WWYD re these Nat West shares? Help! Should I sell or hold?

[Blondiebeachbabe]

Hi all. Really don't know what to do here, and would appreciate some advice.

I have some shares with Nat West, which I accumulated when I worked there.

Back in the day, the value of the pot was circa £50k. I built these up over a few decades, through an employee share scheme.

I no longer work there. The value of my share pot is now about £8800.

I always thought I'd hold on to these, to see if the value recovered, but looking back at the data for the past 10 years (which is as far back as I can find on-line), it looks like this :

Share price today : £3.05

2014-2016 : share price always greater than £3.05

2016 - 2024 : share price has only gone above £3.05 on four occasions, and only for a few days, before it drops below.

Part of me wants to cut and run, and sell them all.

Another part of me knows, that I will then have accepted the £42k loss.

If I didn't own shares, I would not buy any. I am now understandably, quite risk averse.

What do you think? TIA.

Did you actually buy them or were you given them via an emplyee scheme?
Banking shares are not something I have ever bought since I started investing around 6/7 years ago
If you paid for them are you in profit vs what you paid? If you were given them then I would sell them , you havent lost £42k you never had it

If I gave you £8800 cash right now, would you buy NatWest shares with it? The answers clearly no; sell them. I know it’s painful. But you can then invest them in something more diversified, or go on holiday, or put it in your emergency fund.
lots of shit has gone down in the banking industry in the last 15 years and I doubt your shares will ever recover to any meaningful degree. Yes maybe if you timed it right you might make a couple of thousand more than today, but the best minds struggle to time the market successfully so I doubt you will manage it!! Sorry!! Sounds like it’s much more useful to you as cash .

It was a scheme whereby you saved an amount monthly, and at the end of the 5 years you could buy the shares for what they were worth at the time you started saving. So I have paid for them, yes.

Re "are you in profit vs what you paid", I actually have no idea. I had many schemes running at the same time, and since then, there have been rights issues which changes the share price etc. I'm not clever enough to work this out.

When I say I've lost £42k, what I mean is, had I sold them all in 2006 (say), then I would have had £50k transferred to my bank account. I didn't foresee the financial crash coming.

No, I definitely would never buy any shares, in anything, ever again. Feel too burnt!

I guess I'm worried that in 15 years, the price will have shot up, and I'll kick myself for selling. But equally they could go down! At one point in 2020, my pot was only worth £3000.

Aargh!

Hoppinggreen Sorry, a very crude calculation shows me that I paid way more than £8800 for them actually. Over many, many years. But I also sold many over the years at great profit, to pay for house renovations and holidays etc. Impossible to know what this pot left "owes" me, iyswim.

The thing with shares is that you never know.
They could go up or they could go down and you have to be very philosophical about it. I have sold shares and made a very small profit or broken even to see them shoot up but I have done the same and seen them plumet.
If you do sell now you need to never ever look at the Share price again 😀

Do you need the £8000 now? If so, sell them!

Yes, it's so hard isn't it? I like the idea of never checking the share price again, ha ha.

No, I don't need the money now. It's more a case of me worrying they will plummet again, and wanting maybe to get out.

I would sell and at least put the cash into an account earning 5%+ interest while the rates are still high. There’s no point with “what if” - it won’t get you anywhere!

Look you would be much better off taking the money and buying google or meta etc

OR
just sticking it in a tax free isa wrapper with vanguard or aj bell…

Alternative perspective - if it's "spare money" that you don't need, it doesn't matter if you lose it...

Ultimately it comes down to whether you think the shares will ever be significantly more; if so then hang on, if not then either cash in or sell and buy shares in something else.

However you will need to work out what you paid for them as you may have a CGT liability. It's unlikely based on what you've said, but possible if you bought at a price of £1.50 or less...

Sell them and put the money into a global tracker inside an ISA.

The average twelve-month price prediction for NatWest Group is GBX 313.89 with a high price target of GBX 350 and a low price target of GBX 230.

According to analysts, NatWest Group's stock has a predicted upside of 31.26% based on their 12-month stock forecasts.

I would hold for a year and reevaluate.

Ah….so you’ve sold a bunch of the shares, so it’s not a complete loss of £42k?

I'm in a similar situation OP with Lloyds shares.

No idea what the right answer is, I guess it depends if you need the money or not. Interest rates are relatively high so if you take it out you could lock it into a decent fixed rate ISA.

Sell them and put it into premium bonds. They can't lose value.

Do you get a dividend? If so is this cash or reinvested?

If you're as cautious as you say, you could stick that 8800 (minus transaction fee - assume no capital gains!) in a 5% ISA and get about £36 a month (assuming rates don't change etc) with a bit of compound interest building on the way.

Or pay into a pension pot - still a risk but usually a good return.

Premium bonds - chance to win a million but your savings 'devalues' due to inflation with no guarantee of winning anything

Or forget about it, roll the dice and treat it like any other investment where anything could happen.

Or a spread of the above!

It depends most on whether you need that money now, whether you will rely on it in the future or it's just part of your savings for a rainy day?

I would sell them, you need to work out and declare if you have made a capital loss as you would be able to carry this forward against any future capital gains profits that you make

Does this have to be an all or nothing decision? Or could you sell half for £4,400 (in case they go down) and keep the rest for longer (in case they go up)?

So you bought them through a Sharesave scheme. Have you no emails relating to this?
Have you really not retained any information relating to the purchase, how would you work out your CGT liability if the share price were to rise and you cashed them in?
What dividends have you received over the years?

No, I really can't work out what these shares owe me, iyswim. I bought and sold over a 20+ year period. I do know though, that my pot was worth about £50k in 2006 (or thereabouts), and it's now worth £8800. I do get a dividend. It was £333 the last time, which was just credited to me yesterday. There's no way there would be any capital gains to pay, if I sold them now. You were allowed to invest £250 pm, which I was doing, for many many years.

If I had £8800 sitting in my current account right now, there's no way I would buy Nat West Shares, so I think that's probably my answer! Get rid whilst they are at (almost) a 10 year high. And if they double over the net 10 years, well that's just how it goes. At least I would have earned 10 years cumulative interest on the cash if it was in an ISA.

Bump

Difficult one. The government is about to sell a big chunk of shares later this year I think which would make getting in earlier a good idea. But also now interest rates are much higher hence increasing profits and this improves the share price which could continue.

I think on balance if I was able to put the proceeds into an ISA I’d probably sell. But I pay HRT.

I have a similar dilemma in respect of a smaller amount in tobacco shares from a previous share scheme. They pay good dividends so I keep them but over time the capital value is dwindling for obvious reasons. I really should take some action myself.