What will you be doing with your 2011 ISA allowance

relaxtwotribes

masonic wrote: »

This is my last post to you.

Good.

masonic wrote: »

It could reasonably be inferred from some of your posts that you were advising people to pile what they had sensibly reserved as a cash cushion into shares.

Only someone who is being deliberately thick would infer that. But as you seem incapable of reading what I have posted without trying to spin it into something else, I will abandon the attempt to clarify for others who may be confused by your posts.

In the end, what does it matter? We hold the same view and others, as cashbackproblems did straight away, will understand me.

It's been good debating the point - I'll let you get back to your pile of wasting away cash now.

Filey

I may have got this wrong and would like to be told if I have.

As I understand it, the advantage of ISAs is that the returns they make are free of income tax, and capital gains tax when sold. All quite straight forward with cash ISAs but I am wondering whether share ISAs are suitable for an elderly person who pays the standard rate of tax. I ask this because tax is already deducted from share dividends and is non reclaimable, and unless the EP is planning to do some frequent selling and has a goodly sum in share ISAs there will probably not be any capital gains tax payable anyway. It is different for a younger saver of course.

I may have completely got this wrong or missed something, in which case I hope someone here will correct me. Is it advantageous for an EP who has other investments as well to hold share ISAs or not?

masonic

Filey wrote: »

I may have completely got this wrong or missed something, in which case I hope someone here will correct me. Is it advantageous for an EP who has other investments as well to hold share ISAs or not?

If you are confident that you can arrange to buy and sell assets, always remaining within your CGT allowance, and there is no danger of you becoming a higher rate taxpayer, then you'll not get any benefit from the S&S ISA wrapper.

scurra

I feel like I've got enough cash for a rainy day, so I used my 10/11 allowance on a S&S ISA with H-L, and have now got a few unit trusts.

For 2011 I plan to start getting into shares, but H-L seem to be a bit greedy with a £10 deal charge and 0.5% management charge. Do III have a management charge? If not, do I need to do anything specific to "unsubscribe" from my H-L ISA in 2011, or just not put any more money in?

Lokolo

relaxtwotribes wrote: »

Good.



Only someone who is being deliberately thick would infer that. But as you seem incapable of reading what I have posted without trying to spin it into something else, I will abandon the attempt to clarify for others who may be confused by your posts.

In the end, what does it matter? We hold the same view and others, as cashbackproblems did straight away, will understand me.

It's been good debating the point - I'll let you get back to your pile of wasting away cash now.

No-one is deliberately tricking you, you are just being naive.

If you have an emergency fund of shares. You have them middle of 2008. The recession hits. Your shares lose 70% of their value. You lose your job.

How is that going to help!?

Cash would have kept the value they had. Cash should be used for emegerncy funds. Shares should be used when you can afford to lose value.

masonic

scurra wrote: »

I feel like I've got enough cash for a rainy day, so I used my 10/11 allowance on a S&S ISA with H-L, and have now got a few unit trusts.

For 2011 I plan to start getting into shares, but H-L seem to be a bit greedy with a £10 deal charge and 0.5% management charge. Do III have a management charge? If not, do I need to do anything specific to "unsubscribe" from my H-L ISA in 2011, or just not put any more money in?

There's no management fee for shares, just the dealing charges. You don't need to do anything to 'unsubscribe' from your H-L ISA, but if you want to subscribe more money at H-L in the future you may need to fill out some paperwork to 'resubscribe'.

relaxtwotribes

I certainly don't feel as though I am being tricked, thank you.

Lokolo wrote: »

Cash would have kept the value they had.

A statement of the blindingly obvious.

Lokolo wrote: »

Cash should be used for emegerncy funds.

I don't disagree.

Lokolo wrote: »

Shares should be used when you can afford to lose value.

That's what I have advocated all along.

cashbackproblems

masonic wrote: »

I think the bit in bold is where you differ to many people. Someone who piled all their money into shares at the end of 2007 would have been far better off staying in cash even now. A minimum 5 year timeframe is advisable to minimise the chance of falling foul of stockmarket crashes etc, unless somebody is happy to gamble their money like you are.

The other factor in this you don't seem to comprehend is that some people don't want to spend their free time researching investments. They may well spend a lot of their time in a career that pays a lot more than the return they could get from shares. It's quite reasonable and not at all unintelligent to choose to spend ones leisure time doing other things and therefore sacrificing superior returns on their cash.

What one or two people on this thread seem unable to comprehend is that their 'one basket' approach to investing may not be suitable to everyone.

Depends also what kinds of investments you are picking, if you buying into aim oil companies you are taking a big risk but if investing in Vodaphone or BT its fairly safe and not much downside even in short term.

It doesnt take all your free time to research shares, you just need to have some v basic knowledge and read the right sites, iv made thousands per yr since iv been buying/selling shares and i research a company buy and forget about it, having a quick looking daily at price movement.. In fact i dont shave daily like some people so that time is used to do research!

In fact the time uv spent arguing with the other guy u could have found a few good companies!!

Lokolo

cashbackproblems wrote: »

Depends also what kinds of investments you are picking, if you buying into aim oil companies you are taking a big risk but if investing in Vodaphone or BT its fairly safe and not much downside even in short term.

It doesnt take all your free time to research shares, you just need to have some v basic knowledge and read the right sites, iv made thousands per yr since iv been buying/selling shares and i research a company buy and forget about it, having a quick looking daily at price movement..

In fact the time uv spent arguing with the other guy u could have found a few good companies!!

I like the way you have said "investing in BP is fairy safe".

Thank you for proving that investing in shares or investments, even for easy access emergency funds, is not a good idea.

We aren't saying people shouldn't invest. But, people shouldn't invest all their money. Emergency savings should be in easy access cash.

masonic

cashbackproblems wrote: »

Depends also what kinds of investments you are picking, if you buying into aim oil companies you are taking a big risk but if investing in Vodaphone or BT its fairly safe and not much downside even in short term.

The same might also have been said of BP and LloydsTSB at one point. You never know what might happen - even the safest shares can experience severe setbacks in the short term.

It doesnt take all your free time to research shares, you just need to have some v basic knowledge and read the right sites, iv made thousands per yr since iv been buying/selling shares and i research a company buy and forget about it, having a quick looking daily at price movement.. In fact i dont shave daily like some people so that time is used to do research!

In fact the time uv spent arguing with the other guy u could have found a few good companies!!

I don't know where the idea that I'm not an investor has come from. My first post in this thread was to say I am using my full ISA allowance for S&S. I did the same last year. My point to you was that not everyone is inclined to do so. That doesn't make them unintelligent, it could mean that they have other priorities or that shares are just unsuitable for them in their circumstances. The main priority for everyone investing is, as Lokolo says, making sure they have a big enough cash cushion to fall back on.