I want to transfer my cash ISA into stocks and shares- how do I know the share price?

vitamin_joe

I am a first time investor. I want to transfer my cash ISA to a stocks and shares ISA, and buy shares in a utilities company. If the transfer takes days or even weeks, how do I know that the share price will not have altered drastically by the time it goes through?

Thanks

Eco_Miser

You don't. But you don't specify what you want to buy until the cash is in the S&S ISA, so you can buy something else instead if you want.

BTW investing in a single company is considered very high risk.

vitamin_joe

I see, thanks for making that clear.

I was thinking of investing in United Utilities, I suppose I saw it as a low-risk investment. Thanks for your advice.

AlanP_2

No investment in a company is low risk and the company could go bust.

Spreading your investment across multiple companies reduces that risk as they are extremely unlikely to all go bust.

Spreading your investment across multiple companies in various parts of the world reduces it yet again as it even more unlikely that all the companies in the UK and the US (for example) will go bust.

Most, including me, novice investors start with Funds as opposed to Shares. Funds collect money from thousands of investors and invest it on your behalf across multi companies and /or multi geographies and so on.

CLAPTON

I don't see why you can't transfer your ISA to an S&S ISA as cash

once its safely there, then buy shares/funds as suites you

Malthusian

It's not worth worrying about. If you transfer your cash to an S&S ISA and the market goes up in the meantime, there's nothing you could have done about it.

You could leave it in cash while waiting for it to go down again, but this is known as "market timing". Market timing is essentially gambling and most people who try it lose money. You could be waiting for months or years, during which you miss out on growth and dividends.

coyrls

Just to be clear, although it's called a stocks and shares ISA, you are not limited to buying stocks and shares. As suggested above, for most people a better choice would be some form of collective investment (funds). You should do some research while the transfer is taking place. It will arrive in your ISA as cash, you can invest it when you are ready.