Share Advice

Christine34c

Hi, I have quite a few supermarket shares, and was wondering what is the best option for them.

1) Do I leave them were they are
or
2) Do I sell them and invest in an isa or something.
or
3) ......

Your suggestions would be welcome.

Christine

Vortigern

Christine34c wrote: »

Do I leave them were they are?

You haven't told us where they are!

Are these employee shares?

Are you confident that the shares will rise in value?
- How would you feel if the value were to drop suddenly?

If you sell them all now, will you make a profit of more than £11,000?

RickyC_IFSWP

And just to add a few more questions: when do you intend to use the proceeds? Are you a basic or higher rate tax payer? Any outstanding debts?

cynthiacharles

Are these shares intended to provide you the amount in multiples of the original amount? If yes, then sell it out at the right time.

bigadaj

cynthiacharles wrote: »

Are these shares intended to provide you the amount in multiples of the original amount? If yes, then sell it out at the right time.

When's the right time?

Christine34c

Hi, Vortigern

Are these employee shares? Yes

Are you confident that the shares will rise in value? yes, but I guess you can never be confident

How would you feel if the value were to drop suddenly? Gutted

If you sell them all now, will you make a profit of more than £11,000? No

Just not sure what to do with them, I have never had shares before, I just want to get the best return on the shares or the money etc.

Hope this helps

bigadaj

Christine34c wrote: »

Hi, Vortigern

Are these employee shares? Yes

Are you confident that the shares will rise in value? yes, but I guess you can never be confident

How would you feel if the value were to drop suddenly? Gutted

If you sell them all now, will you make a profit of more than £11,000? No

Just not sure what to do with them, I have never had shares before, I just want to get the best return on the shares or the money etc.

Hope this helps

As you're not an experienced investor it might be a good idea to sell them.

Did you get them as part if an employee scheme, if so could you repeat this with a guaranteed scheme which gives you free shares or guarantees you don't lose money, if so then sell and rejoin the scheme for the new tranche.

Do you have other investments, if not then single shares are very risky and volatile, as you have less than £11k it also means you can sell and pay no tax as you are within your cgt annual allowance.

Vortigern

bigadaj wrote: »

As you're not an experienced investor it might be a good idea to sell them.

Do you have other investments, if not then single shares are very risky and volatile, as you have less than £11k it also means you can sell and pay no tax as you are within your cgt annual allowance.

That's exactly what I was going to say. The general advice to new investors is not to invest in the shares of a single company, but to spread your investments across several shares or to use "funds"

You can sell the shares without any tax liability, so you don't need to put them in an ISA.

If you hold on to the shares, they could go up in value and they may pay you a regular dividend, but they could also go down.

Cautionary tale: I used to work for BT and held employee shares which were worth £15 each. I didn't sell at £15 BT shares dropped to less than £1 a few years ago. Is any company too big to fail?

Employee shares in general are a good thing. If you get free shares you would have to hold them for a few years to avoid tax. If you have a share savings scheme, you can save up for 3 or 5 years and then decide whether or not to buy the shares. There are also other employee schemes which keep the shares in a tax shelter until you decide to sell (or leave the company)

I don't know what your employer offers, but I suggest you take advantage of whatever offers you can afford, then sell the shares as soon as they are free of any tax liability.

IanManc

Shares in supermarkets have been pretty low recently. If you don't need the cash for anything at present then by selling the shares now you might be choosing to do so just when the price is at its worst.

Christine34c

So, what you are all saying is the best thing to do would be to wait until the share go up and then sell them and put them in a 5 year fixed cash ISA or NISA as it is now called?

would that be the best option for me ?

Vortigern

Christine34c wrote: »

So, what you are all saying is the best thing to do would be to wait until the share go up and then sell them?

No, only one person has suggested that the price may be due to go up - and that's just an opinion. If you look at brokers' forecasts you'll find that some say sell and some say buy. Who can say which is right when the experts can't agree amongst themselves?

You haven't said which supermarket it is, but even if you did, you'd still just get opinions - share tips, like betting tips.

It's been said many times in this forum that holding the shares of a single company is very risky. If the company goes belly-up due to some corporate scandal, you could lose your job and your investment. You should de-risk.

You are sitting on a paper profit from your share scheme. Don't be greedy, take your profit now from these shares and then invest in the next sharesave scheme when it's offered.

Regardless of whether the shares are rising or falling; in order to de-risk, I would suggest that you should sell those shares now and put the cash into the best paying account you can find. If you want to dabble in stock market investments, put the money into collective investments like index trackers, but do some research first.

Christine34c wrote: »

...and put them in a 5 year fixed cash ISA or NISA as it is now called?

Cash ISAs are poor value at the moment. You can get more interest in a current account. There's a feeling that interest rates may rise soon, so a 5-year fix might not be a good idea.