Recent monthly sales figures from the Investment Management Association (IMA) showed that balanced and money market funds had been the main beneficiaries of record retail outflows in November 2007. This is the biggest sign yet that investors and IFAs of a nervous disposition are hell-bent on fleeing the perceived risk of equities and property investment for the safety of more cautious options. It would seem that the run on a certain bank last year allied with the current market uncertainty has created something of a trend for mass withdrawal of client funds from potentially sticky situations. No longer the famed British ‘grin and bear it’ approach.   The theme that would seem to be missing from the ‘stick or twist’ debate is that most investments should be for the long-term. A glance at past performance charts for equity and property investments over the past century should serve as a timely reminder of the ability for markets to experience occasional reversals in fortune without having a long-term effect. Reference to past performance over the long-term would at least provide investors with a level of comfort in uncertain times. An old stockbroker friend once told me that if you have time on your side the best strategy in times of a falling market is to put all investments in the bottom drawer for a while and avoid all financial press! Panic selling is almost always done too late, as is re-investment in the market, so just leave it where it is. The current market should provide the ideal backdrop to appraise the true skills of a fund manager. Anyone can make hay while the sun shines but a bear market will inevitably sort out the men from the boys in the fund management world. Those investors and IFAs who are not prepared to wait should at least examine fund manager strategy and performance during this time ahead of any knee-jerk reaction.  However stemming the tide of withdrawals from equity and property investment will evidently not be easy and cash based options are likely to prove a popular choice for investors in Q1 2008. To this end those companies seeking to attract new money into cash based solutions, particularly for ISA and SIPP business ahead of the tax year end, will be homing in on the competitiveness of their interest rate terms. This could lead to heavyweight clashes between the retail banks for cash ISA business and the inevitable squabbles between SIPP providers about the merits of their cash deposit facilities.