Student new to investing S&S ISA advice

lolipop123

I am a student in my early 20s new to investing, I have a S&S ISA with HSBC which has £300 in the HSBC global strategy portfolio acc - balanced with a £50 a month regular payment set up ( will likely increase to £100 soon ), £200 in the HSBC FTSE all world index acc and £100 in Schroder global healthcare z acc. As I am a student I don't have a lot of spare money to invest at the moment however I plan on making the HSBC global strategy balanced acc my main investment with regular payments and then when I have money to spare splitting it between the other two investment funds with the goal of having close to £2000 in the HSBC balanced acc and £500+ in the all world FTSE and Schroder global healthcare in a years time. I do have an emergency fund set up and I am just trying to invest anything spare that I am prepared to loose and will likely increase the amount I am investing in these funds when I start working in around 2 years time

I would really appreciate some advice from those more experienced as well as opinions on my investment goals and how to maximise my small amounts of investments. 

Thank you.

Albermarle

You seem to have made a good start. HSBC global strategy have five different funds, which one have you invested in ?

 I do have an emergency fund set up and I am just trying to invest anything spare that I am prepared to loose and will likely increase the amount I am investing in these funds when I start working in around 2 years time

As you are sensibly sticking to mainstream investments ( not crypto etc ), you will never lose everything, although a drop of up to 40% is always possible. Even then they will most likely recover with time. When you start work you will also have a pension to invest in. Obviously here you are talking really long term but you will get the benefit of tax relief and employer contributions.
Unless you have a public sector job which is different.

Have you thought about a LISA if you have a plan to buy a house sometime? You can have cash based or S&S based ones .

Lifetime ISA (LISA): how they work & best buys - Money Saving Expert

eskbanker

Albermarle said:

You seem to have made a good start. HSBC global strategy have five different funds, which one have you invested in ?

OP says 'balanced':

lolipop123 said:

I have a S&S ISA with HSBC which has £300 in the HSBC global strategy portfolio acc - balanced with a £50 a month regular payment set up ( will likely increase to £100 soon ), £200 in the HSBC FTSE all world index acc and £100 in Schroder global healthcare z acc.

but putting £50 into HSBC GS Balanced and then £200 into HSBC FTSE All World is closer to just putting £250 into HSBC GS Adventurous, so the rationale for choosing a multi-asset fund and then a much bigger stake in an equity-only one isn't clear, although I may have misinterpreted which figures are balances and which are regular payments!

lolipop123

I invested in the balanced fund with HSBC (risk level 3) and will likely be working within the NHS for a number of years, I'd like to keep my investments pretty simple without having to think about them too much and leave them alone for 5 years, I thought having the balanced which is more 60/40 and then more volatile ones like the other two should be sufficient ? I hadn't considered a LISA would I have to wait till the next tax year to open one ? I will look into it thank you.

lolipop123

sorry I wasn't that clear I only have one regular payment set up which is £50 to the HSBC global strategy balanced fund which already has £300 invested. The all world FTSE currently has £200 invested into it and the shredder global healthcare has £100 but no regular payments set up for those.

Albermarle

Working for the NHS, will mean your pension is sorted out for you ( and a very good one it is too) .

If you have £100 in a 60/40 and £100 in a 100% equity one - you effectively have a 80/20 fund , so why not just invest in that in the first place- like eskbanker says HSBC Adventurous. Keep things as simple as possible !

You can open a LISA this tax year but read the details/Terms and conditions carefully to make sure it suits you. . There are only a limited number of providers, most are listed in the link I sent.

eskbanker

lolipop123 said:

I invested in the balanced fund with HSBC (risk level 3) and will likely be working within the NHS for a number of years, I'd like to keep my investments pretty simple without having to think about them too much and leave them alone for 5 years, I thought having the balanced which is more 60/40 and then more volatile ones like the other two should be sufficient ?

Many will use a 'core plus satellites' model, but while a healthcare fund is a valid example of a satellite holding to deliberately give you a greater exposure to that particular sector, the global equity fund is largely duplicating the equity content that you already have in the multi-asset fund and so just has the effect of increasing the risk level.

lolipop123

Thank you so would it be better to simply go for a higher risk HSBC global strategy fund like Dynamic or adventurous or keep the balanced and healthcare and get rid of the FTSE ?

eskbanker

lolipop123 said:

Thank you so would it be better to simply go for a higher risk HSBC global strategy fund like Dynamic or adventurous or keep the balanced and healthcare and get rid of the FTSE ?

It depends on the overall level of risk you have in mind - the fact that you cited GS Balanced as being level 3 suggests that this is important to you, but the equity-only fund will probably be 5 (I don't know which scale you're using), so would take the two together closer to 4, whereas sticking with Balanced plus a bit of healthcare should be closer to the 3 you had in mind.

Albermarle

In reality for these types of sums and your young age, it is not going to make that much difference, if you change the balance between the current investments, or not.
The main thing is that you have got started and the investments are mainstream and low cost (and not something dodgy)