thanks for the useful info,
after reading into this and following the links I feel like the logical thing to do is go 100% equity
i am considering using the Vanguard LS 100 for ease of use through an ISA - unless anyone is a guru who definitely thinks this is a major mistake.. it seems quite diversified to me and exposure to a lot of markets
Haha, you've been on quite a wild ride on this thread! You may want to read up a bit more and really think about how you will feel (and more importantly what you will *do*) when your 100% stocks portfolio drops 30% (or more) in value. Even when, in your mind, you know it's the right decision, your monkey brain is going to panic or at least be severely bummed out when it looks at your ISA one day and sees that the value has dropped by thousands of pounds.
Basically the *worst* thing you can do is put all of your money into equities and then withdraw it in a panic at the bottom of the market. Promise us you won't do that and we'll endorse you putting all your money into equities. Otherwise, stay a little more conservative, at least until the next market drop.
Since you say ISA I'm assuming you're in the UK - this is probably actually a great time for you to get into equities, but it's also going to be really volatile for a while. So, for better or worse, if you invest in 100% equities, you're going to learn a lot about your emotional reactions to investing over the next several months or years. That's not the worst thing.
Personal anecdote time: My first experience investing was putting $3000 (all of my non-workplace-retirement-account savings) into a Vanguard Target fund in May of 2008 (a similar sort of vehicle to the Lifecycle investments). Eight months later the value had dropped to $1683. That really, really hurt. Fortunately I managed to leave the money in there (although I was not strong enough to keep contributing for a while). I didn't start contributing again for a year, and it was the end of 2010 before the account showed any gain at all - 0% return for the first year and a half I was investing. It sucked. But since then everything has been great and that initial $3000 is now worth a lot more. Of course I would have been even better off if I had managed to shove another $500 or $1000 into the account during the winter of 2008/9.
My father, who had a WHOLE LOT more money in the market, had an investment advisor who told him to put a lot of the money in cash post-crash, and he actually ended up losing money overall.
I hope that with those two illustrative examples, next time there's a serious market crash I'll keep my head and stick to my asset allocation. But I don't want to understate how difficult it is to do that. It's really hard. Otherwise-smart people make bad decisions when they see their net worth drop overnight. I'm 90/10 stocks/bonds right now, moving towards 80/20 because of my short-term goals (house-buying). It's not always easy. It is honestly quite reassuring though to see all the people on these boards getting excited about "sales" whenever the market drops though.
