"If I knew then what I know now" what would you invest in?

GeoffTF

Call options on Microsoft, except when it went down, in which case I would buy put options. Silly question of course. Nobody would know what would happen in advance.

22225

I would've started my pension earlier.

masonic

Well obviously if I knew the future I'd invest in whatever I knew would go up by the most. If you mean what would I'd have done if I knew as much about investing as I do now, then I'd spend less time trying to outperform the market and keep things very simple by buying the market.

IvanOpinion

For simplicity I would not have bought into many of the funds/trusts that I did and would simply have bought a global index tracker.
The second thing I would have done is NOT use an IFA to start of my investing path and day-to-day management.
The third thing I would have done is to use an IFA for help on significant/major life events.

tiesto

Investing in any one company, no matter how well established, is always going to be a gamble. I'm sure plenty of people buying RBS shares in 2005/2006 thought it was a safe investment, likewise those buying General Motors shares.

No matter how well ran a company, there is always a risk that it fails for any number of reasons. 

However, what you will see is that regardless of what disasters may befall the world, the stock market typically goes up over a long enough period of time. Just look at any graph of the US stock market over the past 100 years and whilst there are sometimes entire decades where there is limited growth, over a period of 20-30 years its been pretty much impossible to lose money at any point in time if you'd been able to invest in the US stock market as a concept and at times the gains you'd have been able to make are close to 10x. 

Fortunately for all of us, investing in a stock market is actually really easy to do. Companies like Vanguard and iShares/Blackrock set up funds, which buy shares in every stock in a particular stock market, and then you can just buy into this fund and let them do the rest. 

So in terms of answering the question about what I'd do if I knew then what I know now, its all things I kind of knew then, but have had reinforced to me over time:

- Start investing as early as you can. Old adage about best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, next best time is today. Obviously how early you can start depends on your financial situation, but if you're debt free and have enough emergency funds saved up, then you're in a position to start investing. 
- Keep it simple to start with. Decide on a couple of Vanguard/Blackrock funds (preferably ones which are globally diversified like a Vanguard All-world or a Vanguard Lifestrategy) and put everything you invest into these on a regular basis. As your investments and confidence grow, then start reading blogs like Monevator about how to ensure your portfolio is optimised.
- Invest regularly. None of us can time the market perfectly. But if we invest the same amount on a regular basis (I'd suggest putting money into investments on a monthly basis), then sometimes you'll be investing when its cheap to do so and sometimes when its expensive to do so. 
- Focus on keeping fees cheap. Fortunately Vanguard/iShares have cut fees massively from what people typically paid a couple of decades ago for investing so as long as you're using one of their funds then you shouldn't have too worry too much about fees at this stage. 
- Ensure you're investing tax efficiently. Depending on how much you earn this will either by your pension, a LISA or an ISA. Make sure you're using one of these vehicles for all investing you're doing.
- DON'T PANIC. The markets will crash at some point. It might be tomorrow which will be gutting to see your hard earned wages fall in value immediately. It might be in 5 years time and wipe out a lot of your gains. But barring a complete collapse of the world economy, stock markets have shown time and time again that they bounce back. So leave your money invested.
- Don't overthink it. There's plenty of time to learn everything you need to about tax optimisation strategies, diversification, active vs passive investing etc. Don't let the complexity of some of these topics put you off starting out. 

jimjames

Back in the 1990s I started out investing in FTSE100 tracker and a few investment trusts. Global trackers weren't really such a thing back then but I wish I'd put more into global than FTSE100 originally.

Snot

Accept that most people can’t beat the market long term, so 90% in cheap tracker/s and 10% in a fun portfolio where you pick your own stocks/funds, as I find it interesting.

cloud_dog

I can only echo the general commentary around simply looking to utilise a global all world tracker.  My main reaction when I read the post title was how much more of a 'zen like' state I am in with my investing now than before.  I used to love researching individual stocks (my main focus was resource stocks), and to this day I still cannot understand why the price of some stocks never reflected my 'in depth' (ahem) understanding of their value

The other point I would comment on (someone has already), would be to consider retirement planning much sooner.  I'd have to check back but, it may have only been around 10 years ago on here that I got serious about understanding what it was about, what we might want, and options for going about it (178 days to go, I think).

ColdIron

I'm genuinely not certain about this but I probably shouldn't have started smoking 50 years ago

It is an expensive habit, all that money put into (plucks a company out of thin air) BAT would have seen me financially healthier at the very least

mebu60

N6xxy said:

I hadn't heard of Krugerrands before, are they the equivalent of buying gold bars?

I wonder whether over paying the mortgage is a good move but then with the interests rates going up and down, it could be a moot point...also do you look back after paying it off and think that's great but we should have used that money to have the experiences we are now too old to fully take advantage of. Oh to have a crystal ball!

No because I invested the savings from paying off the mortgage and now I'm old we can have great experiences and stay in lovely places.