Investment & Investing

Or wait, can you open it with more than £250?

£250 max per month I believe

Anyway I think in terms of where I'd be putting the bulk of this money would be into Vanguard, just working out what index fund; LS100 is heavily UK weighted, so am wondering if drip feeding into S&P 500 might also be worth a shout...

Would it not be easier to just buy the FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund (Accumulation) instead of trying to manually diversify with a combo of LS100 and S&P500?

Would it not be easier to just buy the FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund (Accumulation) instead of trying to manually diversify with a combo of LS100 and S&P500?

Investment advisors hate him/her/them for this one simple trick!

FTSE Global All Cap has an OCF of 0.23%, so it might be cheaper to do it manually if you really just want something like FTSE 100 (0.09%), Europe ex UK (0.12%) and the S&P 500 (0.09%).

I guess it depends how much you want to sink into Japan, APAC and miscellaneous other (developing or whatever), which do have higher fees.

Whatever you do I'd just set it up once and leave it alone, if you're going to want to keep rebalancing then just choosing the global fund is probably more sensible.

I should probably add that it's likely we'll be looking at buying a first property in the next 3-5 years, so in the grand scheme of things I'm not sure another fund for such a short period is a good idea. Happy to just keep the LISA going (it's where most of my money is being put) and then the LS100 for the longer term.

Premium bonds then, I guess?

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/08/rising-inflation-could-trigger-global-sell-off-that-would-harm-uk-says-bank

Hmm

I am a passive investor, and of the opinion that crypto is gambling madness. But there is the nagging thought that I could be a luddite, and may look back in 10 years to regret my antiquated notions.

Does anymore more informed have an alternate view that there is room for sensible investing in this space?

I have similar attitudes / feelings about it.

Possibly useful: consider if you can meet your investment objectives without 'needing' to invest in Crypto. If so, ignore crypto.

Like that 'ignore what others do, focus on your own training' paraphrased cycling quote

It's gambling in a similar vein to small companies listed on AIM, nobody has a scooby where they're gonna go. Individual coins certainly seems like rolling the dice, however, there's a case to be made for chucking some spare change at a blockchain ETF or something similar.

If nothing else it'll alleviate the FOMO, but I wouldn't be putting any significant funds into it just yet.

Sensible investing is probably a stretch without investing a considerable amount of time in research.

If you're concerned about missing out then invest a small amount of money. If it turns out that crypto is really a stellar investment then that small amount will be a big amount. If that isn't the case then you won't have lost too much.

A bit annoying that the FCA won't let us buy crypto derivatives as some big crypto ETF equivalent is the obvious way to mitigate FOMO. Instead you actually have to think about what you're doing and do research 😒

Or just YOLO shitcoins

You don't to be a luddite about crypto / blockchain to think that buying anycoin stretches the definition of investment to beyond breaking.

To pile in with myself on the Chip negativity, they're offering an NFT as a "reward" for investing with them?

They must have so many private investors on board that if they ever IPO the price will absolutely tank as everyone tries to cash out.

Found the tone of the Chip raise odd... especially the "after all we're going to the moon" and the calculator of how much your investment could be worth if they reach say a Monzo/Revolut/FreeTrade valuation

No idea how much you're investing but it wouldnt be a bad idea to put a small amount into BTC and just hold it. In my view it is sensible enough to put in an amount thats not going to be a disaster if you lose it, until you get a feel for the space. BTC is also gaining traction as a hedge against inflation.

If you wanted to branch out then a smattering across ETH, DOT, SOL and LINK as well could be an idea. The market is pretty buoyant just now, you could maybe wait a couple of weeks for a cooling off.

I am a passive investor, and of the opinion that crypto is gambling madness. But there is the nagging thought that I could be a luddite, and may look back in 10 years to regret my antiquated notions.

Does anymore more informed have an alternate view that there is room for sensible investing in this space?

This is a decent read on that area that I came across a couple of days ago.
https://monevator.com/should-you-own-bitcoin-in-your-portfolio/

Of course it doesn't give the answer, but shows how that guy has thought about it.

You have to be in it to win it.

Also, buying more than one ticket in the lotto is a waste as there's no statistical advantage to having 2 tickets over 1.

Edit: unless you're @ChasnotRobert who is willing to buy them all.

buy more than one ticket in the lotto is a waste as there's no statistical advantage to having 2 tickets over 1.

What, one ticket ever? What about 14 million tickets? No better?

Sure.... Go for it.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that playing the lottery is a rational thing to do, because it isn't.

However whilst each ticket has the same chance of winning, more tickets = more chances. Taken to extremes, the overall chance of winning would be very high, for example, if you were to buy 20 million tickets.

Edit: apparently it's around 45,000,000:1 for the jackpot so my example should be more like 50 million tickets. Same principle though.

Unless you bought 20 million tickets with the same numbers ...

Would potentially work if it was for 20 million different draws. Requires a multi generational investment strategy, though :)

Even if you bought 45 million tickets, they'd still sell the original 45 million meaning you'd only have a 1:2 chance

For shits and giggles, if one was to play the lottery twice a week using the same numbers for 20 million games, it would take about 191,780 years and there would be approximately a 50% probability of winning the jackpot within those 191,780 years.

Hence it's not a rational idea.

Anyone know who won the lottery some time around 189,759 years BC? Asking for a friend.