Investment & Investing

alcohol intolerance

Is that a thing? How do I get it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disulfiram-like_drug

I can get ( nausea, vomiting, flushing, dizziness, throbbing headache, chest and abdominal discomfort) from booze, why would I take another drug to replicate that without the fun bit first?

Cheaper.

My vanguard stocks and shares ISA is almost back to the value it was when I set it up with a lump sum over a year ago. Retrospect probably would have been better just leaving in savings account/ premium bonds but I guess couldn't predict whats happened over the last year.

Timing the market is a mug's game (unless you're a professional discretionary trader in which case you have reams of analysis and you're anyway doing it with someone else's money).

The only general-purpose way to get a reasonable return that isn't luck, inside knowledge or very careful analysis is cost averaging, which just means buying in monthly or whatever so you have a good chance of buying close to wherever the bottom turns out to be.

is cost averaging

I seem to remember reading some analysis which showed that in the majority of time segments, investing a lump sum provided higher returns than PCA, ie time in the market > timing the market.

However many people may not have a lump sum to invest, so it may be a moot point in any case.

just see it as investing a smaller lump sum every month.

Putting all your money in right now is, on average, a better plan than holding off and averaging it in over time, trying to time the dip.

But you might still get unlucky.

Oh yeah, I didn't mean that putting the money in was a bad idea, just that worrying about timing it better is usually misguided (even if it's hard to avoid when you're looking at a sad graph instead of a happy one)

No point even looking at the graph until you're in your 50s anyway. Just keep plugging away and filling it up.

^ This is not investment advice.

(I'm just bitter from being bored stiff by the late-30s/early-40s dads at the primary school gate banging on about how their SIPPs have fallen through the floor.)

fallen through the floor.

How? Did they only invest in the UK?

interactive investor

"From 1 September 2023, we are making some changes to our pricing. We are decreasing commission on UK and US trades and other international trades, increasing the investment limit of Investor Essentials, and increasing the monthly subscription in Investor by £2, making it £11.99 per month."

I've got some kind of share save scheme maturing soon.

I can take the cash, which I presume will immediately be cut in half due to tax.

Or I can use the savings to buy the shares (which currently are worth less than the option price, but about the same price for all intents)

What would you do and why? I'm erring towards taking the cash, simply because I can't buy beer with shares but then maybe longer term shares might be a better idea? Although the trend for the shares has been down since maybe 2015.

all my tiny pots are doing shite. i have a savings account with a fixed interest of 3.5% when you can get 5 or 6% currently, i have an ethical investment account with triodos (in 3 parts) that is dismal, I have an ethical investment with royal london which is down on 2021 by about 20% and another which is only up by a minute amount, and I have a minimini pot with 212 inwhich I have lost about 25% of my spread of bets (all of which were doing great at one point).
I have the opposite of midas touch and am hoping for brighter times!

Think the best option is if you to continue to post picks and we can all counter play you and give you a kickback?

Tiny investments will always look shite. Especially those made post 2021.

i think fecklessness is the counter play i have already made against a load of other better options

what are the shares in? it's an employment related scheme or something else?

my employer, ftse

if you don't really need the cash, and the company isn't a total basket case, taking the shares doesn't sound like a terrible idea.

(as in, the cash isn't going to do much and you'll probably just spend it on beer as you mentioned earlier, whereas the shares might return something over time)

I don't need it but I do like bigger numbers in my account whereas shares are just funny money.

The thing is, the option price is more than the shares are worth currently so I could just take the money and buy shares if I wanted shares.

"If you choose this action, we will send you a share certificate for the shares you will have bought, normally about two weeks after receipt of your Maturity Instruction"

Where will the shares 'sit' then? It's not like I have a share portfolio with them. I guess the scheme has their own share repository or something? Or are we talking paper certs here? No one does that surely?

"If you put the shares into an
Individual Savings Account (ISA) or
pension as soon as you exercise the
Option to buy shares you may not
have to pay Capital Gains Tax."

I guess the point is, they're assuming the shares will have increased in value and you then get to buy them cheap, but this hasn't happened and I don't give a shit about having shares... so maybe I should just take the money and run.

obviously the option price being above the current market does make it less attractive.

it sounds like they are going to send you a paper cert which could be a bit of a pain. you could just chuck the cash into an ISA instead, assuming you have unused allowance.

I don't have an ISA so I assume I've got full amount available. They earn fuck all though right so wouldn't it make more sense just to stick it into a savings account or buy stocks with it in my pension SIPP thingie? Or just dump it into my pension as cash deposit (I assume you can do this)

If you open a stocks and shares ISA then you can invest in a range of stuff, index trackers, funds, shares etc.

Equally you could put it in your SIPP if you don't need access to it anytime soon.

If you add it to a managed pension I think they will invest it for you i e. It won't stay as cash (as far as I understand it)

Is there typically a cost to opening and/or running a S&S ISA with a high street bank? That might be a neat option if it's not spendy to maintain.

EDIT: "We charge an annual service fee of 0.25% for the running of your investment portfolio, which is payable quarterly and taken from your nominated account.

Fund managers also apply an annual management charge and other expenses which are deducted directly from the fund. These will vary depending on the portfolio you choose.

This means if you invest £1000 over a year and both the service fee and the Fund manager's annual charge are 0.25%, your ongoing costs for the first year will be around £5.

You’ll find a breakdown of all of the charges in the relevant portfolio's 'Costs and charges' PDF document."