Investing in s&s ISA - timing & options? 28 January at 12:04AM in Savings & investments 2 replies 308 views

monaymadlol

Hi I'm planning on putting half my allowance into my SS ISA with Charles Stanley (vls & HSBC global). I haven't put into my ISAs at all for couple years. I'm planning to put about £5k each into both this tax year.

My question is, is there any timing issue - both in terms of the day/month to invest? And, in terms of the market/volatility - I guess it's good to buy 'low' in a recession?

And any other options I should consider aside from my vls (60?) And HSBC global?
FTSE 100 tracker? S&p 500 tracker? Any other diverse, passive trackers?

Thanks 

eskbanker

monaymadlol said:

My question is, is there any timing issue - both in terms of the day/month to invest?

No, there are no reliable patterns.

monaymadlol said:

And, in terms of the market/volatility - I guess it's good to buy 'low' in a recession?

It's always good to buy low, but the price of investments doesn't necessarily correlate with the state of the economy - for example, VLS60 bottomed out just below £200 in mid October 2022 and has risen to nearly £217 now, although still some way off the £238 high of late 2021.

monaymadlol said:

And any other options I should consider aside from my vls (60?) And HSBC global?
FTSE 100 tracker? S&p 500 tracker? Any other diverse, passive trackers?

Ah.

If you look under the bonnet of VLS and HSBC GS, you'll see that there's already massive overlap between their holdings, and in turn they will each contain plenty of FTSE100 and S&P500 stocks, so most would go with either VLS or HSBC GS rather than both, and it's only if you were concerned about the detailed allocation that you'd consider adding yet more of an individual market.  They do have differing allocation percentages and management philosophies though, along with other differences highlighted at the likes of https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/

monaymadlol

Thank you 😊