Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
Depends what you do with it. You could take some of the tax free lump allowed and continue to add to you pension.
Investments - Strategies, Ideas, Options & advice
- Thread starter PNWokingham
- Start date
Backache
Assistant Pro
I think the idea that the press cannot speculate on possible budget changes rather strange.
Reeves and Starmer were giving interviews and speeches all over the place.
I didn't see a single piece telling anyone what to do.
Plenty of suggestions of how to avoid possible effects, some of which would have worked some of which would not, that's life.
Ross61
Challenge Tour Pro
Make sure you don’t break the tax free pension recycling rules though
Mudball
Assistant Pro
Tnx for sharing.. this is great stuff.. Not sure how i missed this thread in the past.I don't think there is a thread on here so thought would start one. Main idea to discuss investment accounts, investment options and ideas, income generation for retirement etc. Any good tips on stocks, bonds, funds etc - even bitcoin junkies can join in, although i won't touch this!
I have 2 accounts - Interactive Investor and AJ Bell. I have all 3 accounts in II - ISA, SIPP and Trading and just ISA and SIPP in AJ Bell. Both are decent with charges and useabilty and cheaper than the other big competitor Hargreaves Lansdown. I may merge the accounts in the future
My strategy in the SIPPs and ISAs is generally focussed on Investment Trusts (closed-ended funds), including REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and equity Income trusts - and hold no open ended funds. I have allocated across most of the high dividend REITs, infrastructure and Renewable Energy funds, as they sold off heavily in 2021 to 2023 and were trading at big discounts to NAV. I prefer the fact that you can buy a basket of shares/ bonds/ infrastructure often for a big discount to their worth (NAV - net asset value) rather than just buying at NAV in open-ended funds. Also you can deal stratight away as they are companies on the stockmarket not funds that are valued and priced once per day. The other reason is there are no platform charges (compared to the 0.3% to 0.5% area per annum of charges for holding open-ended funds). And the investment trusts are often managed by the same fund managers as open-ended funds. The negative is that there is less choice. Most of my investments have large dividends and and although i have not analysed it overall it will be well above 5% on average.
I find Citywire a great source of info on the Investment Trust arena
Citywire Investment Trust Insider | Fund Manager News, Analysis and Data
News and analysis for investment trust enthusiasts – private or professional.citywire.com
My other strategy for the Trading account is to buy gilts - very low coupon ones - generally 2026, 2028 and 2030 atm. I also have some of the 0.5% 2061 long-end Gilt, which will do well if interest rates are cut a lot. I am now going to put all spare cash into Gilts in the coming years rather than the bank, where i am heavily taxed on the interest. The reason being is that there is no capital gains on Gilts and I only have very low coupons (the annual interest) - between 0.125% and 0.375% - and this is what is taxed in the same way as interest in banks, with the majority of the money earned on the capital gain at maturity or on the way there if you sell.
Same here .. SIPP and ISAs guy.
1) Stocks.. Fairly well spread out, but very Nasdaq heavy. UK stock markets are fairly useless
2) Funds - again S&P, Emerging Markets, Global income.
3) Currencies, Commodities - i got into active trading during Covid. Learnt a lot, but burnt thru my account - twice!!!. I had set an amount aside, so closed all my IG accounts once i ran thru them
As I get over the hump and my risk appetite reduces, I have progressively moved into passive Index funds. Esp in my SIPPs.. they own most of the stock exchange anyways. My advice to anyone who asks me, is to just put money into an Index fund every month and dont worry about it for 20-25 years.
Havent looked at gilts yet. Will look. But when i can get 10-12% return within a Stock ISA in an asset class that I understand, I tend not to experiment too much
(again, great thread)
Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
Financial advisor says I’m fine.
Flexible drawdown pension, allows you to take 25% tax free of all monies paid in since the original 25% taken out.
If you wanted to, that is
PNWokingham
Journeyman Pro
I agree with a lot of this. One thing to consider with the UK stockmarket is that the returns look a lot better when dividends are taken into account. They are very good for this, whereas US dividend yields are very low. Also, for near retirement I would much rather have things in GBP and no currency risk, combined with high dividends. And lastly, the US market is expensive and the UK market very cheap - and if there is a crash, I believe UK stocks will fall a lot less than US.
On gilts, i will no doubt look to invest some in isa and sipp to recycle profits and dividends as a way of reducing risk, but atm the main play is in the Trading account as an alternative to cash, where I get heavily taxed
Mudball
Assistant Pro
Related by a bit of a digression... I saw this article couple of weeks ago..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg7j83drd5o
We have very poor financial training for kids. I sent it to my teenager, and asked him what he thought about it. He explained it to me, but could not see why it was wrong or that it was not fair. I had to give him a lesson on equity investing and taking care of money. Showed him how the same amount in a well cared JISA/CTF is now into 5 digits due to disciplined savings of even less than 50 quid a month. Why media will highlight the 'sad' and unfair cases but will downplay the teens who will have enough to write off Univ debt via a JISA.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg7j83drd5o
We have very poor financial training for kids. I sent it to my teenager, and asked him what he thought about it. He explained it to me, but could not see why it was wrong or that it was not fair. I had to give him a lesson on equity investing and taking care of money. Showed him how the same amount in a well cared JISA/CTF is now into 5 digits due to disciplined savings of even less than 50 quid a month. Why media will highlight the 'sad' and unfair cases but will downplay the teens who will have enough to write off Univ debt via a JISA.
PJ87
Journeyman Pro
I'm a strong believer that education in basic things like budgeting needs to happen at a school level
So many kids come out of school not knowing how to budget it's scary
Sure families should do it BUT not all kids have a loving family and also not all parents even know themselves
PNWokingham
Journeyman Pro
this is an interesting investment option - BBGI - an short interview with the PM here
www.trustintelligence.co.uk
Trust Issues: the outlook for investing in infrastructure with BBGI CEO Duncan Ball
BBGI is more than just a bond proxy…
www.trustintelligence.co.uk
Neilds
Assistant Pro
I don't think that educating kids should be that complicated. If you don't have the money for it and don't urgently need it to survive, then don't buy it should be what people are being taught. Along with, if it is cheaper to get off your backside and go and collect it, don't pay extra to get it delivered - aka deliveroo, etc.
Mudball
Assistant Pro
How do you dabble in gilts? How liquid are these for retail investors? My usual platforms like HL, IG wont allow it (unless i have missed some settings). I will need a year or so of researching/observing before i take the leap. A different asset class is always interesting way to burn some money. need to rebuild a corpus because i need to do some building works in the next 6 months.
PNWokingham
Journeyman Pro
you can buy all gilts on Interactive Investor and AJ Bell so i would be 99% sure the same is available at Hargreaves Lansdown. The ticker or name on my 2 plaforms is different - on II, where i have my gilts, type United Kingdom in the search box and they all appear. On AJ Bell click the Shares and Markets dropdown and one of the options is Bonds and Gilts - and next choose "UK Gilt Prices". You may have to message HL if you cannot work it out
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Marshy77
Journeyman Pro
This is all really interesting and I'm going to look further into this. My kids got the £250 payment which thankfully after reading that article is not worth £450 rather than £12. Think I need to move into something that will generate more for them, potentially.
I should be more clued up on this as I work in the back office of an investments team!!
I should be more clued up on this as I work in the back office of an investments team!!
Mudball
Assistant Pro
As long as it is not 450 at the end of 18 years, I think you should be ok. Good luck
Mudball
Assistant Pro
Looks like I can trade thru IG.
What are UK gilts and how do you invest in them?
UK government bonds, known as gilts, are considered a secure and safe investment. Find out how UK gilts work and how to invest in them here.
www.ig.com
I will look at Hargreaves too. However with less than <5% returns, I can only see them (gilts and bills) as a very small % of my portfolio. I am a bit more aggressive and look for north of 10%
Marshy77
Journeyman Pro
Yes, that is after 18 years!
RichA
Well-known member
Are gilts in any way better than keeping it in a ~5% savings account?
Mudball
Assistant Pro
If in an ISA cover, then no interest on these. So you will keep all the 5% rather than the bank 5%
Mudball
Assistant Pro
That is a tough one.. but can be used as a lesson on impact of regular savings.
here is a compound calculator … if you had 250 in CTF and you pay in 50 quid every month for 18 years.. at 5% interest
Source: https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/compoundinterestcalculator.php
PNWokingham
Journeyman Pro
Looks like I can trade thru IG.
What are UK gilts and how do you invest in them?
UK government bonds, known as gilts, are considered a secure and safe investment. Find out how UK gilts work and how to invest in them here.
I will look at Hargreaves too. However with less than <5% returns, I can only see them (gilts and bills) as a very small % of my portfolio. I am a bit more aggressive and look for north of 10%
i agree on gilts being v conservative - hence my main thing is in the Trading account - as said i use them as a better option than highly taxed bank interest - returns are considerably better on the no-risk part of the investment strategy
