Investment & Investing

I'd stick it all into a global all cap index fund. Something like Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index. Mostly invested in the biggest tech companies. Tech is probably just going to get richer and more powerful in the long term (even if we have a world war the tech companies will likely be getting rich off the analytics and as communication providers just like in the pandemic and governments would be shovelling cash into them for it), and the incumbents are all more rich and powerful than any company ever has been in history. I mean yes we might see a crash in the next few years, but that is always on the table. Cash can crash (inflation), Bitcoin and crypto crashes all the time, gold can crash. It is all about patience and never investing what you cant afford to lose.

I am old fashioned and think that having a good honest career that brings in decent wages, changing jobs if your current job pays fuck all and has no prospects, and being frugal and practical/handy gets you very far. It has served me very well.

(I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. Speak to a financial advisor and don't listen to me, I don't really know what I am talking about.)

Quite the dredge, but now I'm wondering just how much @Well_is_it put into Tesla 7 years ago...

All cap indexes also have the advantage of being cheap.

HSBCs UK all share is, iirc, 0.07% p.a.

Compared with many sector indexes being 1% - 3%

It's was a dredge but still seems to be relevant.

I think a global all cap index fund, something like Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index still is a good base for one's portfolio.

But yes, Tesla....

After some opinions – I've been putting a few hundred £££ into savings every month, but the interest is a measly 0.01%. Been tinkering with Freetrade for the last month with very small amounts and enjoyed it so far.

Is this a good time to put £500-1k over the next few months into investing in a nice spread of different stocks with the intention of letting them sit there long term? It would be an alternative to savings where hopefully there would be enough gains in the long run to beat inflation (but if I lose some its not a big deal).

But my reluctance is that things look a bit shaky at the moment and I'm wary of there being a big market correction, or various current crises having a big effect. Or is it always like this?

So I suppose my question is: wait for a correction and buy then, or dive in now knowing that in five years time it probably won't matter?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2021/02/12/dollar-cost-averaging-vs-lump-sum-investing-how-to-decide/?sh=28d6b2a87c50

Unless you want this to be a new hobby/something you put lots of time in to the simple approach is to put your money in big ETFs and delete the Freetrade app so you aren’t checking it all the time.

If you want to feel like you’re making some choices you can spread your cash across funds which focus on specific themes (eg tech, energy etc) as well as something which tracks the whole market.

This is my approach as someone with only slightly above average knowledge of how markets work and I have no intention of spending more time thinking about the ins and outs of my savings.

Alternatively put it all in GME and Dogecoin and you’ll be a millionaire by this time next year.

https://twitter.com/BondHack/status/1441428087640674305?s=09

set up a vanguard account and get a couple of ETF's of varying risks. If you're looking long term any crash will play itself out and there is no point trying to time the market.

You could put £200 in a month and if the market goes down put more in! if it goes down even more, keep putting more in so you have bought more at lower levels. Don't lump it all in one go.

Buying individual stocks is higher risk and I think I only have about 5% on individual stocks, 95% in ETF's.

If you had bought into a S&P 500 tracker before the crash in 2008, you'd still be doing pretty well. Equally however, if you had bought during the 2000 crash it would be 13 years ybefore you start seeing profit. However, assuming you carried on investing while the S&P was down, you'd be up much sooner.

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Without wanting to sound golfy that sounds like money you could afford to lose. In which case I'd have a punt.

Thanks for the help all. Putting in a smaller amount each month into EFTs sounds like a good shout. That way I can still put money into my sensible savings account and not feel like I'm YOLOing too much!

When I get bored I'll cash it all out and put it on Dogecoin.

Putting money in an account that pays no interest is throwing money away. I’d drop feed all of it in to Vanguard or Nutmeg or whatever. Or pay down debt if I really had no better ideas.

Diversification is advisable. All equities is bit risk especially as market is toppy with lots of unresolved risk

Depends how soon you need the money, surely?

Diversification is advisable. All equities is bit risk especially as market is toppy with lots of unresolved risk

Always, yes - you can buy diversification through fund selection or pay a fund manager to do it for you.

The flip side of a lot of the above is if you can pick good stocks there’s a decent return to be made and you can just research things you know or like. My Freetrade is mostly me picking stocks and it’s outperformed everything else I put money in to over the past 3yrs. But it is higher risk

I’m old enough to remember the last slew of free or cheap trading apps, just before the crash of ‘08. I put a few grand in and lost about 10% in a year. This was before the crash itself. I remember wanting to put most of it in Apple but at the time you had to complete a ton of actual paperwork to invest in a US stock and I couldn’t be bothered. The ads for Selftrade on US TV had the strapline, “he’s got money out the wazoo!” We know how that all turned out. People were saying, “If I can make money off trading stocks anyone can!” Compare “if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.” Luck: good or bad.

yup. I remember when RBS was yielding 6%, people were saying it was free money. I bought some at the time. Eventually cashed out about 10 years later with around 75% loss.

Ok, I had other shares that didn't do quite so bad, but falling tide tends to have the same effect as rising tide. We just haven't had one for a while...

Holy fuck lol

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/why-buying-the-dip-is-a-terrible-investment-strategy/

Thanks, that's really helpful. I also found an article which addressed another one of my worries: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/are-we-in-a-melt-up/.

Will keep reading and learning. I spoke to my mum about my plan today and she's supportive so that's always a good thing, right?

This is great, particularly the sensitivity analysis at the end.

I quite like the "buy art not equity" advert at the bottom.

NFTs all round!

The investment advice of people who are already comfortably off is always worth taking with an industrial sized pinch of salt.

Anyone investing who is not comfortably off has got something wrong, no?

"I'm struggling to make rent and feed my famiky. Should I invest in SEAsian Tech stocks, or midcap US Oil and Gas?"

Anyone investing who is not comfortably off has got something wrong, no?

Ha, no, it was me conflating the two articles but the point kind of stands.

It was this "This is why I have been buying more art and crypto over the past year." line in the melt up article, which was neatly followed with:-

"I have come to realize that the vast majority of my wealth (and my career) is linked to traditional financial markets. Therefore, to hedge this exposure, I have been buying more non-traditional assets over time."

He can afford to take the risk on art/crypto as he's probably got a rock solid traditional/diversified set of investments to fall back on should that all go to pot.

It makes it sound like the only way he could get some stability/diversification was to invest in non-traditional assets, rather than being able to be diverse even within normal investment options of stocks/bonds/etc.