Is now a good time to invest in stocks and shares ISA’s

Shackman13

Alexland said:

Personally I don't think it's a particularly good time to invest in S&S with global stock markets having recovered within around 15% of their previous peak and so many companies facing very real difficulties. Having said that provided it's a suitable asset allocation then over the long term it should be a reasonably good thing to do with the money. I don't understand the comment about "vanguard being reluctant to pay out" in my experience they work to process like any other S&S manager,

Aah, I hadn’t realised that stocks had recovered so quickly. With that in mind, any more suggestions as to how to invest? We don’t want to just let our money stagnate earning very little interest.

Alexland

Shackman13 said:

Aah, I hadn’t realised that stocks had recovered so quickly.

My comment was around the amazing recovery of global markets however for those investing in the UK market will have seen less recovery as those companies don't seem to have such good long term prospects which affects their valuation. There were much better opportunities to invest around a month ago.

Shackman13 said:

With that in mind, any more suggestions as to how to invest?

I'd suggest you just stick to a textbook allocation of mixed assets appropriate from your circumstances using a multi asset fund of equities, bonds, etc such as Vanguard LifeStrategy (whose equities have around 25% UK bias), HSBC Global Strategy (who have the UK in correct proportion to global capitalisation), L&G Multi Index, etc.

If you are investing occasional lump sums you may find the iWeb £25 setup/£5 trade works out cheaper than Vanguard Investor 0.15% pa ongoing platform charge.

Shackman13

That’s great, thanks for that. Basically all we want is to put the money into a fully managed account & forget about it. We’re not ones for constantly having to watch the market and moving money about. As long as we keep money in easy access accounts for emergencies. 

AlanP_2

You can pay £2880 each per year into a pension and get the tax top up to make it £3600 each until Age 75.

25% tax free on withdrawal and the rest taxable but if yoir wife has no / limited taxable income she could possibly get it all back out tax free.

  

Albermarle

Aah, I hadn’t realised that stocks had recovered so quickly. With that in mind, any more suggestions as to how to invest? We don’t want to just let our money stagnate earning very little interest.

Be careful not to take too much direction from comments on an internet forum. Alexland's comments are his own opinion , some would agree with him ( I do largely ) but many would not . 

In any case if you do not like the low interest rates on savings , you can not avoid to take some risk by investing.

I'd suggest you just stick to a textbook allocation of mixed assets appropriate from your circumstances using a multi asset fund of equities, bonds, etc such as Vanguard LifeStrategy (whose equities have around 25% UK bias), HSBC Global Strategy (who have the UK in correct proportion to global capitalisation), L&G Multi Index, etc.

Just to clarify - the low cost ( approx. 0.25%pa charge ) multi asset funds suggested each have a range of products . Low risk to   medium risk to high risk . Normally in the long run the higher risk ones produce higher returns but it can be a bumpy ride. The low risk ones may just about beat inflation but not much more. The risk is often correlated with the % of shares/equity in the fund .The higher this % the higher the risk/potential reward. 

Aminatidi

Shackman13 said:

Alexland said:

Personally I don't think it's a particularly good time to invest in S&S with global stock markets having recovered within around 15% of their previous peak and so many companies facing very real difficulties. Having said that provided it's a suitable asset allocation then over the long term it should be a reasonably good thing to do with the money. I don't understand the comment about "vanguard being reluctant to pay out" in my experience they work to process like any other S&S manager,

Aah, I hadn’t realised that stocks had recovered so quickly. With that in mind, any more suggestions as to how to invest? We don’t want to just let our money stagnate earning very little interest.

Focus on understanding your appetite for volatility and how likely you are to need some or all of the money.

You'll earn !!!!!! all with it in the bank but with investments comes the basic premise of no reward without risk so you need to understand roughly how much of both you want to aim for and are comfortable with especially when it comes to downside as usually people don't put a limit on how much upside they'd be prepared to accept.

If you start with something like the Vanguard LifeStrategy range you can see that there are steps of risk which usually also relate to the potential reward but also the potential downside.

Look at how each has performed over the last 3-6 months and you'll get some rough idea how much of a setback you might be prepared to tolerate.

Alexland

Albermarle said:
Be careful not to take too much direction from comments on an internet forum. Alexland's comments are his own opinion , some would agree with him ( I do largely ) but many would not. 

Quite right for completeness also consider gold, bitcoin, mini bond scams, discontinued Lego sets, dodgy hotel room schemes, etc some of which would have done better than my suggestion and others would result in total loss.

Alistair31

Alexland said:

Albermarle said:
Be careful not to take too much direction from comments on an internet forum. Alexland's comments are his own opinion , some would agree with him ( I do largely ) but many would not. 

Quite right for completeness also consider gold, bitcoin, mini bond scams, discontinued Lego sets, dodgy hotel room schemes, etc some of which would have done better than my suggestion and others would result in total loss.

Airport car parking spaces...

kinger101

Alistair31 said:

Alexland said:

Albermarle said:
Be careful not to take too much direction from comments on an internet forum. Alexland's comments are his own opinion , some would agree with him ( I do largely ) but many would not. 

Quite right for completeness also consider gold, bitcoin, mini bond scams, discontinued Lego sets, dodgy hotel room schemes, etc some of which would have done better than my suggestion and others would result in total loss.

Airport car parking spaces...

I'm just now in the process if re-balancing my portfolio between the parking spaces, student accommodation and graphene.  But thought I'd hold off until a got the money from that Nigerian Prince once the loan I advanced him gets his assets unfrozen.  Though I might splash a bit of that cash on a nice car I've seen on gumtree.  It's nice to treat oneself every now and again.

Albermarle

Alexland said:

Albermarle said:
Be careful not to take too much direction from comments on an internet forum. Alexland's comments are his own opinion , some would agree with him ( I do largely ) but many would not. 

Quite right for completeness also consider gold, bitcoin, mini bond scams, discontinued Lego sets, dodgy hotel room schemes, etc some of which would have done better than my suggestion and others would result in total loss.

I was actually referring to this comment Personally I don't think it's a particularly good time to invest in S&S with global stock markets having recovered within around 15% of their previous peak and so many companies facing very real difficulties. 
I actually agree with you, but it is clearly an opinion on the markets , which as we all know could be right or wrong. So  I was just pointing out to an inexperienced investor that one persons opinion on the future of the markets was just that , an opinion , as he seemed to accept what you said as a fact.