What is the riskiest thing I can self-invest my pathetic little pension pot in?

princeofpounds

Warrants (effectively company-issued options).

Get it wrong, you have nothing. Get it right, you can multiply your money.

But you need to know how they work and what you're doing!

So I'd agree that investing into smaller riskier company shares is probably the most straightforward way of getting risk exposure.

robatwork

Pork Bellies

robatwork

Or buy to let student pods

They get roundly attacked here, rightly, so could be just up your street
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d77717e6-bf05-11e2-87ff-00144feab7de.html#axzz2ZhaJx3k3

gallygirl

bigadaj wrote: »

OP, I know you say you want risk but 15k is still a decent chunk of money, annuity payout wold be low but you could get nearly 4k out tax free as a lump sum which would be good for most people.

If you really want a gamble then I'd put the money into five to ten small companies, maybe mining, oil exploration, technology or biotech, one firm just seems too much of a punt for me, and putting not a few companies increases the chances of picking the next Microsoft, apple, xstrata etc.

Alternatively, with high risk but spread a bit, a range of emerging market funds, all in different areas: Turkey, Africa, MENA, Frontier Markets, Asia looking at Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh etc.

Or Emerging Europe, all the 'stan' countries you can't spell or locate on a map - that must make them high risk :cool:.

taking_stock

kidmugsy wrote: »

Shares in Polymetal - you will then be gambling on gold and silver and Russia and Kazakhstan. Who could ask for more?

on a serious note, why the need for risk?

jamesd

Options or covered warrants are probably the riskiest that you'll find reasonably readily available from legitimate mass market pension firms like HL and they do have the chance of achieving your stated objectives. These can have a wide range of underlying investments.

A more sensible plan might be to do things like using 2x leveraged ETFs. This doubles the ups and downs you get. Since the long term trend is upwards in the long term that would end to increase the growth rate. But remember that a doubly leveraged tracker for say the FTSE index would turn a 45% FTSE drop in a bad year into twice that drop. You really do need the stomach to be able to accept that much variation in value.

taking_stock

jamesd - agreed. also, the leveraged ETFs double the movement of whichever index or commodity they track *on a daily basis*, which changes the sums somewhat, according to the %drop and also volatility.

mania112

Carbon Credits, Harlequin Investments, Brazil Country Club.

All high risk. So high infact, they're beyond 'risk' and practically into 'fraud'.

Realistically, an insured emerging markets pension fund is as high risk as you ought to go.

jamesd

taking_stock wrote: »

also, the leveraged ETFs (like LSIL) double the movement of whichever index or commodity they track *on a daily basis*, which changes the sums somewhat, according to the %drop and also volatility.

Yes, one of the things I check is the record of long term vs daily performance. Some of the ETFs do pretty badly on tracking long term because of the daily effect. That's actually why I used a 2x instead of 3x leveraged example, I haven't noticed a 3x one that tracked well long term. Not that this guarantees that a 2x one will either...

System

There was an article in a weekend paper a few months ago about someone who bought a derelict chapel for something like £10,000 through his pension fund, got permission to renovate it as commercial property, and did the work himself. It was then worth about ten times the purchase price, and was generating an income from letting to a start-up .com company.