Investment and pensions

[JohnD]

Or suppose you'd bought gold in 1983 at £276 an ounce.

After 30 years with the price at £228 you'd be wishing you'd tied your money in a sock and put it under the mattress.

You'd cheer a chancellor who'd had the good sense to sell it and invest in British industry and public services.

 

[crystal ball]

tax disc holders... next big thing, trust me

 

[JohnD]

Or if you'd bought the worlds largest, most profitable, most successful computer company ten years ago?

 

[JohnD]

Or if you'd bought a European investment trust just before the Brexit referendum?

Oooops - maybe not such a bad move.

 

[Justin Passing]

John why are you posting such cr@p?

This shows why some individuals, shouldn't be trusted with any money.
I didn't day put your shirt on it, I said 1k. Stop making things up.

I specifically mentioned groups of holdings, like a whole stock market or market sector, not individual companies.
And I suggested keeping an eye on things. You'd be a mug not to use an adviser. As I suggested once a year if you don't have a large portfolio. I do lots of research, and it does help quite often - you don't need to be any super analyst.

The gold price, is currently $1300 an ounce from your numbers. Not your flat growth, Misinformation.
You chose to mislead with that - and I didn't mention gold.
Stop posting cr@p.

It is utterly stupid to put all your eggs in one basket or quote one stock, SO give your head a wobble. I didn't suggest that, did I? No. Stop misquoting.

Show me somewhere in Microsoft's history where you'd lose your shirt if you put 1k on it.
You could have lost a few hundred quid, max, if your were spectacularly unlucky.
I quoted the figure from MS since 10 years ago not from 2001, when their track record was already well established for a couple of decades.


I repeat, I said use a more cautious approach later in life, so a forced sell won't hurt much.
Perhaps you didn't understand?
Maybe you have only one shirt ?

Any stupid prat can look at his favoured window, or poke about for failing individual companies which went on to collapse or do well. I'm looking back 5, 10, 20 and more years, to date.
If someone silly had any nous he'd have quoted Alibaba, but that's not so, is it. Alibaba would be a small fraction in any case.

If the entire US stock market crashes tomorrow I'd lose some value, not money. If all the tech companies, ditto. What's the chance of that? Would there be other things to worry about? Probably. It would have to drop several Covids to be below what I paid.
I also have global investments and some property, because I'm not the fool, here, so I'd be financially ok, for life.

I retired in my 40's. You?

 

[Deleted member 18243]

What are the forum pension advisors' views on a) crypto currencies and b) ethical investments in relation to pensions?

Crypto currencies are said to be the next big thing, can they be part of a pension or are they "here today, gone tomorrow" like the Sinclair C5?

Many of the large tech companies that feature in investment tips have profited from crime and exploitation. Your average investor does not care about this, but we at DIYnot care about such things, don't we?

 

[sxturbo]

Banks don't like crypto currency, there is already talk about them being banned.

I wouldn't be betting on it. Bit coin and the one from squid game is already overly inflated

 

[motorbiking]

I'm assuming your pension holder gives you some choice on where the fund is invested.
Have a look at the Moneysupermarket .com forum. They have some savvy people on there, one or two are IFA's and will give you a straight answer.

Or several. One option would be a short annual check by an IFA just to give a sanity opinion for a flat fee.
I don't know of any advantage to amalgamation, I had about 4 pensions at one point, no drama.

Most of what IFAs do of course is set out that it's all a risk, and assess your willingness by using their incalculable wisdom - via half a dozen questions!
With my hindsight I could easily say go for Global, Dynamic , Accumulation funds. Dynamic means riskier but if you look at a multi-asset fund (they will be unless specified), the fund manager will shift the investments over time to avoid obvious bad ones (war zones etc). Those outperform the average over time. If you look, at eg Hargeaves Lansdown where they have a good graph-drawer to compare 5 years. You can split the investment of your fund, don't forget, even if it's with the same company. Near the end of your working life you move towards more conservative funds so you don't get caught if the worst happens.

Here's some HL graphs. Ftse100 is in blue, the middle ones are Global Dynamic, and the grey flattish one is Global Cautious.
I've had money in US Index funds for the last few years - that's the yellow one. That's the sort of strategic decision you can afford to take and review, pretty infrequently. IFA stuff.

Yes it drops more when there's a drop, but it comes back higher, again and again.

View attachment 249154


That's only 5 years, and through the slings an arrows of outrageous US presidents. Extrapolate.
Now imagine the line, which over time would go off the top of your computer, representing the performance of the bleedin obvious - microsoft, amazon etc.
If in Aug '17 you'd put 10k in, your standard UK index tracker blue would be at +1.5k.

If you'd put just 1k in microsamazoogle, which may be too granular for a pension pot direction,
that 1k would have gone up to MANY thousands. Extrapolate to 20 years.
Some of those co's are here, this is just a screenshot of biggest co's. Those are Annualised Growth Rates.
MS's 31% over the last 10 years is 1488%.
View attachment 249163

SO when someone says "use a tracker, you won't beat it", hesitate.
Think electric cars, mobile internet access, IoT data collection - they need 5G. Over to you and good luck.

Most of that lot you can cover with LIT - Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF and QQQ - Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1

 

[motorbiking]

What are the forum pension advisors' views on a) crypto currencies and b) ethical investments in relation to pensions?

Crypto currencies are said to be the next big thing, can they be part of a pension or are they "here today, gone tomorrow" like the Sinclair C5?

Many of the large tech companies that feature in investment tips have profited from crime and exploitation. Your average investor does not care about this, but we at DIYnot care about such things, don't we?

Block chain has a future
Digital money has a future
bitcoin. I'm not convinced. Others possibly.
But cryptos have been hijacked my money launderers and are actually contributing to global warming a bit.

 

[Justin Passing]

Most of that lot you can cover with LIT - Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF and QQQ - Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1

Wouldn't say "That lot", but yes it's had a good ( but not bitcoin-silly) record over a decent time & the sector seems unlikely to collapse unless there's something dramatic in the world.

I bought £1k of Bitcoin several years ago and lost the lot in a scam. Then things settled so I tried again. 5k between bitcoin + ethereum, and they have gone up by several times, but I wouldn't put the farm on it. If it really spikes up I'll sell, then buy another 5k when it dips. Only ever buy the dips. If it crashes from there I'll lose 5k, if not I'll be on the up again.
Bitcoin is a little bit nuts - there's a limited number! Etherium tokens seem more sensible but my knowledge is surface on these. If global inflation carries on as proposed, there will be an upside in the shortish term stoking the hype.
Never invest more in one thing than you can afford to lose and not care about it too much.
I'm happier with bandwagons than "hopefuls". Bandwagons have momentum. Way back when VR was the next new big thing I stagged 1.5k in Virtuality Ltd , and learned a lesson.

Ethics? Nah, haven't got any of those

 

[Deleted member 18243]

Bitcoin is a little bit nuts - there's a limited number!

All the cryptos are dodgy in my book - I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. As far as I am aware they were created so that Internet criminals could trade with each other.

However, the fact that there is only a finite number of Bitcoins is interesting; i.e. no more of them will ever be produced. It is a sort of underground return to the gold standard. The problem with the official British currency is that the last few governments have printed more and more of it, diluting the value of all existing currency in circulation. (The present government is by far the worst offender at this and it is one of the many reasons why it cannot be called conservative).

 

[JohnD]

...Misinformation...

...Stop misquoting...

there are no quotes from you, and you have not been misquoted

The information examples I gave are all accurate for the time periods I gave.

They are examples of what looks like a good individual investment turning out bad.

And of hindsight complaining that a sensible move turned out to be wrong.

 

[Justin Passing]

You're posting excrement, JD.
Again.

"remember your investments in Trans-Atlantic Zeppelin, Ma..."
MY investments?? Liar.

Multiple straw-man argument fails...

For someone in your position you need to sort yourself out.

 

[JohnD]

investments in Trans-Atlantic Zeppelin

A well-known example of an investment that once looked good, and now doesn't.

 

[Justin Passing]

Not one I mentioned , though.
Stop posting irrelevant junk just because you have a need to say something.
Trolling.
South Sea Bubble and the Railways next??