Investment & Investing

fuck shorting stock but if I were going to I'd short Angi home services from mid Jan

Be very carefully with CFDs getting a bet go against you can mean you lose more then your original stake, and you get the dreaded margin call.
This can happen very quickly indeed if the market is volatile.

I'm not a financial advisor but the most important lesson I have learned over the years is to not take money advice from someone with less money... Watch and learn

https://youtu.be/m6Jg9b4Q-bY?si=zgWEwSzUxUNYkt0F

Up your financial literacy...
https://youtu.be/vX573A-wFUw?si=YA3gfT2LlGXI_XB6

the most important lesson I have learned over the years is to not take money advice from someone with less money

that seems like a shit lesson tbh

so... Buffett should be taking investment tips from Elon Musk?
someone with a rich parent and big inheritance can offer advice to most people?

Was meant more as a blanket statement. I understand that difference between trust fund babies and self made men. I apologize for the misunderstanding

Was meant more as a blanket statement.

As a generalisation, blanket statements are almost always a bad thing.

I was just getting at how some people don't practice what they preach. I had friendships end based on bad financial decisions. If you don't have a winning track record, you have no business preaching. Sorry if I've offended anyone

winning track records are temporary other than the expected statistical outliers.

I'm all for paying dues while learning the skill of money management. Not saying that I belong in the "Fuck you" money category but rather the freedom to say "Fuck this" and walk away without losing sleep. It all started with staying out of debt and learning how to make more then I spend. Wealth game is preserving your net worth, anything short of that is gambling. It's like people who buy lottery tickets and say it's an investment with an expectation of winning it all back.

I’m not really sure what’s to be learned from this video. Sell all your stocks because Berkshire Hathaway did?

Have not watched the video but I don’t think anyone should necessarily infer too much about the broader market from the perspective of buffets historically high amount of cash. He is defined by the value investing approach, buying undervalued and selling overvalued stocks - I think his recent actions are mainly a consequence of certain holdings like Apple meeting his selling criteria (and the amount of cash on hand is a consequence of how successful those investments have been, rather than him wanting to hold a specific amount of cash), i am sure he will be looking for where to invest that money next, as far as I am aware he is not known as someone that tries to time the market. I believe that he (or Berkshire Hathaway) still holds a very large amount of stocks that continue to meet his criteria as value investments and which would be expected to weather any volatility or uncertainty in the short to medium term (like a lot of the S&P500 outside of the mega cap tech stocks)

rather the freedom to say "Fuck this" and walk away without losing sleep.

i get this entirely; makes sense and helps with staying sane.

my point on the wider "success criteria" for market activities is that it's hard or perhaps impossible to differentiate between skill and luck.

basic money management is 100% learnable though.

I'm not saying to do anything with your money or investments but rather learn how to calculate risk with current economic conditions. There is fair value/undervalued and now overvalued stocks... Which one to choose is entirely based on your risk tolerance. Bitcoin since the inception has been and will always be speculative for example. Money supply can and will always be manipuated by our central banking system which is ultimately dictated by Governments. I have been studying the 7 hermetic principles and apply them to everyday applications but I'm no Freemason.

£75 in PBs this month, £625 for the year. Not a bad effort I guess

Yeah, no £1m PB win and so the relentless drudgery of wage slavery continues.

Got better than 5% on the year though. Thanks PB.

I have 1k in premium bonds and no prizes in just over a year. Saving all my luck for the big one.

I am thinking of maxing out my AVCs - is there anything I should be aware of besides making sure it still leaves enough in my pay packet?

Just remember you won't have access to it until your after 55 and soon to be 57.

That's what I really need to bear in mind, I guess. It's not like - say - an ISA where you can get at it, if needed.

How does the tax relief work out? I know I won't be taxed on the contribution because it leaves my pay before tax is calculated, but at the other end when I take my pension it will be taxed then right?

£0 on the PBs for the 2nd month in a row, v disappoint.

Will be taking some out to invest in a new road bike after the January draw, hoping an early 2025 win means I can get something more exotic.

You can take out 25% of your pension pot tax free, after 55 (and soon to be 57 as @wildwest says). After that, you’ll be taxed at standard rates on your income from your pension. You can, obviously, only do one tax-free withdrawal, so need to think about the timing of that.

Thank you.

I should know all of this, but are the tax rates as per income tax? So 0, 20, 40, 50% - depending on amount (and any additional income)?

I should know all of this, but are the tax rates as per income tax?

Yes, when you get your pension it's treated as income and income tax is due as expected.

The age 55 or 57 thing will depend on your age, when you took your pension, etc. As long as I keep one of my old employer pensions I'll be able to take that from 55. My more recent employer pensions will all be from 57 (as the age changes to 57 from 6th April 2028 and I won't be 55 before then). If I moved my oldest employer pension into a new pension I may lose the ability to get it at 55. Google NMPA for more info on all of this.

As a generalisation: when saving you either:
a) Put money from your pre-tax salary into something like a pension and it is taxed on the way out.
b) Put money from your post-tax salary into something like an ISA and the results of that are tax free.

The point is that by the time it gets into your grubby hands you have paid tax on it at least once.

You can take multiple withdrawals each with a tax free portion.