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I mean, if you want to gamble then Trading121 is the free one where you won't just blow all your capital on fees. But the way to make money from short term trading is to have a strategy and more information than everyone else in the market. If you are starting from 'I'm unclear on where to begin' then your best bet is here
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Mar 11, 2021 10:29
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trading121 or trading212
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Mar 11, 2021 16:09
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Thanks for the steer. It is genuinely a bit of fun and not really a serious attempt to supplement income long term. Investing and stocks and such is something i've always heard and been curious about. I'm quite risk averse though so it's not something i've ever really put serious thought into trying and never knew where to start. Edit: I should say that i'm at the point in the OP of 'Long Term Goals / Saving for Retirement and was looking for a bit of a steer for general investment. I'm 37, no debts, house with mortgage, £45k salary and about £15k in a cash ISA. No dependents yet but we're in the process of trying. According to the guide in the OP i should be trying to max out my pension contributions i think. My work only puts 3% in which i then contribute another 5% to bump up to 8% total so it feels like i'm a looong way away from getting to the £40k per year cap. I have been treating my cash ISA like a bit of a general savings account though, so my surplus monthly money goes in there each month but comes back out if there's a large expenditure needed (like getting married or whatever). I'm going to open a lifetime ISA this weekend to shift a chunk of it across and get the end of year 25%, but when it comes to my cash ISA, should i actually start putting it into a stocks and shares one instead? Kin fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Mar 11, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 19:45
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Kin posted:Thanks for the steer. Cash ISA interest rates being what they are, I'd just cap that at whatever your emergency fund level is, and then put any excess into some combination of: A) your pension (probably most tax beneficial, but you're not gonna get access to it for a while); B) a stocks and shares ISA, with a robotrader or some index funds; C) overpayments on your mortgage, depending on what your interest rate on that is; D) whatever short term goals you have that can't be a bit sensitive to movements in the stock and shares ISA - maybe into your cash ISA, although frankly you can probably get better interest rates in other savings accounts right now. I've put those in rough order of general overall returns, but there's obviously a lot of other factors, like when you need the money, and what makes you feel happier, e.g. some people would much rather pay down the mortgage faster than invest that money into something else for greater overall wealth.
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Mar 12, 2021 00:05
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Be aware of what rates your workplace pension is charging you before you increase contributions. Paying over the odds for your pension is going to reduce your long term growth rate significantly.
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Mar 15, 2021 12:55
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Hi thread, Surprisingly, I've found myself with some leftover cash and am not sure if I should be putting it in a pension/vanguard isa/both. I'm self-employed, have full ownership of flat (no mortgage), no debts. I do technically owe my parents £80,000 which they lent when the bank pulled on my mortgage due to shifting jobs during purchase. I'm paying them 1.9% interest pa with the understanding that I'll remortgage to pay them off when everything has calmed down. I do have a student loan, but I doubt it'll ever get paid off. No other debts. Due to furlough on a limited contract, maturation of some savings, and decent self-employed earnings, I've got a little under £35,000 in cash sitting in premium bonds, income bonds and accounts and know I should be doing something with it. Do I put it into a self-employed pension or a stocks and shares isa? Unsure which is the better option. This is money I do not anticipate myself needing in the near future. I have emergency savings, and want to think about some degree of future security (I'm 30). I've got some pension from a couple of years/part time jobs which I'll look to consolidate, but I'm likely to be self-employed making up to around £25,000 for the forseeable future and will want to look at increasing the pension and/or isa as I go, but it won't be by this amount in future. Any advice? Am I missing something obvious? Also is there any time pressure with the financial year end coming up?
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Mar 23, 2021 16:00
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ShakespearesWilly posted:Hi thread, Use it or lose it re: ISA allowance and upcoming tax year end. If you have existing pensions, you could potentially benefit from carry forward annual allowance (i.e. using up unused allowances from the previous three tax years if you were a member of the scheme in that tax year). As always, if you may need the money before you hit age 55, don't let the tax tail wag the investment dog. The 20% uplift to pension contributions is great, but if you pull money out before age 55 HMRC will give you a paddlin'.* *I joke, but the charge on unauthorised payments is a staggering 55%.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:21
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ShakespearesWilly posted:Hi thread, Pay back your parents and save yourself £665 a year (plus whatever the impact on the eventual remortgage will be)
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Mar 23, 2021 16:27
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sebzilla posted:Pay back your parents and save yourself £665 a year (plus whatever the impact on the eventual remortgage will be) Why would you pay off part of a loan at 1.9% when you can use that capital to generate ~5% p.a. in an S&S ISA? Seems like an inefficient allocation of resources.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:33
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Theophany posted:Use it or lose it re: ISA allowance and upcoming tax year end. If you have existing pensions, you could potentially benefit from carry forward annual allowance (i.e. using up unused allowances from the previous three tax years if you were a member of the scheme in that tax year). worth noting the 55 age limit is going to go up, too. depending on your current age, you might have to wait till you're close to 60 to access it I have a question on ESG funds. what is the best low-fee sustainable fund with a focus on the Environmental element? i.e. conservation and protection of nature, air quality, energy conservation, natural resources, land use, water quality. i read an old fundsmith blogpost about how vanguard's sustainable option, which has oil and gas in it, was rated higher (55/100 vs. 50/100) than fundsmith's, which does not.
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Mar 30, 2021 18:06
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Breath Ray posted:worth noting the 55 age limit is going to go up, too. depending on your current age, you might have to wait till you're close to 60 to access it Good point about the increasing age limit, always worth bearing in mind. I hate recommending specific funds and it's a big ol' world out there. I've had good experiences with Liontrust's Sustainable Futures fund, but it probably doesn't meet your requirement for low fee as the OCF is 0.88%. ESG seems to be a bit of catch all marketing term these days; there's nothing inherently bad about oil and gas companies if the shareholder is making a stink about any lovely practices they're engaged in or if the oil company is aggressively investing in renewables. They both fit the very broad definition. If you're after something with a bit more backbone when it comes to investment policy you *might* be better off looking for funds that market themselves as 'ethical' rather than ESG-focused as they tend to have a much stronger screen and tighter definition on what they will and won't allow in their portfolios. The flipside of the coin is, and there's no way of not sounding like a dick saying it, that when you're screening your portfolio for the ethical value of companies chances are you're screening out a lot of good companies that you will make money on. ESG and the UN PRI are quite often mealy-mouthed commitments to 'do better' by not investing in companies that manufacture cluster munitions (why the hell would you do that anyway?) and give portfolio managers the luxury of being able to argue what they believe is ESG focused. Perhaps more sinisterly, if you're a PM and you're incentivised to generate returns for your investors, how strong is your moral compass/silver tongue when your neck is in the noose? I know I remember hearing some particularly well limbered up mental gymnasts justifying their ESG reasoning for investing in a tobacco company because of their commitment to promoting smoking cessation (with their loving vape pens lmao). Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox and piss off back to Hyde Park. 
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Mar 31, 2021 13:01
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Internally at asset managers ESG funds are really seen as nothing other than a marketing scheme and an excuse to charge a higher fee rate.
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Mar 31, 2021 13:09
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Theophany posted:Good point about the increasing age limit, always worth bearing in mind. thanks, happy to consider anything under 1%, so I'll look into liontrust. feels like an oil company investing in renewables and a smoking company investing in vapes is much of a muchness really agree ESG is often marketing, but i just thought it would be helpful to indicate which of the 3 elements interests me (it's the environmental one). hopefully as competition hots up the biggest firm in vanguard's SRI will not be nestle for gods sake
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Mar 31, 2021 14:32
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Legal & General have a 'future world' range of funds which track indices which are designed to reflect various ESG factors (like weighted towards companies making a positive contribution towards reducing CO2 emissions, or excluding arms and tobacco producers). As passive funds they're relatively cheap (although still more expensive than 'neutral' index funds), but they can suffer from being very tech-heavy at the top end of the market so can be less diverse. L&G as an asset manager are pretty aggressive in challenging boards of companies they hold shares in to get in line with carbon reduction pledges etc., in a way that few big passive managers tend to talk about.
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Mar 31, 2021 15:25
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If I've understood, the consensus is that once you reach the stage where it makes sense to invest in a stocks and shares ISA, the way to go is passive tracker funds. Why not managed funds? Is it just that they charge higher fees while rarely beating passive funds? Or is it worse than that? Edit - what I mean is, why not actively managed funds
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Mar 31, 2021 23:33
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Paxman posted:If I've understood, the consensus is that once you reach the stage where it makes sense to invest in a stocks and shares ISA, the way to go is passive tracker funds. By far the biggest predictor of how well a fund performs relative to its reference index is the fees charged. And not in a good way, as in, the more you are charged the worse it tends to do. There is very scant evidence of any skill or learning in stock picking regardless of how educated you are, and while there may be some skilled managers out there, they are not common, like at least less that 1%, if they even exist at all. Even some of the most famous investor’s gains, for example Warren Buffett, can largely be explained by a high exposure to an overall risk factor of the market, rather than some exceptional foresight. By picking an active manager, you are basically placing a bet that your guy is better than most every other active manager out there with little to no way to verify whether he’s actually skilled or just getting lucky. In short, it’s better to play dumb and pay little than to try to outsmart the market.
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Apr 1, 2021 07:53
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Paxman posted:If I've understood, the consensus is that once you reach the stage where it makes sense to invest in a stocks and shares ISA, the way to go is passive tracker funds. In addition to qhat's post above, the only other reasons to go actively managed are either personal (i.e. I believe in that manager's ability) or because you want a specific mandate or portfolio type that is not served by existing passive providers. There are a handful of superstars out there, but there are many orders of magnitude more managers whose once glittering performance turned to poo poo in a big way.
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Apr 1, 2021 10:00
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ive read the free sample of the intelligent investor, realised i need to put at least 25% in bonds and would like to ask an embarrassing question. is it worth investing in bonds inside an isa wrapper (even though its a safe haven) or should I stick to investing in s&s isas (either another one or existing fundsmith one) and buy bonds (a few thousand quid's worth) outside the isa wrapper?
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Apr 2, 2021 02:07
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Breath Ray posted:ive read the free sample of the intelligent investor, realised i need to put at least 25% in bonds and would like to ask an embarrassing question. is it worth investing in bonds inside an isa wrapper (even though its a safe haven) or should I stick to investing in s&s isas (either another one or existing fundsmith one) and buy bonds (a few thousand quid's worth) outside the isa wrapper? Yes, interest on bonds is taxed as personal income so do benefit from being in an ISA. Fixed income And any reinvested income benefits as well.
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Apr 2, 2021 08:21
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What's the best comparison site to find a new mortgage? (Is this the right thread to ask that?) Our 5 year fixed-rate on a Virgin mortgage ends in July, with 13 years left on the term. I'm thinking we should go for as long a fixed rate as possible - with brexit and covid it could all go pear-shaped over the next few months/years and having that peace of mind is worth a bit higher rate even if it does turn out the rate stays low. Also wanting to be able to overpay each month and no silly penalties if we eventually pay it off early.
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Apr 5, 2021 12:28
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Breath Ray posted:ive read the free sample of the intelligent investor, realised i need to put at least 25% in bonds and would like to ask an embarrassing question. is it worth investing in bonds inside an isa wrapper (even though its a safe haven) or should I stick to investing in s&s isas (either another one or existing fundsmith one) and buy bonds (a few thousand quid's worth) outside the isa wrapper? The only reason not to would be if you're going to hit your isa limit and you want to make a bet that you'll pay more tax on the s&s part of your portfolio and you want to be extra tax efficient. Unless you are a tory donor, this probably isn't going to happen to you so do it in the ISA for sure. Also; there's no rush to hit your target split between asset classes. If you are paying into your isa each month or whatever, it might make sense to just buy bonds until you meet whatever ratio you are going for. 70/30 is pretty common. This can save you some transaction fees switching stuff around.
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Apr 5, 2021 13:29
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I need an accountant that can help me navigate the UK and Spanish personal tax systems. I have no idea who to pay what where. (I own a house in the UK. I work in Spain and I move around a lot) Anyone know anyone good?
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Apr 5, 2021 13:38
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Clarence posted:What's the best comparison site to find a new mortgage? (Is this the right thread to ask that?) Moneyfacts.co.uk is what I use.
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Apr 6, 2021 08:23
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Clarence posted:What's the best comparison site to find a new mortgage? (Is this the right thread to ask that?) We just used MSE and a spreadsheet to work it out. For what it's worth we're in a very similar position to you, and in our view it's unlikely that Brexit is going to make interest rates spiral out of control. It's going to be a shitshow obviously, it's just not going to affect this end of things. You're also going to really struggle to find one without penalties for paying off early, and these are going to be harsher on a 5yr fix than a 2yr. With that said, it can hardly be that bad to fix for a long time right now and most fixes let you overpay 10% of the balance each year
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Apr 6, 2021 09:27
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I'm a wage slave to Beardy as well and got a 2 year 1.44% last year (completion mid December) with a view to remortgage to a 5 year when the fix ends at the end of 2022. With current government borrowing levels due to coronas I don't *think* there's a chance of interest rates climbing much at all in the next couple of years but it only takes one Lehman Brothers/LTCM equivalent to burst the current bubble
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Apr 6, 2021 10:47
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Looking at the information available, the government has spaffed an unprecedented amount of borrowed money over the past year taking the UK's debt-to-GDP ratio to almost 100%. Raising interest rates probably won't happen because the cost of servicing that debt will become unfeasible and the UK is very proud of the fact that it has never defaulted on a single penny of debt. Look back to 2009, the last time the government got drunk with its credit card, we haven't had a base rate >1% since and it was very normal for it to be ~3-5% prior to that. I'd probably stop short of calling it a one way bet, but I can't see any logical argument to increase interest rates any time soon. Makes sense to take advantage of the cheapest fix you can imo.
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Apr 6, 2021 10:51
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Happy New Financial Year! Just discovered via a friend that if you were claiming income tax relief for working from home in 2020/1 and are continuing to do so you need to reapply for 2021/2 at https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home The Personal Allowance is rising from £12,500 to £12,570 The Higher Rate threshold is rising from £37,500 to £37,700 (effective salary under 100k from £50,000 to £50,270) National Insurance Primary Threshold is rising from £9,500 to £9,568 and Upper Earnings Limit from £50,000 to £50,270 The Student Loan Plan 1 threshold is rising from £19,390 to £19,884 The Student Loan Plan 2 threshold is rising from £26,575 to £27,288 (though note the interest rate on these has gone up from 2.4% to 2.6% because of increased RPI inflation) The Student Loan Plan 2 full repayment threshold is rising from £47,385 to £49,130 (though note the interest rate on these has gone up from 5.4% to 5.6% because of increased RPI inflation) ISA and Pension allowances reset to £20,000 and £40,000 respectively I've updated the table in the OP, enjoy your 0.1% tax break! Edit: also amended new Student Loan thresholds Doccykins fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 13:35
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Doccykins posted:I've updated the table in the OP, enjoy your 0.1% tax break! Otherwise known as stealth taxes.
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Apr 7, 2021 14:58
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This should be obvious to me, but I am also dumb as hell so  I have a Cash ISA earning 0.1%; am I better switching that money into my Stocks/shares ISA given the painfully timid rates?
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Apr 8, 2021 14:16
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Yes, unless it's money that you need to use in the near term. ie. if it's your house deposit and you're planning on buying a place in 6 months then don't.
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Apr 8, 2021 14:28
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froste posted:This should be obvious to me, but I am also dumb as hell so You could. But there is always a greater risk with higher returns from shares. You'll still want to keep some cash for short term and unexpected costs. Really depends on what other cash savings you have, and how long til you need the money. Should at least shop around and look to switch to a better rate. Inflation is only like 0.7% ATM. HappyCamperGL fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 14:36
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Even putting it all into a UK gilt ETF will deliver much higher interest than a HISA, and it will be very safe by comparison to equities.
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Apr 8, 2021 16:41
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HappyCamperGL posted:interest on bonds is taxed as personal income so do benefit from being in an ISA. Fixed income And any reinvested income benefits as well. thanks! i remember reading that in the book but thinking it couldnt possibly be the case still, and in the uk! now to find out what uk gilt etf means jiggerypokery posted:The only reason not to would be if you're going to hit your isa limit and you want to make a bet that you'll pay more tax on the s&s part of your portfolio and you want to be extra tax efficient. good point. luckily, this is just a few thousand from some upfront payment i received so i dont need to meddle too much
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Apr 10, 2021 03:29
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Gilt ETF just means an ETF investing in UK Government debt. So the same as any other ETF where investments are pooled but they buy Gilts which is the fancy name for Government Bonds in the UK. Gilts are generally seen as the safest bonds as it's unlikely her Majesty's government will default. As opposed to corporate bonds issued by listed companies. Or overseas bonds which introduce exchange risk.
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Apr 10, 2021 07:34
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As an aside, investing in government bonds is analogous to investing in a gigantic savings account that is guaranteed directly by the U.K. government. I’m not 100% on how it works in the U.K., but deposits in a normal cash savings account are only insured up to a certain amount which is almost certainly less than seven figures, which means if your bank goes under then you will likely only get that insured amount back. This however is only a major concern if you have seven figures in cash, which is not unheard of for wealthy retirees, but it’s good to know about the limits of deposit insurance in any event.
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Apr 11, 2021 19:04
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it's 85k i believe
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Apr 12, 2021 04:55
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Breath Ray posted:it's 85k i believe It is, per banking license. So you can have 85k each in a Barclays and Halifax account, both covered for that amount. However 85k in a Halifax and RBS account means only 85k is covered as Halifax and RBS share the same banking license.
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Apr 12, 2021 07:50
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I saw the income tax comments in the OP so I hope this is the right place to ask this. I've just changed jobs. I took voluntary redundancy at my last job with employment ending on the 31st of March and I started my new job on the 12th of April. On the 23rd of March I'll get my statutory redundancy pay, my payment in lieu of 3 months' notice, pay for my left over holiday, and the pay for the days I worked between the 25th and 31st of March (since that was my last payday before this). I'll then get my new job payday on the 30th of April. I've not had my P45 for the old job yet. I'm clear on how much I'm going to be taxed on all of this so that's not really an issue, what I don't understand is how and when it'll be taken - I've been told I'll go onto an emergency tax code but I don't know exactly what the effect will be or how I address that. My preference would be to pay all the tax/NI due on the old company payout in one go, is there a way to engineer this?
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Apr 15, 2021 07:48
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HappyCamperGL posted:You could. But there is always a greater risk with higher returns from shares. You'll still want to keep some cash for short term and unexpected costs. Thanks (and thanks peanut- too)! This was in additional to flat cash stored with a different bank (for that FSCS coverage spread), so makes sense to leverage into something more beneficial (hopefully)
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Apr 18, 2021 14:57
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Sir Sidney Poitier posted:I saw the income tax comments in the OP so I hope this is the right place to ask this. honestly id give hmrc a call, they can be quite helpful if you have a specific question about how and when tax will be taken
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Apr 19, 2021 04:47
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