting up and a quick sale.....

V8

What did you do with the other £300k?[quote][/quote]

That hasn't materialised yet bit of a long story on the purchase of our existing house and the deal I have done with the builder of the new house. Anyway it is all safe now. As we have a deferred completion on our house and a fixed price on completion of our new house. Therefore inflation is not a worry but gaining a little interest on bank savings will be helpful. Already fully invested in Premium Bonds so looking for other places to put it.

https://www.raisin.co.uk/savings-accounts/fixed-rate-bonds/6-month/ ?