Low risk investments

joewest1802

Hi all,

I'm just after some advice on basic relatively safe investments.

I have money that's just sitting in my bank account, not really gaining any interest.

Are there any shares that I could invest it in, in order to gain some sort of reasonable return?

I'm thinking ultra safe stocks, are any of the following recommended?

Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.

Or any others recommended?

I understand there is always at least some risk, whatever the stock, but just want to pick one which is pretty much safe and will earn me some form of return of the coming months or longer.

Thanks

dunstonh

Are there any shares that I could invest it in, in order to gain some sort of reasonable return?

Investing in shares is not considered low risk.

I'm thinking ultra safe stocks, are any of the following recommended?
Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.

What on earth makes you think they are ultra safe?

I understand there is always at least some risk, whatever the stock, but just want to pick one which is pretty much safe and will earn me some form of return of the coming months or longer.You appear to be confused about investing.   That is not unusual if you have not done it before.   However, you have pretty much shot up the risk scale to look at the top end despite your objective of being at the lower end.    Also, your timescales are totally unreaslistic.    You should ideally be investing for at least an economic cycle (around 10 years) although you should get away with 5 years (in most 5 year periods you would not have made a loss with a diverse portfolio).   You should not invest for just months.  A crash can take 5 years to recover. Crashes are not always fairly instant.   You could have 3 negative years in a row.

You need to do a bit more research and understand investing more.   Otherwise, you are jumping in at the deep end with no ability to swim.

Alexland

joewest1802 said:

I'm thinking ultra safe stocks, are any of the following recommended?

Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.

Any investment becomes risky if the price gets too high. Individual company shares are very high risk. Diversified funds (holding thousands of companies and a mix of asset types including fixed income) can reduce volatility and risk.

Time also dilutes risk as the longer you can invest for the more likely you will get a positive outcome - see the below article (not that I am recomending Nutmeg as a provider). How long can you invest the money for? As you can see below it really needs to be 5-7 years or preferably longer to stand a high chance of a positive return. What happens in the short term is almost random.

https://www.nutmeg.com/nutmegonomics/increasing-your-chances-of-positive-portfolio-returns-the-facts-about-long-term-investing/

MaxiRobriguez

Single stock investing, whatever company you pick, can be very volatile. Even some of the mammoth companies that have stable revenues can go up or down 10-20% in a short time frame. The U.S stocks you've highlighted are very racy, you only need to look at a chart of the stock performance to see how quickly those prices can change. What has historically been a more consistent stock closer to home would be something like Unilever, which this year has a peak-to-trough variance of 26% this year. Would you be happy to see your investment change in value by up to 25% either way? If not, single stock investing is not for you.

Investing in indexes is another option, which is less risky than single stock investing and tends to come with less volatility too, but your capital is still at risk and you +/- 10% can and does frequently happen.

Perhaps you should take stock and work out what you want to achieve? Everyone wants *more yield* when savings accounts are 0%, but rather than just trying to find the thing that pays you the most, why don't you work out what the yield is you want/need to achieve whatever goal it is you have, and then pick the option that can meet that that is the least riskiest of the options you have found?

Although I'll take a bet that you won't find what you're looking for, as it feels like you're asking for 5% guaranteed returns.

DireEmblem

Investments by definition are not safe.  If you are unsure, then you are best going with a cheap global equity tracker fund in my opinion, as long as you intend to hold for at least 5 years.  Something like VWRP the Vanguard FTSE All World ETF, that has over 3000 holdings globally I think from memory.  It should give you a good average return of the global stock markets.

From the sounds of it however, you would be much better with the likes of Premium bonds, or regular savers.  Look at the Natwest 3% regular saver, where you can drip in £50 a month.  You won't be able to build up a large balance, and I think the 3% is limited to balances up to £1000, but its better than nothing for probably 5-10 minutes work to setup.

Albermarle

I'm thinking ultra safe stocks, are any of the following recommended?

Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
Maybe you are thinking 'these  companies are too well known/successful not to go bust in the next few years' means their share price will be stable /increase over the next few years as well . Two different issues in fact.
As others have said step back , spend some time looking through similar threads on this forum would be a good idea, 

ElephantBoy57

As other have said, shares are a gamble. But if that is what you want, something like Morrisons or Centrica?

MaxiRobriguez

ElephantBoy57 said:

As other have said, shares are a gamble. But if that is what you want, something like Morrisons or Centrica?

Why those two in particular? Neither of those would be anywhere near my watch list.

ElephantBoy57

MaxiRobriguez said:

Why those two in particular? Neither of those would be anywhere near my watch list.

The OP is wanting low risk, so supermarkets and utilities over risky start-ups and new tech. The share price of both stocks has previously been higher.

Another_Saver

I think the OP should avoid any individual shares and focus on learning about investing first.
Monevator, Kroijer, Jack Bogle's Little Book of Common Sense Investing are decent starter materials.
Then a global index fund.

eskbanker

OP - in your other thread you refer to being on Universal Credit, which may influence the wisdom of committing funds to investments (versus staying in cash), although obviously we don't know the full story in terms of assets, income, etc, so sharing more detail about your circumstances is likely to give more focused suggestions....