My commiserations!
FTSE100 down to levels not seen since June 2016.
Whilst nursing big losses, trying to second guess the bottom is proving very difficult.
Surely any Coronavirus panic will be a distant memory by the time Brits are being wisked off for their summer holidays.
Head tells me that this is a rare buying opportunity across the board but heart feels the obvious sentiment of others. Head always wins 
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As the total cost and effect of the virus can’t even be guessed at and the nature of the problem is disrupting both supply and demand I would expect something more like 2005-8 than 2016 and would say FTSE 4000 is not out of the question
You could be right and I suggest that if confident in that respect, you take appropriate action.
I think and indeed hope for everyone’s sake that this has been an overreaction.
No expert on the Coronavirus but have read up on it and its like recently. As a respiratory, aerolised virus, given previous similar scenarios with similar, it tends to dissipate in summer weather.
Given that I would hope it dies a natural death within 6 months and hopefully much less.
I had assumed that a vaccine could be produced very quickly but it seems in these circumstances vaccines are a theoretical joke. Praying this also proves to be the case with the Coronavirus.
I wish I was confident and fortunate enough to pick the market bottom.
I read this morning that Mark Carney BOE governor was saying that this virus “could mean economic growth downgrade for UK”
If that’s the most insightful comment he’s got then I worry about the rest of us.
As a professional in such matters…
I would suggest its not a matter of predicting the bottom of the market. All my clients are ever interested in is exiting the market at a higher level than their entry to it.
My advice has been to derisk portfolios to mitigate the effect of significant falls. Bear in mind a fall in value is felt the greatest if you are realising investments. Otherwise falls are losses on paper only, similarly gains are only on paper unless realised.
Its a time to be brave.
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I’m a professiojnal of a different sort, having worked in biological warfare defence for many years.
Vaccines are produced very quickly, but safety trials take much longer.
Lets think about a few vaccines people are familiar with. Smallpox vaccine; pretty much anyone over the age of 50 would have had one. The reason it was dropped was because the risk of death due to infection was outweighed by the risk of an adverse reaction.
Similarly, the BCG vaccine. This is made from a weakened form of the TB bacterium. They don’t use it in the US, because the incidence of TB is so low there, but the safety risk to immunocompromised and babies from the vaccine is very significant. Over here, the risk of TB is still much higher than the US. Its no longer used as much as before, but GPs are free to provide vaccination to at risk children; we have pockets of high TB incidence still.
Similar to MERS, which has been in circuation now for at least 7 years. MERS has a very very high mortality rate, but not particularly infectious. New WHO reports indicate outside of hospital diagnosed cases, they are not finding cases. Slight relief, but it does mean, as an illness, if you catch it, you have a 1% chance of dying. Chinese doctor reported that they faced very quickly a shortage of ventilation machines, so possibly more patients become high dependancy that for, say, flu.
I only have shares in a single companny, an engineering concern with a military division.
Took part in various share buying schemes when I worked for BT. When I retired in 2015 I unloaded enough to get my money back. Still had a nice little nest egg left in them though. Thought we might use it for a few cruises or Caribbean holidays. Will probably change our plans now. Think there is enough for a long weekend in Cleethorpes.
To anyone interested in the current situation regarding Coronavirus at a glance here is a summary. Have to say it does not read too well at the moment with a lot of new cases and death being 7% of closed cases ie. death or recovered. I am hoping that death is quick and recovery slow thus the short term distortion with bigger numbers.
When I first heard about the Coronavirus, in my naivety was reasonably confident a vaccine would appear quickly particularly as it seems earlier vaccines developed for similar virus could be adapted overnight. How wrong could I be! I assume that vaccines have been developed for similar virus but there has not been the opportunity to properly test/trial. These respiratory virus seem to naturally dissipate with summer weather so only a small window of opportunity. Given this I guess the only way forward is to deliberately infect healthy, robust individuals to test?
In my opinion the stockmarket reaction is crazy and hopefully I am correct. The stockmarket falls are general. Some stocks are worse affected than others but no winners out of this. If this does prove to be as bad as a poster on here suggested it won’t just be people like me, directly owning shares who will suffer. The falls will be justified, associated companies will suffer and share associated investments such as pensions will be affected. Being a contrarian I see this as an opportunity to turn big losses into bigger potential gains.
Sonue, what did you mean by being brave? The bravest people in my opinion have made the decision to sell; I really struggle with that one. Buying back or just buying could be seen as brave but if the timing is wrong, stupid. Very hard to get any of this right when there is so much sentiment driven anxiety.
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By being brave I mean hold your nerve, stick to your original plan.
If share purchase was the right thing to do then respectfully you would have accepted that share values can fall.
Of course freak events disrupt the plan and these can’t be foreseen. However, investing should only be undertaken if catastrophic loss doesn’t significantly impact on our standard of living.
I agree that prolonged losses can have serious consequences for our wealth and are unwelcome.
I am not trying to be judgemental just putting forward the view of risk vs reward.
Is this the right time to cut and run…I don’t think so. This would crystalise the loss.
Hi Roadie. Dreadful share and I know cos I own some too. The only current benefit is a dividend of nearly 11% but that will likely be cut at some stage - enjoy the high div whilst it lasts.
It really annoys me to hear of people cajoled into company share investment or perhaps share related pension schemes and then having the rug pulled. Just remembering Natwest bank shares and even more disturbing Marconi where decent people with values and a sense of looking after their future were so harshly treated.
Thanks Sonue - that makes sense to me and really where I am at the moment. Obviously with hindsight the best move would have been to sell on the first day of this and buy back whenever - wonder how many did that.
I’ve got Lookers shares
Everything is going against them !!!
Diesel scandal
Electric cars the future
FCA investigation
Miss quoting profits
Directors stepping down
The problem for people who only participate in their company’s share flotation or bonus schemes is that they have little or no diversification. They also tend to focus only on the price of their shares rather than the dividend income and so are badly hit by the current situation.
As a pensioner I rely on my shares to provide around 50% of my income. In the medium term at least, my dividend income will stay substantially the same. I would be an absolute fool to sell my shares in a panic now as I would lose both income and capital. Just have to soldier on and possibly drip feed some more money into sound investments while they are so cheap.
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Take your choice of the advice from two well known experts:-
Expert 1 - “We’re all doomed!”
Expert 2 - “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!!”
PS: Pharmaceuticals could be a good area for investment.
hi grant , i have "tried " to send you a private message , i dont know if its worked , still getting to grips with this new system !!!
Of course all the panic could be a load of BULL, but the LONG and SHORT of the matter is, whatever the outcome small investors will just have to grin and BEAR it.
Sorry! Sorry! I just couldn’t resist!!! 
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Losses are only crystalised if the shares are sold. Don’t forget that if you sell shares held in an ISA wrapper, then the cash proceeds can’t later be put back into the ISA. You have to start again, with the annual ISA limits, unless the money from the sale can be ‘parked’ in a cash ISA. Investors are always told stock market investing is a long term game, so it’s a case of holding your nerve. All goes to show, not to have too many eggs in one (investment) basket. Major shocks like this are bad news for pension funds which are the big investors in the stock markets, though.
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Apologies. Health problems restricted my ability to take on a lot of new work last year.
I’m much better now. I will try to respond more fully by PM.
G
About 80-90% of APIs (Active Pharmacological Ingredients) are now sourced from China (mainly because there is little money to be made from these). Thus Pharma’s supply chain (which is incredibly regulated, so its not easy to switch suppliers) is now negatively impacted. All Penicillin and Vitamin C is now sourced from China.
Re. seasonality. There is no evidence this virus is seasonal. Neither of its close relatives, the coronaviruses SARS and MERS are seasonal.
Case histories; the average time those who were hospitalised was 3 weeks. For deaths, time from onset to outcome in China was 2-8 weeks. During the outbreak in China, the Chinese considerably improved standards of care, reducing case mortality from 17% to 0.7%. However, they reported that they quickly faced shortages of ventilator machines; many of the severely ill patients were high dependency. NHS chiefs have indicated they will revert to 3 Wisemen protocols, which will likely result in such machines being made available only to the fittest.
Diagnostic tests; there is only one type of test, though many versions of it. The test chemistry is good, with respect to sensitivity and specificity, but the sampling methodology (throat and nasal swabs) is resulting in a high false negative rate, probably because this virus, unlike SARS, resides deep in the lungs.
The Chinese are working on serological tests; this will measure antibody against virus, essentially proof if you have been infected before. This will help determine if the virus has been in widespread circulation. Chinese door to door surveys so far reveals little evidence outside of the already diagnosed cases. This is good and bad; bad in that it makes the hospital survival stats look worse (those over 60 with the severe form have a 50-50 chance).
Best estimates are that border controls identified about 30% of cases. So by this time, its likely that there are 1000x more cases in circulation in Italy than recorded. However, by not closing borders entirely, we have ensured adequate supplies of medicines and PPE.
The government has recently imposed export bans (the Parallel Export scheme) on 3 drugs; a HIV protease inhibitor, that has shown to have some efficacy, an old malaria drug, which is an immunosuppressive, which also has alleged efficacy against SARS/MERS. A third drug, used for treatment of rheumatic arthritis, and also an immunosuppressor, is also banned for export, though I can find nothing in the public literature suggesting any use with this virus.
A startling set of stats:
South Korea: Number of tests performed: 30,000
UK: Number of tests performed: 6000
Italy: Number of tests performed: 4-5000
US: Number of tests performed: Less than 500
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"… NHS chiefs have indicated they will revert to 3 Wisemen protocols, which will likely result in such machines being made available only to the fittest… "
Survival of the fittest. Not a big surprise given the years of starving funds to the NHS, abandonment of A & E wait times… etc.
However, do you have corroboration, source, for what you’ve said ?
This article makes interesting reading.
It tells me that there is very little meaningful knowledge about these viral infections and some debate as to why they tend to disappear relatively quickly - mutation, natural immunity, seasonality, etc.
Nothing worse than a dangerous knowledge base where experts wth reliant careers and credibility need to put statements on public record.
I hope that by Summer this is a distant memory and the experts are debating whether containment caused more issue than it cured. There is some suggestion that it could well be shutting the stable door after the horse has bolts; I hope not!