Can You buy shares in the FTSE as a whole

Tim_Nicholas

This might be a silly question. You can buy shares in companies that are in the FTSE, but can you buy shares in the FTSE itself hoping for the number of points to increase ?

Aegis

Tim_Nicholas wrote: »

This might be a silly question. You can buy shares in companies that are in the FTSE, but can you buy shares in the FTSE itself hoping for the number of points to increase ?

Yes, by purchasing units in an index tracker. Whether this is a good idea or not compared to buying a managed funds seems to largely boil down to a matter of opinion and investing style, but in general either is likely to be better than directly purchasing shares, at least for someone who doesn't want to spend forever managing their own portfolio.

Max_Headroom_3

This is something I'm tempted to start dripping money into.

But how and where does one do this?

Can I just go up to Barclays Bank and open a FTSE100 investment account?

dunstonh

Can I just go up to Barclays Bank and open a FTSE100 investment account?

Only if you want to pay over the odds and go through the advice process. Although if you are considering a FTSE 100 linked investment then its probably worth going through the advice process which would hopefully put you off limiting yourself to such a narrow, poor performing index.

Max_Headroom_3

Ok, so, if I want to start dripping £100-£200/month into something, but know zero about investments and whatnot, where do I start?

TDS_2

Try Hargraeves Lansdown. Min payment per fund each month is £50. I'm sure there are alternatives though...

Also, as mentioned above, you might want to consider diversifying into several indices (if it's index trackers you're after).

foolonastrom

There are various online brokers, such as share.com, open an account with one, pick a fund such as HSBC FTSE100 tracker, buy some units in the fund. You can set up a regular monthly payment, with an instruction to buy further units at the prevailing rate.

You can also wrap this up in a share ISA.(Or at least you can on Share.com)

The FTSE is very volatile at the moment, so your investment may go down, or it may go up, or it may resemble a monkey on a bungee cord.

alanq

There are Guaranteed Equity Bonds linked to the FTSE. You get a percentage (greater or less than 100%) of any increase in the FTSE index perhaps capped at some maximum. Typically (always?) you get no dividends, you have no access to your money for a number of years and the return is subject to income tax. Your capital is "guaranteed" but that depends on the guarantor not going bust and is not covered by FSCS.

NS&I issue such bonds from time to time.
http://www.nsandi.com/products/geb/index.jsp

thrupence

Max_Headroom wrote: »

Ok, so, if I want to start dripping £100-£200/month into something, but know zero about investments and whatnot, where do I start?

Take care if you're using H-L for an index tracker in an ISA or SIPP. They charge an extra 0.50% per annum for many of them. You can see this in the ones with the asterisks below:

http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/Fund-discounts?func=search&formid=1003&stype=discounts&company=&sector=&investment=index#data

So according to that the best value FTSE tracker in terms of annual charges is the HSBC FTSE All Share Tracker Inst

http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/security_details/sedol/3100844

sabretoothtigger

About 40% of your money will go into 10 shares and a Ftse All share would be similar due to weighting.

I'd suggest 50 into a ftse but also 50 into another index so you can spread the risk that the ftse is really not going anywhere in the next few years.

Personally I'd do somewhere in asia as the western indexes all move together pretty much and you have some chance of growth out there but not much here

Grade_A_Reject

I opened a FTSE100 tracker with Legal & General through Quidco which netted me an extra £150 (now down to £85) cashback. http://www.quidco.com/legal-general-isas/