**** Official UK investors thread ****

[iSTRONG]

Kimchi,

I can only invest £4K because i've already put £3K in a mini-cash ISA.

Also, the Selftrade self-select ISA page says:

"Standard dealing fee £12.50. No dealing fee on purchases of LSE-listed ETFs and, between 1 March and 31 May 2007, on funds. All sales a flat £12.50"


Does that make it a good deal? If yes, which ETFs should I buy?

[kimchi]

[ QUOTE ]
Kimchi,

I can only invest £4K because i've already put £3K in a mini-cash ISA.

Also, the Selftrade self-select ISA page says:

"Standard dealing fee £12.50. No dealing fee on purchases of LSE-listed ETFs and, between 1 March and 31 May 2007, on funds. All sales a flat £12.50"


Does that make it a good deal? If yes, which ETFs should I buy?

[/ QUOTE ]

There's no UK stamp duty on ETFs and I assume from what you say, you're only charged for the sale of your fund.

If you have to pay a dealing fee to buy into the ETFs not listed on the The LSE, then I'd say it's not a good deal. (I think some ishares are listed on the Irish/French/German exchanges.)

If you can diversify though LSE-listed ETFs and buy and hold then it sounds good.

[john kane]

any thoughts on the best ISAs for this new tax year?

I've currently got £6K in cash and £4K in stocks+shares from the previous two tax years (didnt have enough cash to do a s+s two tax year's ago hence 2 minicashISAs and 1s+sISA).

not sure what to go for. i remember reading how they were planning to change the system so you only had 1 ISA type, not a mini and a maxi, anyone know this year's format?

all i remember is the allowance for cash isa is up to £3,600. woot.

[kimchi]

[ QUOTE ]

not sure what to go for. i remember reading how they were planning to change the system so you only had 1 ISA type, not a mini and a maxi, anyone know this year's format?

all i remember is the allowance for cash isa is up to £3,600. woot.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the format & allowances will remain the same this year. Tax year 2008/09 will have an increased allowance which allows for a more logical monthly savings amount, and a single wrapper in which you can invest both shares & cash.

[sunnypoker]

anyone know of a good spreadbetting site for UKers??

[malorum]

A few topics of discussion to start us off;

1. What online Brokers do you use?

For investing? or for trading? I suspect many people are confused as to what exactly they are doing. If your intending to invest you may as well let a fund manager handle it for you. If you wan't to play a new game then you've got to look seriously as to how well you can leverage your capital and compare this with poker.

2. Any good e-saving accounts?
Yup any of the major UK banks and Building societies. Most allow instant transfer and high interest rates.

3. If you had £5K to invest right now where would you put it assuming that you won't touch it for the next 10-15 years and that you don't mind a bit of risk.

lol. First option is to spend it on your kids, or having a good time with your friends and family (Matthew 6:19)

Second option is to dump it in your e-saving account. This is if you wan't to use it as a buffer against illness or unforseen circumstances. For that kind of buffer you don't want risk.

Third option "If you don't mind a bit of risk"
Play poker or Forex or Chess or whatever else you happen to do well enough to make the money in the first place, and see wether you can leverage the money rather more safely and effectively than you could in anything else.
I suspect you can if your half as good as you probabably think you are.
In the current online poker environment you can win more than 5k GBP in a month without ever putting the whole amount
at risk. Ok you have to put some hours in but thats over 100% ROI in a month, and to a certain degree its scalable at least with the kind of amounts your talking about.

If you don't play poker but have your own business then if you only have 5k to invest I'd again suggest investing it in your business.

The time to pay other people to put your money at risk for you is when you have so much that you can no longer do it yourself.

[john kane]

was given some free financial advice from an IFA, who recommended this site for dealings:

www.h-l.co.uk the initial charges for funds are significantly lower and only £9.95 per trade.

It is the initial charges aspect which is appealing, rather than 1.5% they are 0% to 0.4% in most cases.

[Christophers]

I'm pretty n00bish at all this but really want to learn. What would you guys recommend I do with around £50K or so? At the moment I've got it all in an ING Web Saver account (5.5%AER or so) and as much as I can get in an ISA with Barclays.

I've heard a lot of good things about index funds, are the online brokers you're all recommending the way to get started in that?

[john kane]

the first decision is what to invest in, the second decision is which firm to invest with.

the first decision, i say you have these options:
savings account
index funds
managed funds (emerging markets fund, property fund, high income funds etc etc)
individual shares

if you want to spend it within a few years, then keep it in your savings account. index funds historically return around 10% but it could easily return a minus over the next few years. people on here do not like managed funds becuase they generally charge 1.5-2% annual in fees and as 75% do worse than index funds you can do badly. I think this is an unwise trail of thought; like saying 90% of poker players lose so don't play poker. the best fund managers beat the market, all the others don't.

individual shares are far more interesting, although obviously you can lose.

personally, i'd stay clear of all this investing, it takes up a huge amount of time, and the extra return you may get is way way less than the money you could make playing online for a few hours.

i'm just interested in it i guess.

i recommend the h-l.co.uk site as they give the lowest fees.

[Christophers]

tyty