RE: .13 Oct 2025 09:41
Walp - welcome back; it's been a while!
First thing is DON'T base any investment decisions (particularly with your retirement pot) on other posters' recommendations.
You don't know who they are (myself included) and they almost certainly won't be qualified financial advisers. I'm not!
It's hard, in any case, to give suggestions without knowing your circumstances more fully. Age, health. dependents, risk appetite, available liquid savings etc all play an important role.
You're clearly worried about the risk of markets falling and have mentioned this several times previously. It sounds as though you've built up an adequate retirement pot as things stand, but without huge leeway if there was a major short term market correction.
One thought - assuming you haven't done it already - is to sell 25% of your SIPP and take this as a tax-free lump sum now. That would give you income in the short term. And assuming there was money left over, you could drip feed this into a Stocks & Shares or even a Cash ISA (subject to your £20k annual limit). The advantage here is it would keep any future gains & drawings CGT & income tax free. It wouldn't shield you / your beneficiaries from IHT though (but then neither will SIPPS from April '27). It also means you'd be less invested (75% instead of 100), whilst retaining a decent market exposure in case your feared correction fails to materialise during your lifetime or is less severe.
Another possibility is to look at annuities. You mention health issues & I certainly don't wish to pry. But if any of these are life-limiting, you should find annuity providers willing to boost their standard rates for you. I'm not a fan of annuities, as you're giving up a lot (e.g. all the capital) in return for the security of a guaranteed lifetime return. But if security trumps everything, it might still be something to consider.
In terms of where to re-invest any tech proceeds, again hard to say without knowing more about you. There are individual shares which pay a good yield and have generally also increased in value over time. Aviva, L&G, M&G, Phoenix Group etc spring to mind. I've switched a small amount into a couple of these. To hedge, there are also options like gold ETFs. But gold is around all time highs currently and tends to correct dramatically as investment moods change.
If you're concerned about the US, you could look at more UK-centric funds like Edinburgh Investment Trust or Artemis SmartGARP UK Equity. But in a sense you wouldn't be fully diluting risk doing this, as if the US sneezes other markets will likely catch a cold.
Possible ways to get round this would be to switch into money market funds, cash ISAs / savings accounts, premium bonds etc. But again you're trading potential future returns for security.
You could also just do nothing, if time's on your side & you can ignore all the noise!
Above anything, get professional advice before taking major decisions with your future.
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