investing in gold/silver and possibly trading online? any tips advice?

wakkaday

i have no property at the moment but i do need to climb that ladder...
i take your suggestions on board, i may now limit my investment in precious metals and try acquire long-term extra revenue elsewhere.

in terms of funds, where can i start as a safe bet? and would i get divideds? if i want to withdraw the funds, is there a timeframe etc

puk999

wakkaday wrote: »

in terms of funds, where can i start as a safe bet? and would i get divideds? if i want to withdraw the funds, is there a timeframe etc

I'd say drip feeding into a wide reach tracker is a fairly safe bet in the long term. Trackers track an index. Close to home would be the FTSE-100 or FTSE-250 but I would make it wider than that and go for a world index. A lot of my money is in a tracker that tracks the MSCI World Index. This includes 23 developed countries but excludes emerging markets. Anyway, step 1 would be to research and choose a fund (or funds) that you are happy with. I read Tim Hale's Smarter Investing which is very tracker-biased hence my current views on this.

Step 2 would be to select a provider (platform). Considerations here would be platform fees and availability of funds you have selected. There's loads of info on this site about platforms.

If you selected an ISA as a wrapper and you needed to withdraw, you'll select what you want to sell online (this can be the entire holding, or any fraction you want), click OK and the money will be in your account in a few days. I'm not that sure on the nitty gritty, but your deal will be placed at the next dealing point and there'll be a settlement period of about 3 days.

EDIT: It's also worth looking at SIPPs and personal pensions. Use a combination of ISA/pension.

ChesterDog

Also, you might like to take a look at Monevator.com and the series of videos called How to Win at The Losers' Game. These are very biased towards passive (index-tracking) investing, but a good educational aid if you bear that in mind.

Sites like Trustnet.com or Morningstar can provide you with all sorts of information on funds and other investments.

Some of the most dull and boring looking investments - given time - can produce really good returns. The exciting ones tend to soar spectacularly before crashing even more spectacularly.

Choosing carefully and reinvesting any income should do the job very well, with a high degree of safety.

Edit: ...and diversify. Countries, company size, investment types. But sensibly.

IvorBiggun

You can trade gold and silver via a platform like IG trading (Google them, others are available) this will be short term trades sometimes lasting only a few minutes. I do trade silver occasionally, the price is heavily manipulated by the big banks but when silver hits a resistance level you put a bet on and hope you are right. Check out the kitco silver and gold forums, they will confirm that nobody has a clue what the price is going to do. If you want longer term investments there are silver ETFs available which are more liquid than physical and you can even get double or triple leveraged etfs. If you are going for physical then go semi numismatic, I have brought some coins that have soared in value despite the price of silver staying pretty constant, I like coininvestdirect. There is vat on physical.

Ryan_Futuristics

And you can always invest in property via a property Investment Trust or fund (best way to do it imo)

(Although I suspect we're in a property bubble - otherwise it'd be a great alternative to bonds)

dealer_wins

Gold and silver pay an annual interest rate of 0%.

Mistermeaner

Dont buy into precious metals

puk999

IvorBiggun wrote: »

I like coininvestdirect.

Now called CoinInvest.

James_B.

IvorBiggun wrote: »

You can trade gold and silver via a platform like IG trading (Google them, others are available) this will be short term trades sometimes lasting only a few minutes. I do trade silver occasionally, the price is heavily manipulated by the big banks

No, it really is not. I used to trade commodities (at one of the big banks...) and we really did not try to manipulate it.

Although, now you mention it, maybe there was a super extra-secret "other" trading team one floor up, I suppose, doing this and keeping it secret from the "dupes" that thought they knew what was going on...

Mistermeaner

James_B. wrote: »

No, it really is not. I used to trade commodities (at one of the big banks...) and we really did not try to manipulate it.

Although, now you mention it, maybe there was a super extra-secret "other" trading team one floor up, I suppose, doing this and keeping it secret from the "dupes" that thought they knew what was going on...

Im on the floor above them.

Wierd thing is if we're really quiet we can hear someone on the floor above us also trading metals