stockmarkets -are we nearing the bottom or is there further to go ??

talexuser

bowlhead99 wrote: »

As Jack Nicholson's character said in a classic movie released 20 years ago: "Why can't we all just... get along?"

A genuinely good aspiration, unfortunately I think the result was some kind of spear through the chest?

System

Do no investors just wish they could put their money with NS I or in a savings account and just relax more?

I couldn't sleep at night if my money was invested in the FTSE

racing_blue

berbastrike delivers bowlhead the perfect ball and... wait for it...

Kendall80

berbastrike wrote: »

Do no investors just wish they could put their money with NS I or in a savings account and just relax more?

I couldn't sleep at night if my money was invested in the FTSE

Would've actually been quite a good strategy for the past 12 months... certainly since April 2015

redux

I predict that next week I'll come back and point out this prediction was correct.

If I don't, it doesn't necessarily mean it was intrinsically wrong, it might just be that I forgot.

But of course if that happens I'll just try to keep a low profile and hope nobody notices.

bowlhead99

berbastrike wrote: »

Do no investors just wish they could put their money with NS I or in a savings account and just relax more?

Yes, I suspect most investors do wish they could put a small part of their income in a safe guaranteed savings account and have it grow sufficiently in value in real terms to fund decades of retirement without them taking any risk or doing any work. Then we could all just "relax more".

However, as the world doesn't owe us a living, that's not going to happen. So, people research investments, pensions and so on to improve the returns they can get and maximise the tax efficiency of them.

There is of course a balance to be found between the risk of investment failure on one hand, and the shortfall risk on the other - where the money you have saved or invested falls short of what you need to meet your various personal goals or key objectives of being able to afford a happy and healthy life for as long as you like.

Going all out for the maximum possible return offers too much risk for many. In another sense, going all out for minimum effort and minimum investment risk will lead to returns which are unacceptably low for many, because if you have minimal "unearned" income from savings and investments you will need to get much larger "earned" income from employment or personal business ventures. Without being exceedingly lucky, both employment and personal business ventures involve hard work and risk.

I couldn't sleep at night if my money was invested in the FTSE

As mentioned above, and in a myriad of other threads in which you've participated, nobody would recommend investing your money solely in the FTSE.

Investments should be spread across different types of asset classes, geographical regions, industry sectors etc in a "portfolio" approach where movements in the value of different components do not destroy the overall value because the different components don't all change in value in the same direction at the same time.

Everyone has a different capacity for, and comfort with, different levels of risk -which is fine, because we don't all have the same goals anyhow. If you don't want investment gains which are a product of taking investment risk, you will just have to earn the money yourself. With your own business, this should be fine, but you'll just need to work on it for longer if you don't want any of the returns to come from investing your wealth at the end of it.

racing_blue

Whack! A six

Thrugelmir

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I was thinking back to the 2 Scottish Banks because those are the ones you mentioned. Bondholders in those kept their capital and 9% returns because the taxpayer bailed them out. Investors in the bust English banks didn't do so well I know. Politics again?

Different times different rules. Hindsight is a wonderful human invention. You can learn learn from history ( when the full facts finally come to light) but you cannot rewrite it. Planning in line with the current environment is a far better use of ones time.

Malthusian

Are we sure that Berbastrike isn't Bowlhead logging on under a different alias to bowl himself easy full tosses?

Glen_Clark

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Different times different rules. .

Doesn't look like it because the English Establishment was still throwing money at Scotland after then when the Scots were threatening devolution. The English Establishment don't want to lose Balmoral, or Faslane, for a start. Politics is very relevant to Savings and Investments because it would be very useful to know where the politicians are going to throw our money.