Anyone else getting investment jitters?

pem2

chesky369 wrote: »

You really have to think about S & S ISAs as at least a ten-year stretch.

More like 25 years. I've got one, originally called Framlington Net Net now changed into Axa which I put 3k in 2000, now worth only £650 the best its been apart from the first year when it slid down to present level. The best, Jupiter Income 6k in 99, the best that's been 13,500 last year - now only worth £12,200. The only people who make real money is the Government, the Stockmarket, IFA's and banks/building societies.

dunstonh

I've got one, originally called Framlington Net Net now changed into Axa which I put 3k in 2000, now worth only £650 the best its been apart from the first year when it slid down to present level.

No surprise. Tech fund bought at the peak just before the crash.

The best, Jupiter Income 6k in 99, the best that's been 13,500 last year - now only worth £12,200.

Doubled in 8 year. Not bad.

The only people who make real money is the Government, the Stockmarket, IFA's and banks/building societies.

And you by the sounds of it as you lost on one and gained on the other. Put the two together and you beat savings rates over that same period.

wombat42_2

TRUSt_NO_1 wrote: »

Most Definitely

Food is what everyone will always need...and it is becoming increasingly scarce as each year goes by.

I just don't know about the investment opportunities in 'food' as I have my head buried in research of the silver and gold mining stocks right now.
If food was mined,I'd probably be in there by now.

If you get any tips let me know and I'll have a look..thanks

http://www.h-l.co.uk/fund_research/security_details/sedol/B1XGDS0.hl is the only fund i know that invests in food producers. Mostly for agriculture you need to invest in the commodity itself through etfs.
http://www.etfsecurities.com/en/securities/etfs_performance.asp

It is best to invest in a diversified ETF.

The attraction with agri is that it is commonly believed that they only started on a boom cycle about a year go while metals and energy have been booming already for about 4 years.

lys

Do not invest long with money you need in the next 5 years. Do not take advice from people that are not peak oil aware. There are "market experts" that got their predictions on oil prices wrong every year for the last 5-6 years. The world economical patterns are changing... there are stock market cycles so long (28, 34 years) that one generation will always think of the markets as going up over the long term, when in fact it is a cycle of long booms and short busts.

If you can't be bothered to look up good investments yourself, you should know that the best funds are the ones where the entry level is very high. Boone Pickens' has a 1 million bucks minimum for his clients. You can sometimes find out what the big shots are doing and try to follow the trend. Right now the petroleum, mining and railroad service companies are the most profitable. For peanut players, i believe a fund that has been doing well over the last few years, with a 10.000 usd entry level, is VGENX. But you would have beat any fund out there over the last few years if you bought gold in the 200-400 price range...

Finally, the standard disclaimers apply: Never take investment advice from someone who has a job. Do not believe everything you see on the internet.

dolcevita

giambitime wrote: »

As each day goes by i check my ISA fearing the worst.

i am hoping to achieve growth, and am willing to leave the investment for 5-10 years.

I am still a student (22) - i have one full (£7000) isa and. this year i have so far used £2000 of my isa allowance which i will soon fill.

You have on your side an investor's greatest weapon - time.

If you don't need the money don't worry about it.

If you are worried about volatility then you should readjust your portfolio to suit your risk profile.

giambitime

yes i think the next wedge i put in there will be more suited to my risk profile. As a new investor i can see myself being too greedy wanting high returns overnight but i have to realise this will not happen!

To answer an earlier point, i have an IFA who has been used in my family in the past to great success so he chose the funds.

I am seriously considering gold and silver after TRUST NO1s post and researching myself.

Thanks to all and keep the conversation going as im sure this is helping others too!

dunstonh

To answer an earlier point, i have an IFA who has been used in my family in the past to great success so he chose the funds.

The funds are good quality funds. I have four of those 5 in my own portfolio. However, I am more concerned with your risk.

You are clearly shaken by a small 8% loss. Yet that spread is capable of losing 60%. At some point that will probably happen. It may take years, it may take days but how would you react if you lost 60%?

highgrove_2

Hi all, pretty new to all this just wanted a bit of advice please. Wanting to start an ISA for buying a few stocks. I feel that some of the irish shares are good value at present so can these be purchased in an ISA and if so who is the best to trade with on line?

thanks

meester

giambitime wrote: »

As each day goes by i check my ISA fearing the worst.

i am hoping to achieve growth, and am willing to leave the investment for 5-10 years.

I am still a student (22) - i have one full (£7000) isa and. this year i have so far used £2000 of my isa allowance which i will soon fill.

My isas are currently invested in the following funds:
Bailie Gifford High Yield Bond Fund
Fidelity South East Asia,
Gartmore emerging markets opputunities,
Invesco Peerpetual High Income Acc
and Neptune Russia and Greater Russia fund in equal parts.

It has lost around 8% of its value since last year and now i am worried it will plummet further. In times of market instability, is it best to dig my feet into the ground and wait for times to get better? also, should i wait until the market stabalises before adding more funds in?

Many thanks and have a great day.

I have a similar spread of investments (no bonds), invested a year ago, I am down 4.9%. Not what I would have hoped for, but hardly catastrophic. I deliberately did not invest much last year (relative to my assets), because I was concerned about the state of the economy.

The 10%+ falls make now a much better time to buy. Whether or not it is a GOOD time to buy is hard to say, but certainly the upside potential is better now than it was a year ago, simply because things are starting from a lower base.

I think it's important to look at your investments from the perspective of value and long-term performance.

It's worth looking for instance at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSE_Sensex

• 6000, February 11, 2000 - On February 11, 2000, the infotech boom helped the Sensex to cross the 6,000-mark and hit and all time high of 6,006.

• 7000, June 21, 2005 - On June 20, 2005, the news of the settlement between the Ambani brothers boosted investor sentiments and the scrips of RIL, Reliance Energy, Reliance Capital and IPCL made huge gains. This helped the Sensex crossed 7,000 points for the first time.

• 8000, September 8, 2005 - On September 8, 2005, the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share index -- the Sensex -- crossed the 8000 level following brisk buying by foreign and domestic funds in early trading.

• 9000, December 09, 2005 - The Sensex on November 28, 2005 crossed 9000 to touch 9000.32 points during mid-session at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the back of frantic buying spree by foreign institutional investors and well supported by local operators as well as retail investors.

• 10,000, February 7, 2006 - The Sensex on February 6, 2006 touched 10,003 points during mid-session. The Sensex finally closed above the 10K-mark on February 7, 2006.

• 11,000, March 27, 2006 - The Sensex on March 21, 2006 crossed 11,000 and touched a peak of 11,001 points during mid-session at the Bombay Stock Exchange for the first time. However, it was on March 27, 2006 that the Sensex first closed at over 11,000 points.

• 12,000, April 20, 2006 - The Sensex on April 20, 2006 crossed 12,000 and touched a peak of 12,004 points during mid-session at the Bombay Stock Exchange for the first time.

• 13,000, October 30, 2006 - The Sensex on October 30, 2006 crossed 13,000 and still riding high at the Bombay Stock Exchange for the first time. It took 135 days to reach 13,000 from 12,000. And 124 days to reach 13,000 from 12,500. On 30th October 2006 it touched a peak of 13,039.36 & closed at 13,024.26.

• 14,000, December 5, 2006 - The Sensex on December 5, 2006 crossed 14,000 and touched a peak of 14028 at 9.58AM(IST) while opening for the day December 5, 2006.

• 15,000, July 6, 2007- The Sensex on July 6, 2007 crossed another milestone and reached a magic figure of 15,000. it took almost 7 month and 1 day to touch such a historic milestone.

• 16,000, September 19, 2007- The Sensex on September 19, 2007 crossed the 16,000 mark and reached a historic peak of 16322 while closing. The bull hits because of the rate cut of 50 bps in the discount rate by the Fed chief Ben Bernanke in US.

• 17,000, September 26, 2007- The Sensex on September 26, 2007 crossed the 17,000 mark for the first time, creating a record for the second fastest 1000 point gain in just 5 trading sessions. It failed however to sustain the momentum and closed below 17000. The Sensex closed above 17000 for the first time on the following day. Reliance group has been the main contributor in this bull run, contributing 256 points. This also helped Mukesh Ambani's net worth to grow to over $50 billion or Rs.2 trillion. It was also during this record bull run that the Sensex for the first time zoomed ahead of the Nikkei of Japan.

• 18,000, October 9, 2007- The Sensex crossed the 18k mark for the first time on October 9, 2007. The journey from 17k to 18k took just 8 trading sessions which is the third fastest 1000 point rise in the history of the sensex. The sensex closed at 18,280 at the end of day. This 788 point gain on 9th October was the second biggest single day absolute gains.

• 19,000, October 15, 2007- The Sensex crossed the 19k mark for the first time on October 15th 2007. It took just 4 days to reach from 18k to 19k. This is the fastest 1000 points rally ever and also the 640 point rally was the second highest single day rally in absolute terms. This made it a record 3000 point rally in 17 trading sessions overall.

• 20,000, October 29, 2007- The Sensex crossed the 20k mark for the first time with a massive 734.5 point gain but closed below the 20k mark. It took 11 days to reach from 19k to 20k. The journey of the last 10,000 points was covered in just 869 sessions as against 7,297 sessions taken to touch the 10,000 mark from 1,000 levels. In 2007 alone, there were six 1,000-point rallies for the Sensex.

• 21,000, January 8, 2008

It is now back at 16,000

Clearly there has been an insane bull market. Whether to invest depends on whether you think either the real growth prospects are there not reflected in the price, or alternatively if you think you can ride a speculative wave (tech-stock-style) and get out before the big crash.

See also the Shanghai Composite:
http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1205069790000&chddm=430300&q=SHA:000001

So your investments have been pretty trashed in the last couple of months, and it's not hard to see why.

Ultimately in the long-term value will out - if you can do what Warren Buffet did, and buy China Petroleum when it's trading at under 1/2 of its fundamental value AND WAIT for the rest of the market to catch up, then if you wait long enough you will find yourself with good profits and long-term stability.

meester

giambitime wrote: »

yes i think the next wedge i put in there will be more suited to my risk profile. As a new investor i can see myself being too greedy wanting high returns overnight but i have to realise this will not happen!

To answer an earlier point, i have an IFA who has been used in my family in the past to great success so he chose the funds.

I am seriously considering gold and silver after TRUST NO1s post and researching myself.

Thanks to all and keep the conversation going as im sure this is helping others too!

Don't you see the irony in basing your investment decisions on the basis of someone calling themselves 'trust no-one', and spelling their username in super-paranoid style?

And who slates the hugely respected and talented Neil Woodford on the basis of data about a completely different fund?

Be careful of commodities. Real assets generate both income and growth.

A bar of gold need yield neither.

The commodities bandwagon is a dangerous one.

Oh look, say the trend chasers 'wheat prices have doubled', let's put 100% of our market into some ETCs.

Fine, but what are the consequences of that?

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=333697&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/

"Last week three cities in the West African nation of Burkina Faso were hit by serious rioting after grain prices went up. Mobs burnt government buildings and looted stores. That incident followed on similar riots earlier this year in Senegal and Mauritania."

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2104849.0.2008_the_year_of_global_food_crisis.php

"
IT IS the new face of hunger. A perfect storm of food scarcity, global warming, rocketing oil prices and the world population explosion is plunging humanity into the biggest crisis of the 21st century by pushing up food prices and spreading hunger and poverty from rural areas into cities.

Millions more of the world's most vulnerable people are facing starvation as food shortages loom and crop prices spiral ever upwards.

The bank points out that global food prices have risen by 75% since 2000, while wheat prices have increased by 200%. The cost of other staples such as rice and soya bean have also hit record highs, while corn is at its most expensive in 12 years.

High prices have already prompted a string of food protests around the world, with tortilla riots in Mexico, disputes over food rationing in West Bengal and protests over grain prices in Senegal, Mauritania and other parts of Africa. In Yemen, children have marched to highlight their hunger, while in London last week hundreds of pig farmers protested outside Downing Street.
If prices keep rising, more and more people around the globe will be unable to afford the food they need to stay alive, and without help they will become desperate. More food riots will flare up, governments will totter and millions could die."


Bottom line is commodity speculation is something that most people would seek to avoid. Farmers would be happy not to have to worry about palm oil prices or grain costs. They could also find prices lower than they were 25 years ago (quite common until recently).

Why expose yourself to this.

If Vodafone's profits double, nobody starts a riot. If Coca Cola succeeds in its expansion, there are no protests, no campaigns to cut prices.

Commodities are a dangerous game to play.