What is your strategy for the next 3-6 months?

With so much uncertainty ahead, how are you changing your investing strategy in the next few months, if at all?

Have you changed your asset allocation? Holding more cash/gold? Changing how often you invest? Picking different companies/ETFs?

I had to sell all of my holdings to move them from the basic account to the ISA, but rather than buying everything back again immediately, I’m being a bit more cautious and will be averaging it in over several months. Otherwise, I plan to buy the same stocks as before.

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Dollar averaging. Like always. Paid, set aside a fixed amount. Invest in the same ETFs.

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I’m in the same boat. Tried to stick to my buy and hold forever plan but got spooked by the recent madness and sold half my holdings. I still have them all listed with ideal buying back prices. But it’s pretty much wait and see for a while, I started investing with freetrade last may and was wondering what % profit I would end up with after 1 year but that all been turned on its head in the last month or so.

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My strategy is basically to ride the GGP train. I don’t know when to get off but it is my only equity position. Other than that its sit on cash and slowly start to re-buy index funds.

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I’ve been through my watchlist, trying to think through what shape those businesses might be in 12 - 18 months from now. Some near the top of the list got demoted.

I’m also waiting for news from the business, about what impact the virus/ lockdown is having, and how they plan to get through it. And then going back through the balance sheet, paying particular attention to borrowings, and when debt is due.

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I’m currently riding the V, I’ve averaged down over the past few weeks & a few are now back in the green but overall I am still down. I will look to make an exit on those that are green or within touching distance before I sit on some cash expecting another downturn once the true impact on the economy is known (the furlough scheme coming to an end will be a trigger point for the UK). Some stocks mainly my banking ones I’ll sit on given how far into the red they are.

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Also riding the GGP train. I’ve only got 45k shares in it but not sure how much to cash out after the 30th and put with other investments or sit with it until it’s a pound a share :grin: or most likely bought out.

Holding a bit more cash, and waiting till the market has a more realistic valuation of large US tech companies like Google, which will be impacted by the huge drop in consumer demand and advertising IMO. Not planning to sell anything underwater right now, but planning to buy a bit more of banks and unloved financial sector companies like insurance where the prices have already fallen (for good reason, but long term they should do fine).

The only thing I wouldn’t touch right now is commercial property and retail (except food) - many more retail companies will go through bankruptcies in the next year IMO, as a few have already.

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With you there on google. I purchased in the lows of $1080 looking to hold for 10+ years then sold 4 weeks later :sweat_smile: at $1275 - my brain said the earnings report can only be gross to witness. Personally, I think it’s Apple that will bring the pack down with its earnings release. Amazon sprung the pack higher - Apple could bring it back down.

Strategy for 3 - 6 months is invest, invest & invest. I couldn’t care less about how long I am holding for. Though I’d hope 2030 is when I’ll start to see some good return.

I am however in the market for some kind of robo advisor and I’m only rly willing to part with 0.35%. Which is tough to find in the UK.

Ideally, I would prefer a choice of a more passive approach b/c I know where and what I want to invest in, so choosing the list and having automatic allocation via a single payment would be bliss.

:v:t3:

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Some interesting thoughts on changes to everyone’s approach.
Google and the other mega-techs have enough cash to ride through any storm.

What have people taken off, or added to their wishlists since corona? Personally I’m avoiding the banks - any dodgy loans and borrowings will find their way home, just look at the recent updates from the UK banks.

One of those recent updates from barclays on the delinquent loans forecast coupled with a 10% share increase. Who knows why, smarter people than me had obviously factored in a higher number maybe.

Personally due to corona I’ve added carnival shares due to the crash in price but would never have done before.

Wait for market to stabilise then transfer some bond holdings into stocks.

As I’m investing for the very long term I’ve also added to S&P 500 ETF despite the fact I see it falling again in short-medium term.

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Well for now I’m back in the green with a too good to be true feeling. The bad news is I had a kneejerk reaction to all the doom and glom about 10 days ago and sold about half my freetrade holdings. Had I held I would be nicely up, I now have cash waiting to buy back into 5 of the 11 holdings I want back.

I’ve demoted a few businesses that are public facing - Greggs and Next for example. Their historical performance has been great, but from visiting local supermarkets and a B&Q recently I think there is going to be a lot of work put into reopening these sorts of business. There’s going to be a need for managing the public and some PPE consumption that wouldn’t have been considered until the virus turned up, which will add cost into the business and eat away at margins. Earlier in the year Next projected a pessimistic forecast of losing 25% of sales, and in a more recent update had to revise that to 40%, which doesn’t bode well for the wider discretionary retail sector.

A recession and large numbers of people with reduced income is likely to hit big ticket spend, such as cars and the housing market. So Autotrader and Rightmove also got bumped down the list despite being dominant in their respective sectors.

REITS and property firms holding either retail or commercial/ office space also moved down depending on the tenants. I suspect we may see a downsizing of office space going forward, and many retailers were already struggling with high fixed costs from property before the virus.

I’m cautious about the time it might take some of these businesses and their underlying markets to adapt, and the amount of cash that is going to get burnt doing so.

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I’m sitting on 50% cash atm, everything is creeping back to being overvalued again.

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  1. Dollar average on quality resilient / defensive stock - JNJ, KO, O, ULVR,

  2. Not to panic sell, but leave alone (not buy anymore) highly volatile positions (LLOY, LGEN, BP)

  3. Spread my risk so i’m not too exposed to the Banking sector

  4. Increase and strengthen my positions on quality growth stock with good fundamentals.

  5. Avoid retail like the plague.

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You might want to put that cash to some good use before stock becomes expensive to buy.

Make that money work for you

That’s a REALLY good point you made. Many small and medium size buiness now may realise that remote working using Zoom and MS Teams really does work. They could save a fortune cutting down office space - (is that that fourth floor accounts floor or the basement office really needed?)

Please, employees prefer working from home so there may be that inertia to more agile working. Good thing WeWork didn’t IPO, huh?

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that assumes it keep going up. If it drops, I’ll be happy to have cash :smiley:

Try it with a 6 month old :face_with_head_bandage:

I’ll be first into the office when it opens…

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