£20k sitting fallow

thelawnet

I have £20k in my shares ISA uninvested (out of around £200k in total in the ISA). It's been sitting there a while and I want to invest it.

Trouble is I don't really fancy any particular assets. I just topped on my Latin America and Indonesia ETFs, I have around £50k in general UK Equities, a the rest spread, US, Europe, Japan, and an Emerging Markets ETF. Oh and £20k of WM Morrisons.

Any investment ideas? I like income and undervalued assets.

I don't need the money any time soon.

Rob_192

Well if it was me, I'd spread it over a number of high yielding bule chips. I would wait for the next slight dip (ie not like today where the markets are generally up). Also I would have regard to ex-divi dates, so as not to invest in anything which has just gone ex-divi and then have to wait 6 months before the next divi. You could easily find a basket of shares yielding 4.5-5%. At present you're getting nothing.

Having said that, I like to keep a few £k floating around in my Isa, ready for an oportunity to present itself. I have £10K myself waiting for that next dip! I did have £20k, but spent half of it around the third week of June when the markets dipped.

thelawnet

That makes sense. I am super-bad at timing the market though.

DervProf

Drip feed £500 monthly into a few funds.

JohnRo

If you think it could be earning at best 3% outside the ISA in a 123 account, let's say 2.4% after BRT, then the drag on performance to cover that "loss" on the £20K with the £180K sum already invested is less than 0.27%.

I'd say that's a price well worth paying to have £20K ammunition ISA wrapped, ready and available for opportunistic buying in a down turn?

Prothet_of_Doom

I have over the last 4 years added £11K into a SIPP, and Bought and sold shares.

I have been lucky, but I have managed to increase it's value to £22K approx.

The way I pick shares is fairly random. I am a Freelance Engineer, to I've looked at companies that I am either working at, or who are customers of, or suppliers of them. I also look at the companies I've bought stuff off.

Then I download to excel, from google finance the last 10 years of shareprice data, and start plotting graphs.

I look at the trends and the daily and weekly fluctuations.

If the trend is upwards however small I then look and the average fluctuations

Then I work out a 'low price and a high price' - this is the prices that it will almost definate see in the next month.

Then I buy £5K at the low price and immediately set a "Sell Order" at the high price.

As soon as I've sold them (it's usually within the week, but occassionally I've had to wait 2 months), I set a "Buy Order".

I've tried to limit myself to 4 or 5 favorites and really understand the data and the market they are in. And keep them in different markets.

I'm hedging my bets by making sure my wife has a simple pension where the pension company makes the decisions. We put in the same amount.

As Luck would have it I'm well ahead, but quite frankly I could loose the whole lot it there was a crash tomorrow.

kidmugsy

thelawnet wrote: »

I have £20k in my shares ISA uninvested (out of around £200k in total in the ISA). It's been sitting there a while and I want to invest it.

My compliments Sir (or Madam); "fallow" is a choice word AND you've avoided wittering about "I want my money to work harder".

You could consider defensive investments such as Ruffer Investment Company or the Personal Assets Trust. Or, as JohnRo suggests, move it to an interest-bearing account and wait for a good opportunity to reinvest. Or, again, you could try to mimic part of the portfolio of those defensives by putting part into a long gilt and part into a gold ETF.

serko

thelawnet wrote: »

That makes sense. I am super-bad at timing the market though.

it's nearly impossible to time the markets valueshare.co.uk/investment-articles/possible-time-stock-market/343

thelawnet

kidmugsy wrote: »

My compliments Sir (or Madam); "fallow" is a choice word AND you've avoided wittering about "I want my money to work harder".

You could consider defensive investments such as Ruffer Investment Company or the Personal Assets Trust. Or, as JohnRo suggests, move it to an interest-bearing account and wait for a good opportunity to reinvest. Or, again, you could try to mimic part of the portfolio of those defensives by putting part into a long gilt and part into a gold ETF.

I have some PNL (£10kish). It hasn't done very well recently. I read their latest quarterly report and they basically said that they still back their strategy (which is currently holding a lot of defensive assets, gold, inflation-linked bonds, and the like) even though the market has gone against them in the short term.

I sold my corporate bonds about six months ago because they'd doubled since I bought them and I was nervous. THey haven't gone anywhere since I sold them though.

Just bought £10k of RCP.