Reassurance: I'm putting 50 a month into investment, index funds and

[Summerwhereareyou]

All that happens is zero. Expect the amount I put in goes up and the amount it's worth stays the same.

Any reassurance. I know things are suppresed but it's hard to keep the faith at the moment.

Thank you grass. So I'm taking it that shorting is a short term thing. I thought it might.mean more of a balance in case ones thing's goes down like equity and bond

Yes, more short term. Your suggestions are also a good plan but more in terms of diversifying across assets.

Usually (and last year excluded), equities and bonds aren't highly correlated so if one underperforms, the other may outperform. Commodities also have different drivers (gold is trading near its record high for example). So spreading across different asset classes can help to manage risk.

You can also manage downside risk for live-traded investments (shares, ETFs and investment trusts but not funds/OEICs) using a sell limit order (offered by most platforms).

Say you buy an S&P 500 ETF for £100. You could set a limit order at £90, meaning that your maximum downside exposure is 10% as it triggers the sale of your ETF if the price falls to £90. It's not perfect as the price might recover and you wish you'd waited. But it's another option (and you can do a similar thing with your purchase price).