J P Morgan ISA

sealady

Newbie here,

I have about £1000 which I would like to invest with the intention of leaving it there for at least a year. I'm hoping to add to it every month. As an employee of JP Morgan I have the option to invest in their ISA. It's a mined field and not sure which is the best option to go with. Does anyone have some advice or knowledge about the products.

From what I understand employees get special rates and no charges.

Aegis

"At least a year" isn't long enough to be investing in a stocks and shares ISA, which I'm assuming this is an example of (JPM being the managers of a couple of my ISA funds after all!). You'd need at least 5 years to be safe.

Have you used your cash ISA allowance yet?

sealady

Aegis wrote: »

"At least a year" isn't long enough to be investing in a stocks and shares ISA, which I'm assuming this is an example of (JPM being the managers of a couple of my ISA funds after all!). You'd need at least 5 years to be safe.

Have you used your cash ISA allowance yet?

Thanks for the info! I'm new to all this investment business. I initally was going to invest in a Cash ISA but could not decide which is the best option to go for.

Aegis

sealady wrote: »

Thanks for the info! I'm new to all this investment business. I initally was going to invest in a Cash ISA but could not decide which is the best option to go for.

Well, one of the major differences between saving and investing (or cash accounts and stocks/shares accounts) is that stocks and shares should only be purchased with money you won't need for at least 5 years (usual guideline anyway). The reason is that stock markets can drop as well as rise, and your cash runs a risk of being worth less than it was. This drop generally becomes less and less likely as time passes, until 5 years on at which point it is very unlikely that a diversified portfolio will be lower in value than a cash account would have been.

That said, it would be terrible advice to send you in the direction of investments without ensuring that you first have a decent amount of savings to work from. Again, there's a guideline here, but it varies a lot more. My own guideline is that I'm comfortable investing as long as I have a contingency pot of at least 3 months living expenses, in case I lose my income unexpectedly. Others think 6 months or even a year is more appropriate, but I find that over-cautious.

If you don't have enough savings, start there. With £1000 you can make a nice start into ISA saving, which is great because it's tax free!