Possible silly questions re: Investments and risk

cheerfulcat

fimonkey wrote: »

Here are my quesitons.
1. Could a person have 2 portfolios? .. A high risk one and a low risk one? or even three portfolios, low, medium and high? If yes, what are the advantages, and if no, why not?

You can have as many notional portfolios as you like! But as purch writes, you will only have one actual portfolio, so it's helpful to have an overall plan within to run your sub-portfolios. FWIW, my investments are divided into income, growth, capital preservation and cash. Each section is run separately but with an eye to the effect of each on the whole picture. The growth portfolio in particular is regularly trimmed to beef up the income porty...

2. I am 31, and can afford to 'loose' £100 pm (by giving up wine no-less, do my liver a world of good too). Cos I can afford to 'loose' this (and already have some savings in a fixed interest account so v.safe).. should I just go for a £100 high risk S&S ISA? If so, what kind of term would I be looking at for investing? (i.e.£100pm for how many months, and how long would the money stay there)? I'm willing to take the risk, as I see it if I lost the lot I would still be a damn site healthier through not drinking. If I gain, then winners!!

Good for you on putting the wine money to better use! But just because you can afford to lose the money doesn't mean that you should set out to do so - relatively cautious investments can still return more than deposit accounts.

I'd suggest that you look at a 5-year period as an absolute minimum, and keep your regular investments to what you can comfortably afford.

jamesd

fimonkey, since you want specific and have 100 a month, you might consider BlackRock UK Absolute Alpha for low risk and Neptune Global Equity for high. The first should do well in falling markets and OK in rising, the second less well in falling markets, losing value, but much better in rising markets.