Investment advice? NLC

[gambler]

I am no IFA but I have carried out some considerable research into this type of investment.


If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago you would have $49.00 left.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling refund, you would have $214.00 cash. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It's probably best to speak to bigD though

[scottishselise]

[campbell]

I especially like Scott (Gambler's) advice

However another +1 for BigD.

And an alternative is our IFA, Alan Steel Asset Management.

Make the best of your shares ISA allowances first. With 5th April approaching you have the chance to tip £20k into something in that tax-efficient wrapper very quickly. Markets are gradually emerging from the doomsday gloom we were all duped into by journos, so not a bad time to be investing. Through a Fund Manager who knows what he or she is doing, mind...

Bear in mind also that the Santander Super Dooper 321 thingy is barely exceeding inflation at 3%. Safe, maybe. Investment, nope.

[robin]

DJ, good post.

Gambler, also good post

I am skeptical on cash ISAs ... unless you're willing to prop them up each year with yet more money, you will be relegated to 0.1% style interest rates and have no way of bringing your old cash ISAs forward into this year's must have accounts. Nobody will take cash ISA transfer into new cash ISA account unless you are also making a new deposit in the current tax year. So they can be made to work for you but you need to be very well organized to make sure you don't let them languish, and you have to reserve some of your annual ISA allowance to opening a new cash ISA every year (this restricts what you can then invest elsewhere).

I like stocks and shares ISAs, though, as the return on those is real and can roll up tax free which does make a real difference over the years.

Cheers,
Robin

[mckeann]

If anyone is interested in Alan Steel Asset Management then drop me a PM and I can give you a contact. They used to sponsor me to windsurf many years ago and my girlfriend is the PA for the MD.

[renmure]

And if anyone just wants to send me all their savings via Paypal then I am happy to have a play about with it, for investment purposes of course

[Rag_It]

but again best speak to an IFA to discuss the type of vehicle, its investment strategy and risk/return profile that will compliment any other investments you have.

DJ

Told ya.... It's all going to end up in a car of sorts, Lotus won depreciation-less motoring of the year, so I'd have my eyes on a new V6 Exige!

[robin]

Joking aside, with the best will in the world, new exige is not going to be depreciation-less. It might be if you are the second owner in 2-3 years time, maybe ...

Cheers,
Robin

[Kugaman1]

Wow, thanks all.
Lots of good advice there.
I guess my next stop will be an IFA.
Its good to hear that they now work for a fee and not a comission - that always put me off in the past. I guess I thought they would rather sell you a high comission investment rather than something that is actually beneficial for you!

Andy

[campbell]

Share oriented but useful principles in here too - 12 New Year Resolutions for Investors

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... um=twitter

[BigD]

Thanks for all the recommendations, my view is as always to spread the risk across various asset classes and not restrict yourself to just one. Holding one asset class is extremely risky, even if it is a relatively safe asset class. Look at Gilts at the moment where you are almost guaranteed a loss from an extremely low risk asset, or commercial property which dropped some 20 to 30% in 2007/08. Both of these are viewed as low risk assets. No-one knows what is going to do well this year; the commentators are just guessing and anyone can do that. A medium to long term view is always best to get you the returns and not try and chase returns in any one sector, that is extremely risky.


From a recent article entitled "Where not to invest in 2014"

Gold

After a decade-long bull run in gold bullion, the price of the precious metal has been in free-fall over the past 12 months.

Performance of gold over 1yr



Source: FE Analytics

Among the major reasons for the poor performance of gold are improving risk sentiment among investors, a lack of underlying inflation and the tapering of QE – which in itself is also linked to inflation.

Ben Willis, head of research, says investors shouldn’t see the recent fall as a buying opportunity and warns investors to steer clear of it over the coming year.

“One area that we are avoiding is gold. We just don’t like it,” Willis said.

“It is a very speculative trade in our opinion, which in the past was based on the weakening of the dollar, itself a by-product of QE.”

“People were using it as a dollar hedge and we haven’t held it, which meant we missed out on its massive spike but also its subsequent fall.”

“It doesn’t yield anything and we don’t really understand what drives it, so we are happy to avoid it,” he added.

There are plenty who disagree with this view, however.

Star manager Alastair Mundy holds gold in his Investec Cautious Managed fund as he is concerned that QE will lead to higher inflation. He also thinks that equity markets are overestimating companies’ ability to grow their earnings to catch up with ratings.

As you can see, even the experts are divided. My own view for what it's worth is that as Gold is seen as a safe haven, when risky assets are doing well and worth the risk, Gold will not fair well so it's a no buy from me. Just my opinion of course and I am just as likely to get it wrong as the analysts.

Look at the chart below to get an idea of the discrete asset class returns over the last few years.

[mattg]

kugaman,
If you're going to buy physical gold in the UK, best to go for Britannias or Sovereigns as there is no capital gains to be paid on any gains made on these types of coins.
Re Santander 123 - because lower/no rates of interest are paid on balances up to £3k, actual final rate on interest paid on a £20k balance is 2.7%, then of course you will have to pay tax on top of that. Still way better than any other savings/instant access account on the market right now.