Is there any point in 'low risk' bonds?

[fedup078]

Please be gentle as I'm a total novice
I put some money in vanguard life strategy and spread it over the 5 different mixes of shares and bonds
The bond heavy accounts have now lost money , should I just move that money to the share heavy accounts ?

Are you saying that you have 5 different Lifestrategy funds? The point of those funds is that you only need one, generally.

Bonds help to smooth the ups and downs but they don't prevent the ups and downs, as many bonds/gilts change value like equities do.

Markets at the moment are very variable, Sometimes a fund may be 10% or more down vs what it was the day before, then it may go up again and keep going up for a while. War, poor harvests, inflation, shortage of fertiliser, all sorts of things can affect the markets, as they can have an affect on company profits.

Selling locks in a loss, so I would not sell but I would rethink your investment strategy and keep putting money in to the fund/funds which you intend to keep long term.

the point is to leave the money there to ride out the variances, for a period of several years.

You are unlikely to lose money (in nominal terms) on low risk bonds if you hold them long enough.

If they have a low risk of default, you should get your money back with interest on top.

However, the value of bonds fluctuates with interest rates. Interest rates have gone up so if you sell now, you will have lost money.