Help needed for S&S ISA!

jimjames

MRMX9 wrote: »

Hold it in cash - wait for the impending stock market crash - and then pile at much cheaper unit prices.

Because to be honest after 5 years of growth the markets are due a correction.

So just be careful!

Not sure which market you've been looking at but its not been 5 constant years of growth from what I've seen.

Trying to time the market is pretty pointless, even more so if you're investing monthly. The only way I'd try is by investing more after a drop, not waiting for one to happen.

MRMX9

jimjames wrote: »

Not sure which market you've been looking at but its not been 5 constant years of growth from what I've seen.

Trying to time the market is pretty pointless, even more so if you're investing monthly. The only way I'd try is by investing more after a drop, not waiting for one to happen.

I am merely observing that the Dow Jones - which the FTSE usually follows - has been in a bull market for some time. If you had put your life savings in the market in Oct 2007 - and suddenly needed the cash in March 2009 your funds would more than have halved. Since its low then it has nearly doubled.

If you are in it for the long term thats fine - but people need to be investing now with their eyes open. So perhaps regular monthly saving rather than big lump sums may be the best route now.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5Edji+interactive

Dow Jones Oct 2007 14,000 points
Dow Jones Oct 2008 8,500 points
Dow Jones March 2009 6,600 points
Dow Jones May 2014 16,500 points

Archi_Bald

MRMX9 wrote: »

Because to be honest after 5 years of growth the markets are due a correction.

If only it was that simple. People would only invest every 5 years. Ooops. Something wrong with that picture

jimjames

MRMX9 wrote: »

I am merely observing that the Dow Jones - which the FTSE usually follows - has been in a bull market for some time. If you had put your life savings in the market in Oct 2007 - and suddenly needed the cash in March 2009 your funds would more than have halved. Since its low then it has nearly doubled.

If you are in it for the long term thats fine - but people need to be investing now with their eyes open. So perhaps regular monthly saving rather than big lump sums may be the best route now.

Good to point out risks in share based investments. Anyone who put their life savings in shares and needed money in 2 years would be taking a massive risk to put it in shares at any time but you have picked some dates that seem rather unlikely for anyone to have used in reality. If they'd waited till March 2011 then they'd have got their money back.

Your post doesn't really help the OP much though as they've already said they are investing monthly and have done so for the last 2 years. If you intend to continue doing so then worrying about the level of markets today or tomorrow is irrelevant.

art200380 wrote: »

Would I be paying any commission and who to? I opened the account directly with L&G and it's a L&G fund isn't it so not sure who would be taking commission?

I logged in last night actually and the actual fee including AMC is 1.68%.
..

You are almost certainly in a fund that pays commission but if you didn't go via an adviser then L&G will just be pocketing that themselves.

If you were to use the same fund via Cavendish then you'd pay only 1% (0.75% AMC to L&G and 0.25% fee to Cavendish). If that is the only fund you have then you may want to widen your spread a bit. Tracker funds can be as low as 0.06% AMC so a lot lower but have the same platform fee of 0.25%

http://www.fundslibrary.co.uk/FundsLibrary.DataRetrieval/Documents.aspx?type=fund_class_kiid&id=2ca83bb3-35cc-4bf6-9ca8-5f0ac470266c&user=fidelitydocumentreport

art200380

Thanks for all the info - you've given me some good food for thought. I've already been checking out the monevator website.


Yes this is my only fund at the moment - I started it 2 years ago so that I was putting something aside but then with work/my wife's business being hectic I just haven't had time to really look at it until I logged in a few days ago and noticed there was circa £30k in it.


I also noticed the charge was 1.68% which I thought was high hence why I came on here to try and find out what a reasonable charge was supposed to be.


I'm going to get on to it this weekend though - I've already spoken to III and they said they charge £80/yr, which would be their only charge based on 1 DD in per month (which are £1.50/DD but 12 per year would be included in the £80) and then if I kept the same fund (L&G UK Alpha Trust) the management charge L&G would take from the fund is 0.75% per year.


So that will be a saving straight away.


I also now need to consider whether I need to diversify as someone asked if this was my only fund - and yes it is.


Although I was planning on opening a similar S&S ISA for my wife, so might split her DD between 2 or 3 funds and keep mine in this one.