Advice on investing £128,000?

jerusalem2006

Just wanting some advice really.

My partner and I have about £45,000 in a savings account and about another £90,000 invested in stocks and shares which are doing very badly and we have lost about £7,000 on those, so £83,000 left (of which approx £26,000 is in a stocks and shares ISA). So, in total (if we sell the stocks and shares) we would have approx £128,000 to invest (£45,000 + £83,000).

I am thinking of selling the stocks and shares and putting the lump sum together into a high interest savings account or bond but I don't know which is best and if there is any account that gives really high interest rates for savings over £100,000?

If anyone can recommend where to invest it, or whether we should just keep it in stocks and shares and sit it out and hope the market recovers in the next year or so?

Cheers!

pawpurrs

Sorry no advice, but just wanted to say I have a similar amount and want to acheive the most intrest would like easy access though, any advice?

dunstonh

and about another £90,000 invested in stocks and shares which are doing very badly and we have lost about £7,000 on those,

If you have £90,000 invested in stocks and shares then a £7000 loss is not at all bad. As the markets are down over 20%, your loss is only 7%. So, they are not doing badly.

If anyone can recommend where to invest it,

There is little point taking it out of one investment to put it into another investment. There are going to be risks with the new investments depending on the investments you use.

Before you do anything you need to understand investing more. If I was 100% into stocks and shares and had only suffered a 7% loss in a 20% downturn I would be very happy. You have beaten the market. Although 100% of your investments in stocks and shares is higher risk and it doesnt sound like you are a higher risk individual. investments which dont include stocks and shares could be utilised to bring your risk down a bit. Having £45k in cash and then £90k in stocks and shares means you have money at both ends of the risk scale but nothing in between.

You dont mention anything about the investments other than they are stocks and shares and some of that is held inside an ISA. We need to know more to comment.

wombat42_2

I agree with what dunstonh has said. Also you say nothing about timescales. You need to consider stocks and shares over at least 5 years preferably 10. You have to expect a few bad years along the way.

Assuming you can invest for 5 or more years more and based on the little info you have given i would either

1/ keep all the stocks and shares investment and put any future savings into cash only
2/ maybe shift about 20K of stocks and shares into cash plus any future savings into cash.

You also need to consider what is in your stocks and shares portfolio but by the sound of it it is relatively low risk as you have lost less than the general market.

jerusalem2006

Thanks for responding.

The cash element is just in a basic savings account. All the money invested in stocks and shares are in a combination of funds and bonds. I don't have the details to hand.

I do not know a lot about investing, hence my asking.

We are in it for the longterm but my fear is that the markets (and especially property funds) will not recover for years (according to the bleak reports in all the papers) and by that time we will have not only lost a lot from the shares but also all the interest we would have made from them being invested in cash.

What I meant with my original question is whether it makes more sense to cut our losses and put all the money together (into cash or bonds) to generatel interest to recoup the money lost and then keep it in cash until the financial outlook improves?

It is low to medium risk IIRC.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

I'm not sure about investing however if you're considernig saving a portion of the money then I'd suggest the following:

1. Generally ISA's are a good place to start:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sav...gs-without-tax
and http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=401374

2. Regular savings accounts are good too:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sav...vings-accounts
and http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=608697

Regular savings accounts are generally a good place for new money e.g. monthly pay cheques, however if for example you have £3k in a 6% high-interest bank account drip-feeding into a 10% regular savings account then you're essentially getting 8% interest on average for your £3k which beats most fixed rate products - albeit with a bit more work.

3. If you want something with a little less work then fixed rate savings accounts are a good option:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sav...interest#fixed
and http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/saving-...&in_page_id=50

4. One other thing you might like to consider is getting a decent instant access savings account:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sav...st#topaccounts
and http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/saving-...&in_page_id=50

5. Finally if you're a higher rate tax payer then NS&I's 3 and 5 year Index Linked Savings (http://www.nsandi.com/products/ilsc/index.jsp) look good, paying 1% above the RPI inflation rate. Currently this is 5.0% so that’s a rate of 6.0% overall.

The attractiveness of these is that the savings are tax-free meaning it's better for higher-rate taxpayers. Basic rate taxpayers would need to earn 7.5% in a normal savings account to match this, while higher rate taxpayers would need a 10%.

One thing to note is if inflation drops then so does the rate for these savings. It'll always be higher than inflation and tax free though.