FTSE 100 - hold or sell?

[BjornMorg]

Hello...

I have a a FTSE 100 share tracker that I've drip fed into (i.e. pound cost averaging) over about 12 years.
The market is near an all time high just now.

Should I hold or cash in?!

[CoolCat]

well remember that the government is printing money via QE etc, and this is devaluing the currency, and causing inflation, although they are using tricks to try and hide this

interest rates must also go up soon

and real not fake austerity must come eventually as the national debt is still going up in spectacular leaps and bounds, and that cannot go on forever

so on the holding your money in cash, or on deposit, is a bad idea, as it will just get devalued

[Bunk]

Hello...

I have a a FTSE 100 share tracker that I've drip fed into (i.e. pound cost averaging) over about 12 years.
The market is near an all time high just now.

Should I hold or cash in?!

It may well be due a drop soon but trying to second guess it leads to disaster. Safer to ride out the bad times IMHO.

[BrilloPad]

hold. but the market always does the oppposite of what I think.

[MyUserName]

hold. but the market always does the oppposite of what I think.

Even if you take in account it always does the opposite of what you think?

[BlasterBates]

You sell in one dollop you have capital gains tax.

In my view hold at the moment. Generally the stock market goes up well beyond the record high in a bull market, and then will crash.

It's unlikely that there will be a crash for a few years, we've just had one, correction yep that might be an opportunity to buy a bit more.

Build up cash reserves in anticipation of a crash at some point. When the crash happens then pile in with more. This will more than cover any losses on your existing portfolio.

A recovery after a crash is usually pretty quick.

....and remember a crash is not a loss if you have enough cash around to pile in when it happens, it's a chance to get rich

If you are approaching retirement and you need it then you probably would want to sell at least part of your portfolio.

If you have everything on the stock market and no savings I would start selling some of it over the next year or so to accumulate some cash.

[BjornMorg]

You sell in one dollop you have capital gains tax.

It's within a Shares ISA, does capital gains tax still apply?

[MarillionFan]

It's within a Shares ISA, does capital gains tax still apply?

No. It's Tax Free baby! Spend spend spend.

[Barley]

FTSE all time high?

Im not sure I agree, its been pushing towards 7000 quite a few times but never quite got there, maybe a few more false starts to come but it seems likely it will push through some time this year.

The all time high was 15 years ago, price inflation and dividends into the graph and its no where near that now.

When the fed scaled back its stimulus a few weeks ago the markets jumped significantly that seems to indicate with stimulas scale back is already priced in.

Seems there is a recovery well underway now, lots of positive macro indicators, business confidence up, more investment, inflation falling, low interest rates, low wages. To me it looks like a perfect storm for the FTSE to go on rising, just one element in the room and this is how much a recovery is debt fuelled?

Personally I predict there is far more chance seeing the FTSE break 8000 in the next couple of years than dip below 6000. To recover to 1999 levels it would need to push on to 10000.

Couple of questions, if you cash in the tracker what will you do with the money? Why a FTSE tracker, what proportion of your investment portfolio does this represent, if over 25% its not very diversified.

[sirja]

For what it's worth I follow a few US investment newsletters and they are most calling for a continued bull run in US markets till about May, followed by steep decline towards the end of August. Nothing in life is ever 100% but you may want to consider taking some profit off the table if there is indeed a bull run till May