MSE News: Base rate held at 0.5%

Cautious_Investor_3

blinko wrote: »

your better off putting your shares in shell and getting 5 - 6% divi net 4.5 - 5.2% after tax and may even get growth they are up approx 10% this year

or infact you can get certain bond funds that pay you monthly approx yireld 4-5%

Hi

That's a rather sweeping comment without any reference to someones attitude to risk, a few months ago that post could easily have read "put your money in BP" and look what happened there.

Before someone makes an investment decision they really must think about how much risk (capital risk, inflation risk etc) they are prepared to take.

I'm not sure comments like "put it into Shell" are very helpful!

The Cautious Investor

Cautious_Investor_3

blinko wrote: »

your getting 2.5% above the base rate, tahts fantastic !

Not when inflation is higher than the interest you are getting, thereby erroding the real value of money.

The fact that you can get 2.5% above BBR is irrelevent when savings don't keep pace with inflation.

The Cautious Investor

Milarky

fullstop wrote: »

What exactly is The BOE remit , concerning inflation ?.

CPI at 2%, within a range of plus or minus 1%. For the first three years, until about 2006, the MPC/BOE actually managed to fulfill this. Since then CPI has rise about 4% above where it would be had they continued just at 2% pa (i.e we've actually had CPI average about 2.8% for 4 years). Yet, they could actually still point to this as 'an achievement' - since it hasn't averaged over 3%! Thus the remit (probably dictated word for word to the Chancellor by the Governor) allows the 'target' to be missed by a considerable margin - or fudge factor - and the MPC to still retain their 'credibility' - but only just.

But the same goes for anything the state has responsibility for these days - they are expected to have detailed, robust plans and policies but in practice the 'details' simply emerge in a fashion reminiscent of Blue Peter's ''here's one I made earlier''

Loughton_Monkey

lisyloo wrote: »

Base rates don't affect investment income, only savings income.

If you are relying on savings income, then yes there has always been an inflation risk with that.

Ah!

A fellow pedant on board.

Yes, you are right. Savings and Investments are different things. Generally used interchageably by the less sophisticated.

Just to be even more pedantic though, a base rate increase may just tip the balance in cost of servicing loans for a large company, who may then lose a bit more money, paying me slightly less dividend, affecting their share price, affecting my UK Equity fund, affecting my ISA, which happens to be an "Investment".

Still. Message understood!

lisyloo wrote: »

Are you too old to invest?

Good question. Personally, I don't wish to reveal how old I am. [When you get over sixty, like me, you get rather sensitive about these things. I may become more relaxed about it when I'm 62, next year.]

If I take the "thrust" of your questions, the answer is "very definitely". There is an exact age that represents the time to say spend, spend, spend. Enjoy life for the few years you have left. The trouble is, you can never calculate that age until you know eactly your death date. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

To give a more pedantic answer, it is definitely "Yes". My old Uncle Charlie had literally thousands under his mattress, which we all kept telling him to invest, to earn a bit of growth. But he couldn't walk very well at the age of 89, and certainly not down to the Post Office. He refused to use the Internet, and wouldn't let an IFA in his house calling them 'money-grabbing zits' (at least I think that's what he said......

So a definite case of being too old to invest.