More money to invest but where?

sambessey

Hi

I am 22 and have approximately £10,500 already invested in a Halifax ISA Tracker (FTSE100) and a Halifax cash ISA. I have a further ~£1,000 to invest.

I feel like being a bit more adventurous now, as I have got some good returns on my old investments and I don't think the UK stock market is going to rise much more for a while at least.

Can someone tell me the best funds to invest in? Should I take out a managed fund or invest it all in one area such as far eastern stocks or special situations and so on?

Thanks

dunstonh

Can someone tell me the best funds to invest in?

Let me get in my Tardis and jump into the future and find out

What you ask cannot be done.

Should I take out a managed fund or invest it all in one area such as far eastern stocks or special situations and so on?

You should build a portfolio of funds which average out to your personal risk profile. Not mine or any other contributer on the forum.

Currently you are in a rather sterile bank fund and you appear to want to move into something a bit more professional. However, you should consider whether taking the jump into high risk funds straight away is the right thing to do. Sure, consider some of it as long as you balance it out but if you did all of it, you would be taking a big jump.

There is a large range of investment sectors and spreading it across them is not a bad move. The Far East was recently top performing sector but you could be jumping on the bandwaggon after the gain has been made. China offers a lot of potential for growth but should be considered high risk and highly volatile.

The UK stockmarket hasnt performed too well since Gordon Brown started his mass taxation (indeed, it is the lowest performer of the G8 countries). However, UK equity income funds have performed well in this period and there is no expectation that that will change. At least in relation to other uk funds or trackers.

The US has been flat since the drop. A good time to go in usually is following the drop and the US has yet to recover to any extent. However, recovery is not guaranteed. Just look at Japan.

Europe has it's moments but seems too volatile and long term averages are not great.

Property funds (rental not property share) are good low risk funds which have low volatility and relatively decent consistency. Pick one which is not overfunded and you could do quite well. Avoid a certain high profile one (New Star) which has virtually all it's holding in central london (or at least spread if over a few property funds).

At the end of the day, spreading it amongst the areas means you are hedging your bets and spreading the risk. Now we have fund supermarkets, all this can be done on one statement. Even if it means having multiple investments (ISAs, UTs and OEICS for example).