Tuesday 30 September 2014

September 2014 Update

Portfolio update here. 

 It's been a busy month. My ISA transfer finally completed so I've been doing a bit of re-balancing. So far I've sold around £10,000 of my CIS UK Growth fund and bought £3,000 each of TR European Growth IT and an iShares global property tracker.

I would really like to increase my holding in the US but now just doesn't feel the right time to do it (classic market timing mistake?). However, as there are other areas that I need to beef up a bit (EM's, Europe and property) I'm concentrating on them at the moment. I do have a plan (put £5,000 into a US tracker) but it seems a very expensive one at the moment and I'm hoping to keep to it, but keep down the costs. Given that there doesn't seem to be an overriding and immediate reason to sell any more of my UK Growth top heavy fund just yet, I am prepared to wait it out a bit. I've a feeling that I will need to do it quite soon though, so I might just need to bite the bullet and get on with it.

We've also now taken the decision that my husband will retire fully at the end of Nov 2015. Our original plan was for him to keep going on 3 days a week until he's due for state pension in 2018. This means that our ability to invest at our current rate of about £1400 per month will be severely curtailed in 14 months time so I really do have to have a watertight plan if I'm going to be able to stop work at 58 - 60, defer my pension and live off my SIPP.

It looks like the plan I devised in May has to be refined yet again. Watch this space....

3 comments:

  1. While prices are high in the U.S. you have to be careful not to fall into the market timing trap as you mention. In these times it's best to nibble on stocks instead of gorge. This way you can always average down should you experience a dramatic price decrease in your holdings. Thanks for sharing your recent update with us. Keep up the good work.

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  2. Hi Cerridwen, Great that the transfer finally took place and that you are able to start rebalancing your portfolio. I'm with DivHut, rather than shun the US entirely, perhaps set up the small regular payments that you have for other investments to start off with? A couple of the funds I invest in consist almost entirely of US companies (they fall under the 'Developed World' section of my portfolio), so I guess I could be buying high there too but I'd prefer that to the market timing trap.

    Didn't Monevator post a few links on how to invest lump sums cautiously - ie instead of putting the full £5k into a US tracker, adopt one of the strategies that he mentioned to average down?

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  3. Good point DivHut and weenie. Thanks. Much appreciated. I'll make a start with a smallish US buy next month and take another look at Monevator for some further tips.

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