£600.000 to invest. what do i do ??

project500

barnaby-bear wrote: »

USe some of it to pay for professional advice rather than ask a scragbag of nutters, fantasists and total strangers on the internet

Oh come on barnaby-bear its nice to talk to a scragbag of nutters, fantasists and total strangers on the internet its good fun and interesting ,get a life what are you doing here on this site if not wanting to engage similar!
　
After all whichever holier than thou attitude financial advisor you use if you were caught in the recent downturn they all lost a good chunk of your money for you, and if you complain they turn round blamelessly and say it was market forces and you agreed to that risk profile .
I think that about sums financial advising insofar as they all want paying before you invest ,non that I have heard of take profit only from profitable results!
They are just placing bets on the markets and getting paid commission for it ,at least William Hill or Ladbrokes do it for free!

dunstonh

After all whichever holier than thou attitude financial advisor you use if you were caught in the recent downturn they all lost a good chunk of your money for you

How much is a good chunk?

and if you complain they turn round blamelessly and say it was market forces and you agreed to that risk profile .

Which is totally the correct response.

Anything thinking that an IFA has a crystal ball that can magically allow them to turn in positive returns when everything is going down is sadly deluded.

I think that about sums financial advising insofar as they all want paying before you invest ,non that I have heard of take profit only from profitable results!

You can choose how the adviser is paid. If you want the adviser to be paid based on the value of your fund then its certainly possible and very common.

It seems to me though that you want a magician and not an adviser.

project500

What’s the point of having a financial advisor if he hasn’t got a crystal ball! If they are just guessing anyone can do that ,I would say a crystal ball is a must!
Being a magician would be a good help but not essential .
I didn’t hear of any financial advisors handing the losses of their fund choices value back to their client in the recent downturn!

Aegis

project500 wrote: »

What’s the point of having a financial advisor if he hasn’t got a crystal ball! If they are just guessing anyone can do that ,I would say a crystal ball is a must!
Being a magician would be a good help but not essential .
I didn’t hear of any financial advisors handing the losses of their fund choices value back to their client in the recent downturn!

Of course they didn't. All investments come with the caveat "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and are not guaranteed." or some variation. Nowhere in the IFA's terms of service do they guarantee that all funds will go up all the time, instead their goal is to set up a diversified portfolio that is supposed to fit in with your risk profile and investment objectives over the long term.

A short term slip like this is to be expected every few years. Over the long run you'll probably be fine.

project500

Aegis wrote: »

A short term slip like this is to be expected every few years. Over the long run you'll probably be fine.

On the BBC moneybox program they were saying that shares are back where they were 12 years ago so I wouldn’t call that a short term slip !!!


It seems to me that by the time one has paid ?%commission to your advisor and ?% commission every year to your fund manager the only people making any real money out of investments are the people who have been pushing those investments. It is well realised that most pensions have been a con and the same “lot” where behind them that are behind most of these so called investment funds!!

Aegis

project500 wrote: »

On the BBC moneybox program they were saying that shares are back where they were 12 years ago so I wouldn’t call that a short term slip !!!

The FTSE 100 was last at this level only 5 or 6 years ago, and that ignores dividends of somewhere in the region of 4% a year. It's also been quite quickly increasing in value lately, which represents a good return for anyone who was either drip feeding or buying extra units after the sudden drop. Most good IFAs will probably recommend drip feeding for at least some of the money that goes into the market, so people following that advice will have benefited quite considerably.

It seems to me that by the time one has paid ?%commission to your advisor and ?% commission every year to your fund manager the only people making any real money out of investments are the people who have been pushing those investments.

And people who don't panic at these short term events and instead tend to hold on or regularly invest over time. The charges are very small in proportion to the gains that can be made, with a typical 1.25% annual charge on most unit trusts and OEICs these days. Considering the cost that would be incurred by buying your own diversified portfolio of shares, that's quite a bargain for most small-scale investors and it's a lot less hassle than most large-scale investors would have to endure if they wanted to hold such a basket of shares.

It is well realised that most pensions have been a con and the same “lot” where behind them that are behind most of these so called investment funds!!

It is not realised that most pensions have been a con. Most pensions have either been final salary pensions (mostly fine except where the company goes bust or suffers from loss of revenue over the years) or private money-purchase schemes linked to unitised investment vehicles. I would imagine that the number of pension "cons" are pretty much statistical outliers rather than the norm that you seem to propose.

sabretoothtigger

The ftse100 has been rubbish over 10 years, the last time it was a good prospect for growth was the nineties.
It does have good dividends but for whatever reason its not about to do anything exciting imo.
Ive learnt this after tracking it for most of this decade

Take a look at the Ftse mid cap or ftse250 which is all the biggest companies quoted who havent quite become giants, it excludes all the big banks for starters.

This index has grown 25% over the decade and on several time frames it looks a good deal for actual long term returns not just speculation.


Private investors have this idea of buying at the bottom and holding on for a rainy day like a deposit account, they'd be better off choosing the smaller slightly riskier but more rewarding uk companies

Invesco perpetual high income I think has this attitude hence their sucess


The all share is no good, that is just the 100 with a bit of sauce. 250 is because they sell off the biggest companies as they graduate and it makes sense that a bigger company would slow in growth especially as a purely uk play.
The alternative as we've seen is companies like rbs which bloat up in an attempt to conqueror the world, its easy to see why this has more problems then a smaller competitor

Antispam

I will have your babies

sabretoothtigger

Go away Madonna, they arent for sale

project500

I know a multimillionaire and because of his situation he gets a lot of financial advisors wanting to invest money for him.

When asked if they can handle his investments he politely asks them to send him a dossier on how their own personal investments have done over the last five years.

If there is a reasonable gain on your investments ,I will have you look over my investments with a view to a changing to your recommendations.


Funny he says they never send the dossier and I never hear further from them!