Investment & Investing

I've also better than average luck

You're stealing all mine...This month was my first win since September and I'm at about 2% returns over the last 12months.

I should really spreadsheet it to keep track of it....

Literally everyone on the upslope of every asset bubble in history

That's rubbish - show us a bubble which has been through four complete cycles: growth, crash and recovery to a higher level.

All this talk has made me wonder if I'm putting too much/little into my Vanguard LS 100 - been putting in about £300 monthly since 2021, with the intention of it being used later on in life, say 20+ years time. Just sort of set and forget with it, to be honest. Worth diversifying?

Will never come close to maxing out £20k as far as ISA's are concerned - £4k goes in the Lifetime ISA and then just below that with the S&S ISA at Vanguard. Only financial goal at this time is to get on the property ladder at some point this year or next and get my emergency fund to 3 months of salary which will take an age due to how little I put in a month...

I've got one of those accounts and yes, you're reading it right. One withdrawal would be fine.

set and forget

That's usually a good strategy.

Your vanguard fund is diversified in Equities terms. Risk is if (when) the stock market goes down, have you got enough time for it to come back up before you need your money?

I wouldn't put anything in S&S until you've got the house deposit and emergency fund squared away personally. You also might want a bigger emergency fund once you have a mortgage to pay.

Otherwise nothing wrong with bunging money into LS100, except some people say it's too UK-weighted I think

The nice thing about PBs is they're usually close to competitive and you don't have to touch them. With things like a Cash ISA you're going to have to check in on it every year and possibly transfer the account when the interest rate drops to something shit like 0.5%. You said multiple times you don't pay any attention to this stuff so I'd check if there's a promotional interest rate term and if there is consider whether you're actually going to bother to move the money around to take advantage

Thanks. So the catch is that the daily withdrawal limit is £50k, so the max you can take out without penalty would be £200k. Say you maxed out the account at the full £250k, you wouldn’t be able to take the remainder out until the end of the year, else you incur a penalty charge equivalent to 50 days interest. There’s probably some maths you could do if you were up there 👍

Yeah, so that's why something like 212 sounds good. It'll get some bonus rate for 12 months and then drop I presume, but by then I'll either be happy with it sitting there or I'll be taking the money out and move elsewhere/spend. Same deal as my bank account bonus saver thing but earning more interest and tax-free or whatever.

Ah, OK, I never had that much in!

Best advice is normally to open other accounts if you get to £85k so you keep the fca protection, so you would split £250 k between the best three different accounts you can find

I don't think 212 has the bonus rate model.
I understand their aim is to get a load of people to save with them in the hope that some of them get lured in to CFDs, for which they do make charges. That's what monevator seemed to reckon anyway.

Most of the bubbles described in this (old) article have some jaggies on the way up. It's anyone's guess whether they're random volatility or constitute "cycles", and the definition of a cycle is anyway more to do with market psychology than the underlying asset (with the possible exception of tulips which do have a growing season).

https://www.man.com/insights/a-brief-history-of-bubbles

I'm not unduly weighting that article, it's just a convenient collection of graphs in one place.

Sort of too late for that, considering I've been depositing regularly for 4 years now.

I should have also added that I have a decent chunk in PBs, and if I ever explicitly needed something in relation to property then I can just withdraw that from there. We're looking fairly comfortable deposit wise, nigh on close to 20%

Sounds like I may just stick with the LS100 - onwards we go

The have a bonus for new joiners though I mean and their non bonus rate is still higher than my bank's rate and if it's an ISA then it's tax-free, right? So, other than giving yet another financial institution my details (and money) I don't see any real problem with it. I'll probably just forget to do it...

If you're with 212, is there a referral scheme? ie. if you refer me, do we both get a free bitcoin or something?

If a company is buying back their stock it's because they've got too much cash and don't want to put it in the bank.

Is their non-bonus rate higher than the PB rate?

Basically, yes, especially if you apply "hippy maths" which is PB = no win for me.

5.16%* AER (variable)
Flexible - withdraw anytime
Completely free - no account fees
*Promo rate for new clients including bonus of 0.26% for the first 12 months.

https://www.trading212.com/isa?cash-isa=&promo-code=MSE

If you're with 212, is there a referral scheme? ie. if you refer me, do we both get a free bitcoin or something?

Not at the moment, they seem to have paused it now :(

*Promo rate for new clients including bonus of 0.26% for the first 12 months.

Cool, didn't know they did that

Most of the bubbles described in this (old) article have some jaggies on the way up. It's anyone's guess whether they're random volatility or constitute "cycles", and the definition of a cycle is anyway more to do with market psychology than the underlying asset (with the possible exception of tulips which do have a growing season).

Good one about the tulip growing cycle :)

The bitcoin cycle is based around halving so it is to do with the asset as well, hence it has had a regular and fairly predictable time period.

The definition of 'bubble' is subjective. Bitcoin has some of the characteristics, but less so over time and less than when that was written. It has come a long way since then, when the price of Bitcoin was $11.8k. Given where it is today - that it has since been through two more cycles, existed for 8 more years, been embraced by tradfi via the ETFs and other means, and reached almost 10x value, the article hasn't aged very well.

Mortgage-backed securities were also embraced by tradfi, and they haven't aged very well either!

I see your point and agree somewhat. In the case of local real estate (Canada), the prices have gone out of control. I was wrong making a blanket statement across the board regarding all companies. I am referring to companies that deal in construction that are supplying a vulnerable sector. I'm not familiar with everyone but I do know that buy backs started in February with the one that I'm tracking. I'm waiting for unemployment to pickup as demand dies down anticipating acceleration to the downside. I don't think that tariff wars will benefit the global economy and am taking steps to minimize the effects to my finances. Commercial real estate in particular has fallen off a cliff and I'm following the path that leads back to whoever is on that train to capitalize on this.

I was about to go with 212 but the lady in the bank says she was using chip and that has a bonus for the first 6 months if anyone wants to have a referral .
Currently 5.15 %