Here you go.

SpaceGazelle wrote:

You won't lose money if the platform goes under, you still own the shares. Also, put all your money into the s&p.

Does that go for an ETF too?

Not sure. I just checked out the tracker fund and some of the platforms aren't that transparent on owning stocks and shares. Some platforms appear to take full ownership of anything you invest in and 'owe' you the cash. Seems complicated.

To take a popular ETF example, the previously mentioned Vanguard S & P 500 ACCU fund is a good one. The ETF (i.e. the fund) itself, owns the shares I think, then the ETF is broken up into units which you purchase. So, you are tied to the shares indirectly, but you don't directly own a stake in a company. It simplifies things for the investor as you just buy and sell the ETF and the price of the ETF goes up or down. The ETF allows you to buy partial units too.

When a boom like this happens, I often think I can crystallise the gains by moving my pension fund from equity heavy to gilt / bond heavy, wait for the inevitable bust, and shift it all back in to equity

This is of course madness but people often think mad things. There’s quite a big window if you don’t get greedy

How insane these moves are just comes down to the consequences of losing. Hence the rich get richer. They can take the gamble because its just a 5th Ferrari or the third home's swimming pool extension (or a home cinema, stop gambling on my livelihood dickheads). As opposed to starving/freezing to death in retirement.

Cloudflare dp

Can you keep it tax free if you transfer?

I personally don't hold cash but many recommend it as further diversification. I think this is for active investors really, which is silly in itself. Long term the s&p will obviously beat cash. It's worth thinking about these things coming up to retirement but for now I'd stick it all in a tracker but wait for a dip.

When I bought Nvidia I transferred it from the S&P fund and it's a bit of a pain but I'm not playing the sensible game properly! The idea for this thread is to stick all your monies into an S&P tracker and do nothing, but 5% is no biggie if it's already in an ISA. Might be more fun to stick it in during a really juicy crash though seeing as you have it lying around.

Good points, maybe I'll wait to try and time it with the inevitable correction. I'm guessing the volatility around the US elections later this year might trigger something.

DP… hmm further musing on my “hey why not transfer my entire pension fund from booming-about-to-bust equity to bonds which do well in equity busts”… it’s a bit like single share investments, bitcoin etc. If you are disciplined and come up with a reasonable profit (say, buy price +20% or +50% or whatever) and then sell, happy to have made the money, crystallising the profit - then you shouldn’t worry about whether the shares then go further (well done those with more risk appetite): you made your money!

Does that apply to a pension..? It’s at about 12% annual return and 25% actual total return; should I be like “ok made the profit, let’s make that real, then reinvest when correction inevitably comes?”

Issues:
1. Missing out on more growth / correction doesn’t come (lol)
2. Nothing is really safe
3. Hassle

Anyway nothing to do with safe regular pension investments which by design flatten out booms
And busts (as long as you keep up regular contributions at least monthly!!) so ignore

Firstly: you can transfer between different ISA providers and different ISA types, yes

Secondly: that can usually be any amount you like at any time BUT

Thirdly: any money you've invested in an ISA during a particular financial year (Apr-Mar), can only be transferred in full (which I believe would include any interest earned by that amount). I presume this is to avoid people over-subscribing and it being difficult to detect otherwise

So, worked example: 

Year 1: you invest £5K into provider 1's S&S ISA
Year 2: you have earned £500 interest tax free, and you invest a further £5K (total £10.5K). You decide to move some to provider 2's cash ISA. You would be able to move any of the first £5K+£500 interest (and rather complicatedly, any interest that £5.5K has earned to date in year 2!), AND the entirety of the second £5K (plus interest to date), or NONE of it (plus interest to date)

Hope that's clear

I'd imagine this idea of a "British ISA" won't go down too well here. An ISA where you can only buy into British equity!

Quite the admission that the UK market is on its arse. Can we just call it the Brexit ISA instead?

LivDiv wrote:

Stop fucking around with Brexit and EU bashing nonsense for a start.

Exactly my thoughts. They cripple the market with their ideological BS and then offer this up as a fix. Laughable.

At least the child benefit threshold was raised, but that's the only positive really.

No, that is still stupid. Although hopefully that might change in the next couple of years too.

Considering a punt on ARM.