This week the extraordinary three-month rally on the stock market was confirmed as the strongest second quarter investors have enjoyed in five years.
For the quarter of a million people who are contributing to equity SSIA accounts this is welcome news but it also poses an important question.
As analysts are divided on whether this rally can be sustained, should investors cut their losses and cash in their SSIAs now or consider switching to a fixed-rate deposit account, which is expected to return the highest gains by the end of the Government's contribution to the scheme in three years?
According to institutional investors, the answer to the first question should be a resounding no. However, those who have the option of switching to a fixed-rate deposit account within an institution should consider such a move if they need to encash their SSIAs by the 2006 deadline.
Mr Dermot O'Brien, market retail investments manager with Irish Life & Permanent TSB, said: "Clearly some people will have budgeted to cash in their savings at the end of the five-year scheme and, if they are not prepared to endure more volatility, then switching to a deposit account is a good choice. But of course you are then crystallising the losses from the stock markets."
As The Irish Times discovered, the "Baghdad bounce" has not been enough to push equity SSIAs into the black and some economists argue the future direction of the market is far from clear.
Having opened the Government-sponsored schemes in the midst of a bear market, when volatility tends to be greatest, savers have little guidance on the final return.
Most investors are predicting an average gain of 6 per cent a year from equities but, in the current climate, nothing is certain.
Data show that stock markets in the US are swinging up and down more feverishly now than at any other time since the Depression.
In this scenario, investors advise, there is only one solution - prepare for the long haul.
Mr John McGovern, an independent investor with Becketts Employee Benefit Consultants, said he advised clients not to open equity SSIAs unless they were "prepared to hold them beyond five years".
He said the recent rally had not altered his position. "I don't think this rally has enough substance behind it to continue much further on the upside and one brokerage house claims the US has a 40 per cent chance of double-dipping. Having said that, I don't think returns on equities will dip below interest rates but those who want real value from their saving schemes should plan on contributing for at least another five years."
Although investors claim there are no signs of mass panic at the dramatic stock market swings, the latest figures from the Revenue Commissioners tell a different story. At the end of last year, more than 26,000 people stopped contributing to their SSIAs and lost the Government's 25 per cent bonus as a result.
It's believed that many of these lapsed accounts were equity SSIAs. However, there is no official information on the breakdown between equity-type and deposit-based accounts.
