NISA Help

rabc77

Hi Guys,

I need abit of advice and hope someone can help. I have decided to open a NISA and specifically to open a Multi-Manager NISA, as I don't know even about stocks and shares to go it alone. What I need is a company who will give good returns without excess charges. I have talked to F&C and they have talked about a 20% return over the last 3 years and around a 1.2% charge (already considered as part of the 20%) and a 5% inital charge on all funds. I have also talked to HL who although don't charge the 5% inital charge per say each fund they provide seem to have their own specific initial charge a lot of them seem to be 5% too but they, on their web site, say their returns for the riskier funds are between 40% and 70% over the last three years. I'm hitting 37 so the risky funds is still atractive to me, but I will only be putting about £300 max into these each month.
What does everyone think? Or either of these companies worth it and is there an alternative?

Thanks!

[Deleted User]

You don't need to "manage" individual Stocks and Shares, and you certainly don't need to pay x% per year to have someone do it for you: you can buy into funds! There are a lot of very good funds available that require no work from yourself and will provide you the level of risk/caution you're comfortable with. There's a very good article on Monevator about passive investing, you should definitely take some time to read through it because making a decision to spend a lot of money on something that might not be worth it, here's a link: http://monevator.com/category/investing/passive-investing-investing/

rabc77

Hi Citricsquid,

That's a good read and indeed it seems to show an increase but it still seems like written in his passive investing is chosing the bonds etc. For me this would be pot luck, rather than based on a degree of experience or education. Am I write or have I read it wrong? Greedily I am after something with a 10% return over the period with the hope to have a little nest egg when I retire...

[Deleted User]

rabc77 wrote: »

Hi Citricsquid,That's a good read and indeed it seems to show an increase but it still seems like written in his passive investing is chosing the bonds etc. For me this would be pot luck, rather than based on a degree of experience or education. Am I write or have I read it wrong? Greedily I am after something with a 10% return over the period with the hope to have a little nest egg when I retire...

The article I linked to contains an index of other articles that cover the specifics of passive investing, the primary article is just a brief introduction. If you don't have time to read through all of the articles covering the finer points (which I highly recommend) then skip straight to:

The simplest solution of all
A one-stop shop: Vanguard Lifestrategy funds

gkerr4

totally agree - who can afford the fees unless you want to see your investment eroded over the years.

read the article and look to self-manage - ETF's are a good, safe-ish start.

rabc77

I honestly had read it but when on to the new chapter when the accumulator when he was picking his own funds and watching it grow from there over each quarter since 2011 or so. However the lifestrategy look exactly what I'm after, at the 80%/20% spilt on equity/bonds. I will do some more digging as there are a few friends who are looking to the exact same thing each with different amount and levels of risk required and these look to have one for each of us...

Thanks!

cheexy

Hi All,
I just stumbled onto this thread. I am a complete newbie to investments in funds (my expertise ends in regular savers and 5% interest current accounts). However, I am currently looking at investing in the vanguard lifestrategy fund with the 80/20 split but i'm not sure how to go about it opening an account. I read that there is a charge of 1.50 pounds for the direct debit option. Is this the only cost I would be incurring? I am looking at the option of a direct debit of 300 pounds per month. Also would i have to keep choosing funds to buy into every month or is it enough to choose just one fund and my stake would automatically be increased by 300 pounds every month? I appreciate that some of my questions may be a bit daft but please bear with me. Thanks for your help.

Archi_Bald

I don't know of anyone who charges £1.50 for a DD but I might be wrong.

The major charges for investments are 1) the platform charges, and 2) the fund manager charges.

For a comparison of charges for popular platforms, see http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

For charges by funds, refer to the Key Investor Information Document (KIID) that is available for each fund.

You can set up a regular purchase of additional fund units at most brokers.

cheexy

Thanks Archi Bald for your response. The 1.50 charge i meant was the online monthly dealing charge by Alliance Trust.

masonic

cheexy wrote: »

Thanks Archi Bald for your response. The 1.50 charge i meant was the online monthly dealing charge by Alliance Trust.

Some platforms will allow you to invest into funds without a dealing charge, so that might factor in your decision of where to open an account.

cheexy

Thanks for your help so far. I have just tried to open a regular saver with TD Direct Investing in order to purchase the vanguard life strategy 80% equity fund. I filled out the form but when it got to the point where i needed to choose the funds, vanguard life strategy funds were not one of the options. Has any other person experienced this? I plan to set a direct debit of 300/month towards this and chose TD because of its relatively low £1.50 dealing charge.