Stocks & Shares ISAs

Tykelass

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

As long as the funds you hold contain sufficient diversity, they should weather the turbulence that Brexit will enevitably cause so unless you think you are going to need the cash in the short term I would not look to transfer them into virtually zero interest paying cash ISAs.

You might however want to think of moving them to alternative less risky funds. Which funds do you have?

Hi, the ISAs are in low-risk managed funds. I have no idea what those funds invest in and even if I did, it would have no meaning to me. My main reason to bail is that they are at an all-time high so I might either cash them in completely, or leave a bit in one or other of them just of of curiosity; in case it picks up further.

I'm not talking about vast sums here, about £15k in total. I don't need the money right away though it may come in handy later in the year, by which time the investments could have gone up or down. Its a gamble and I'm typically v risk-averse. An example of that is that have the rest of my savings an a Santander 123 account (and am right on the border now as to whether that remains the best option), and a rubbish building society account that pay 0.6% interest

My real Q though is, if I choose to cash in, in full or part, do I need to transfer the funds into a cash ISA to avoid paying tax?

Thanks

Tykelass

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

As long as the funds you hold contain sufficient diversity, they should weather the turbulence that Brexit will enevitably cause so unless you think you are going to need the cash in the short term I would not look to transfer them into virtually zero interest paying cash ISAs.

You might however want to think of moving them to alternative less risky funds. Which funds do you have?

Hi Keep Pedalling. The majority is in this fund
BNY Mellon IF - Newton Multi-Asset Growth - B Shares (Net Acc) (GB00B7YZFX71)

This has forced me to look at what precisely the investments are on Fundinfo.com, which I had never heard of til about 10 minutes ago. However there are pages and pages of info that mean absolutely nothing to me. I have no idea what the level of risk is, but I've always been risk averse so don't believe I would've knowingly accepted much risk.

I've also looked back over the last 2 years and found that my investment is currently worth 18.8% more than it was exactly 2 years ago, so I guess its doing better than I thought in the med-long term. I haven't paid into this or my other ISA for so long I can't remember, they've just been sitting there for years slowly growing.

Now I've been forced to try and understand what I actually have, I think, as you say, I may be better off leaving them alone.

The problem for people like me (and I suspect there are an awful lot of us) is that we just have a mental block with financial stuff. So, when my other half is telling me I need to bin off the ISAs because they're doing well, put everything in a cash ISA, then re-invest in the S&S ISA if/when the unit price bombs/drops significantly, I'm glad of this place.

:T

Brand

Tykelass
The paradox of this thread is that it is for people who know they want to invest in shares, and want to know the cheapest S&S ISA through which to do so.
On the other hand MSE is mainly for people who have only modest money and so don't really know much about shares. and actually need at least "guidance" or opinion, or even full (paid) "advice".
There are some good IFAs and investors on this website, but as a general opinion, it sounds to me that if you want to "cash in" then no you don't have to transfer out to a cash ISA in order to do so. If you want to move some money from S&S ISA into a Cash ISA savings account, then you do so by transfer not closure or withdrawal from the S&S ISA.
If you decide to keep all or some in S&S ISA, then perhaps move it to a supplier which gives a different spread of 3 or 4 funds and which comes with some guidance from the supplier.

The set of threads for ideas on how to save and how to invest is http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=17
and you can see some which are relevant to shares.
I think your other half has a good point about moving some of your share investment into cash after the very fast move upwards. I have never known the stockmarket move up so confidently since 1999.
My caution in selling completely is that in practice
1. it is hard to time the market.
2. Don't try to guess future events. you can always find a plausible reason to buy shares, you can always find a plausible reason to sell shares, and you can always find a plausible reason to do nothing or wait.
3. it is better to have a view in your mind, do I want some share investment or don't I, perhaps as I don't really understand them.
4. if you want share investment, have a rule as to what times you want to buy them and how many of them, and what time you want to sell them, and how many of them.
Although it is talking up their own business, some of the articles on the h-l website by, say, Peter Hargreaves or Mark Dampier, can be useful to pose an approach to these questions.
I hope this helps in some way.

supersabw

Thank you Brand for this. May I please ask how to PM you? I accidentally came across some pms to me from yourself, but can't find my way back to them. I'd also like to follow up on this your recent comment which I've found most acceptable and helpful.

supersabw

Thank you also to Tyklass for your honesty and forthrightness. I feel exactly as you do, with probably a similar ability to know how to move forward (at least you seem to have a partner who offers some direction lol!). Apart from Brand's advice, I'm not sure I'm even clued up enough to be on this thread. I did think that an MSE forum of threads would consist of more people such as myself- as Brand correctly observes, MSE appeals mostly to people of modest means who don't and can't dabble in complex finance - but who seek to try to self-improve based on ML's encouragement to do so. There seems to be a huge gap in accessibility of moving up on the risk factor from half percent (or less) high street offerings, to even a minor improvement in rate of investment (say up to 5%). A black hole filled with IFAs of completely unknown worth, and of whom many of us and our families have had and known nothing but negative experiences. It was a breath of fresh air to read your absolute frankness.

jimjames

Tykelass wrote: »

My real Q though is, if I choose to cash in, in full or part, do I need to transfer the funds into a cash ISA to avoid paying tax?

Thanks

Simple answer is no you don't. You can move the cash to your current account or keep it in the S&S ISA. As soon as it comes out of the ISA though you lose that portion of your allowance. Not really an issue if you only have £15k as it means you're well within the annual limit if you want to put it back.
If you don't need the money there's always the option to only cash out part of the holding so you lock in some profits but can still benefit from further gains.

Brand

Daily Mail guide to the main question of this thread, the narrow question of which is the cheapest S&S ISA for DiY investors who broadly know what they are doing, updated 20 Jan 2017
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-1718291/Pick-best-cheapest-investment-Isa-platform.html

jimjames

Brand wrote: »

Daily Mail guide to the main question of this thread, the narrow question of which is the cheapest S&S ISA for DiY investors who broadly know what they are doing, updated 20 Jan 2017
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-1718291/Pick-best-cheapest-investment-Isa-platform.html

It's unfortunate that although it might have been updated it still is out of date. iWeb is now £25 not £200 which could completely change the outcome.

george4064

Brand wrote: »

Daily Mail guide to the main question of this thread, the narrow question of which is the cheapest S&S ISA for DiY investors who broadly know what they are doing, updated 20 Jan 2017
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-1718291/Pick-best-cheapest-investment-Isa-platform.html

Thanks for sharing, I do particularly like this part from the article;

Five things to consider when picking a platform
1. Cheapest is not always best: You need to think about a combination of price and service - it is worth paying for quality but make sure you are actually getting that.

2. What will you invest in: Different dealing fees for shares, investment trusts and funds mean you need to think about how you will invest and tailor your choice accordingly.

3. Tools and information: What level of useful portfolio building tools and information does a platform offer?

4. Overall charges: Don't just look at the admin fee or dealing charges. You need to combine both to get a true cost, along with costs such as dividend reinvestment and regular dealing charges. A low admin fee might look good but if you are an active investor who buys and sells a lot, then dealing charges will soon rack up and send costs soaring.

5. Extra fees: Check for regular monthly investing discounts, dividend reinvestment fees, transfer charges and other elements

Brand

dunstonh wrote: »

Not a particularly cheap option for DIY. It doesnt avoid the risk issues that you seem to have. Nutmeg have never been profitable and their losses have increased year on year since they launched. They have just obtained external financing to keep them going. (.. until the money runs out, the backers decide its not worth putting more in or they find a buyer. You could add becoming profitable but that doesnt appear to be happening any time soon)
. . .

DunstonH thank you very much for that info. Is it your guess that all of what MSE calls "auto-managed" ISAs such as Moneyfarm and Wealthify are not really viable? At such low fees I would expect they'd have to gather a very big number of customers to make the owners think they are schemes worth continuing with.

On the bright side, though, My thought is that if an inexperienced investor opens a stockbroker-style ISA such as iWeb or x-o.co.uk and then uses it merely to sit on a couple of ETFs, e.g. a UK shares ETF and a Global shares ETF, then actually the auto-managed ISAs which use ETFs might be a better bet for them, as very much simpler to handle than a stockbroker account and more peace of mind that some person somewhere (or some computer) is at least overseeing what is going on. It would be good if at least one of these auto-managed ETF S&S ISAs could at least keep going, in order to provide this option.