How to safely invest £150K

Arthurian

Keep the equivalent of 6 months or so salary in an instant access savings account, just in case you're made redundant.

blinko

buy a house rent it out ?

getzegold

Buy.... gold?

dunstonh

getzegold wrote: »

Buy.... gold?

14 posts before a gold mention. Longer than normal before the gold gang post. Is that a sign that they are feeling less confident ?;)

getzegold

Aegis wrote: »

In the week of 10 January 2000 the FTSE Techmark index stood at 3,961. In the week of 6 March it had risen to 5,719, a gain of 44% in under 2 months. 3 years later the market bottomed out at about 586, a total loss of 90% of the value.

The similarity here is that prices in both rose due to speculation rather than fundamentals. Fundamentally gold hasn't changed anywhere near enough to warrant the significant rise in price we've seen over the last few years, and as a result there is a very real risk of a crash, though I wouldn't expect it to be as bad as with the tech bubble.

I'm personally limiting my exposure to gold quite a bit at the moment, other than via non-gold specific resource OEICs.

The fundamental driver is the loss of faith in paper money because the govs are printing too much and actively devaluing their currencies for a competetive trade edge, while this carries on expect all commodities to continue much higher as investors get out of paper and into real assets.

Aegis

getzegold wrote: »

The fundamental driver is the loss of faith in paper money because the govs are printing too much and actively devaluing their currencies for a competetive trade edge, while this carries on expect all commodities to continue much higher as investors get out of paper and into real assets.

i.e. the main driver is the desire for static inflation-adjusted returns. This would be fine if gold was only holding its real value, however the value of gold in inflation adjusted terms is currently higher than it has ever been except in the late 70s and early 80s when it spiked upwards over a few years and then crashed violently, declining in real terms back towards its long-term average real price.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Gold/Gold_inflation.jpg

Given your statement that the "fundamental" change in gold is effectively just people's desire to hold an asset which maintains its real value, this is a classic bubble fuelled by desire for unrealistic real growth from some parties rather than actual fundamentals.

DervProf

FWIW, here`s what I`d do ( if you are not going to spend any).

Max amount into a cash ISA.

Lloyds Vanatge - 21K.

Maybe £40K into one of those tracker bonds that pays BoE base rate + a couple of %.

Drip feed a few £100 per month into a FTSE tracker (using your ISA allowance). Keep an eye on it, and take money out when it`s made a few £.

Drip feed a few £100 per month into a low risk managed fund with a decent track record (say an income fund). Again, keep an eye on it and don`t be afraid to sell if you see a decent return.

Maybe stick a few £ (again monthly) into a slightly more adventurous fund.

Gold might be a good idea, mabe £10K`s worth.


I think the best idea is to spread you £ around a little.

Forgot to mention...... any left over, find the best instant savings account, and keep it in there (make sure you don`t go over the £50K threshold in any one banking organisation - don`t put £40K with Halifax and £20K with Lloyds).

getzegold

Aegis wrote: »

Given your statement that the "fundamental" change in gold is effectively just people's desire to hold an asset which maintains its real value, this is a classic bubble fuelled by desire for unrealistic real growth from some parties rather than actual fundamentals.

another lol. see here:

http://fisherpreciousmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Gold-Bubble-Nasdaq.jpg

Aegis

getzegold wrote: »

another lol. see here:

http://fisherpreciousmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Gold-Bubble-Nasdaq.jpg

Don't really see why you're laughing. Bubbles don't always have to have the exact same gradient, so all that chart says is "these growths aren't identical". You'll note that earlier I claimed that the gold bubble is likely to be much less of a crash than the 90% losses seen in the tech crash, hence we wouldn't expect to see the same profile.

What was the point of that graph except to distort matters?

getzegold

Aegis wrote: »

Don't really see why you're laughing. Bubbles don't always have to have the exact same gradient, so all that chart says is "these growths aren't identical". You'll note that earlier I claimed that the gold bubble is likely to be much less of a crash than the 90% losses seen in the tech crash, hence we wouldn't expect to see the same profile.

What was the point of that graph except to distort matters?

Distort matters? charts don't distort, whereas vague unbacked claims of gold being a 'classic bubble' do. Does the gold chart look like a classic bubble to you?

anyway this aint a gold thread all I said was "buy...gold?"