Investment tips?

[Trackside Junior]

Hi,

I'm wanting to invest some proper money in the future when I'm a bit older, but I have a spare £500-£1000 kicking about and would like to start now/ give it a trial run with that money.

Can anyone give me some tips please?

Someone told me about bonds (not premium bonds) and them being medium risk, so if anyone knows anything about them, I don't know a lot! I'd like to know about other options too if possible.

I'm not bothering with ISAs though.

Thanks in advance,

Annie

[AlfaFoxtrot]

£1000 isn't that much in investment terms, and if you invested it yourself in a range of things then commission and duties will eat into your returns. So if you want diversity (and therefore lower risk) the only way is to put it into some kind of fund. The fund can then be made up of almost anything, government bonds (v. safe but lower returns), FTSE100 companies (higher average returns but more volatilty), Chinese commodity firms etc. etc.

If you're not sold on the idea of funds and want to invest in a single thing yourself, then you would have to treat it as more of a gamble.

[Trackside Junior]

AlfaFoxtrot said:

£1000 isn't that much in investment terms, and if you invested it yourself in a range of things then commission and duties will eat into your returns. So if you want diversity (and therefore lower risk) the only way is to put it into some kind of fund. The fund can then be made up of almost anything, government bonds (v. safe but lower returns), FTSE100 companies (higher average returns but more volatilty), Chinese commodity firms etc. etc.

If you're not sold on the idea of funds and want to invest in a single thing yourself, then you would have to treat it as more of a gamble.

No I didn't think it would be enough to make a proper return on it, but I also don't want to be eating into the small return that I may get.

Funds may the best way forward then, I like the idea of FTSE100 companies. So what would be the best way to go about it? Obviously I'll do as much research as physically possible before parting with any money, but there's always things you can only get from people with the experience!

Also, I want to do a sort of free trial if I can for when I start parting with more money and investing in different ways. Are there any good websites or simulations that you know of that I can mess about with in the mean time?

Thanks for your help.

Edited by Trackside Junior on Monday 23 April 16:23

[Trackside Junior]

AlfaFoxtrot said:

£1000 isn't that much in investment terms, and if you invested it yourself in a range of things then commission and duties will eat into your returns. So if you want diversity (and therefore lower risk) the only way is to put it into some kind of fund. The fund can then be made up of almost anything, government bonds (v. safe but lower returns), FTSE100 companies (higher average returns but more volatilty), Chinese commodity firms etc. etc.

If you're not sold on the idea of funds and want to invest in a single thing yourself, then you would have to treat it as more of a gamble.

No I didn't think it would be enough to make a proper return on it, but I also don't want to be eating into the small return that I may get.

Funds may the best way forward then, I like the idea of FTSE100 companies. So what would be the best way to go about it? Obviously I'll do as much research as physically possible before parting with any money, but there's always things you can only get from people with the experience!

Also, I want to do a sort of free trial if I can for when I start parting with more money and investing in different ways. Are there any good websites or simulations that you know of that I can mess about with in the mean time?

Thanks for your help.

Edited by Trackside Junior on Monday 23 April 16:44

[Mattt]

Bullbearings was a free share 'game'.

With that amount of money you could look into spread bets/CFDs, but make sure you fully understand the potential consequences of leveraged products.

[craigb84]

Mattt said:

Bullbearings was a free share 'game'.

With that amount of money you could look into spread bets/CFDs, but make sure you fully understand the potential consequences of leveraged products.

I use the Bloomberg app on the iPad. Every one of my fake stocks is losing at the moment.

[AlfaFoxtrot]

Trackside Junior said:

No I didn't think it would be enough to make a proper return on it, but I also don't want to be eating into the small return that I may get.

Funds may the best way forward then, I like the idea of FTSE100 companies. So what would be the best way to go about it? Obviously I'll do as much research as physically possible before parting with any money, but there's always things you can only get from people with the experience!

Also, I want to do a sort of free trial if I can for when I start parting with more money and investing in different ways. Are there any good websites or simulations that you know of that I can mess about with in the mean time?

Thanks for your help.

Edited by Trackside Junior on Monday 23 April 16:44

You could have a look at Fidelity to get an idea of the range of funds on offer.

[z4chris99]

Pick an oig explorer, choose one that's planning on drilling in a year or so.

Sit back and enjoy the roller coaster

[raptor600]

z4chris99 said:

Pick an oil explorer, choose one that's planning on drilling in a year or so.

Sit back and enjoy the roller coaster

Why not just play roulette instead? Saves farting around for a year.

[walm]

Annie,
What are you trying to achieve?
- A new career?
- A hobby?
- A savings scheme?


If the first one, then you're doing it wrong.
If the second one, then just treat it as a bad gambling habit and be prepared to lose all the money.
If it is the last one, then comments like "I quite like the FTSE 100" are going to see you blow lots of the cash in no time.
Put it in a tracker, in an ISA and forget about it.

[z4chris99]

raptor600 said:

Why not just play roulette instead? Saves farting around for a year.

i like the suspense

roulette only last a minute or two.

[johnfm]

Stocks & Shares ISA

Buy a spread portfolio of blue chip stock in a small number of different sectors.

Don't look at share prices for a few years.

Over a long time horizon (15-20 years), you are likely to outperform most other asset classes.