£500 a month to save & invest - best way to split

[bitchstewie]

Are they literally Bulgarian?

[okgo]

DonkeyApple said:

212 is a Bulgarian bookies whose customers are in regular contact with the FCA. They are also the pioneers of the rented gold car to induce the thickest gamblers. Good luck.

The fact that you want to do do your own stock picking, think you understand the risks and then pick a spanker's choice broker is information heavily at odds with itself.

Go gambling or go investing but don't be so stupid as to go gambling and hoodwink yourself that you are investing and somehow superior to the losers who stumble in and out of bookies.

And don't forget, the worse the firm the higher the interest they have to pay on client cash to convince them to hand it over.

Not that opting in to receive a payment from 212 is actually interest in cash though. And why do you need to opt in? What is it about the terms one has to agree to in order to take protected cash and hand it to some Bulgarians to go gambling in the money markets with? What are they buying with your cash? What leverage is being run?

We have had been her largest financial crisis in living memory, we live in an era of the greatest access to knowledge and education of all time. We have watched every high yielding trick over the last 20 years implode and yet for some utterly baffling reason blokes who are smart enough to have an excess £500/month remain some of the dumbest punters to easily tap.

You're a smart guy. You don't know a single thing at all about investing. Not one thing. You are destined to lose all your savings but you can just stop and think while you're at the outset of your journey.

The secret is to apply the brains and educations that has got you this excess income and use it to not then piss it away like all the other idiot gamblers.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Saturday 23 March 08:41

hard to argue with any of that.

OP - you’d do a lot worse than spending some time watching this video - https://youtu.be/T71ibcZAX3I?si=IM-LBUUJfrt6qj7c

Obviously it doesn’t talk so much to ISA/SIPP etc as they are U.K. specific but the general principles are an elaboration on DA post here. With some advice.

Only thing I didn’t fully agree with is the American bias, but he has a point in that they’re global businesses. Anyway, worth your time I think.

The best thing about this video is how right his advice was 6 years back now we have seen what has happened since.

[Cats_pyjamas]

With reference to the OPs question to me, I just chuck that £400 into Vanguard, I have some funds in LS80, but primarily now invest into their Global Equity tracker (Accumulation).

I originally started investing into LS60, but as I've become more comfortable with the risk and have a fairly long investment horizon I've come to accept more risk.

My primary investment aim is early retirement (currently 32, so have a few years ahead of me so far), however depending on performance I may use some funds to pay off the mortgage in 5 years time. Last said depending on interest rate, that may not be the most financially sensible way to do it. But we shall see.

I have also purchased singular stocks in a trading account with HL, however if it wasn't for the recent Rolls Royce turnup I'd probably be a couple grand out of pocket. I personally think passive funds selected for risk appetite are the way forward for Joe Bloggs (myself included).

[DonkeyApple]

bhstewie said:

Are they literally Bulgarian?

They might be Albanian but the chaps have Bulgarian passports. Some Russian passports in there also. Interestingly, none of which are registered with the FCA for the U.K. entity: https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000NM...

[CLK-GTR]

I pick a few of my own stocks but I've been doing it as a job for the last 10 odd years, I only do it with around 10% of my capital, and it's a relentless task. I can outpeform the index by a few percent each year but if I switch off for a couple of months when work gets busy, I'm on holiday etc., I'll quickly drop below it. I do it because I enjoy it. I'm not sure how putting most of your cash in with zero experience is going to end well.

[bitchstewie]

DonkeyApple said:

They might be Albanian but the chaps have Bulgarian passports. Some Russian passports in there also. Interestingly, none of which are registered with the FCA for the U.K. entity: https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000NM...

Interesting

I'm probably a bit cautious in my view but I don't get why anyone would put "real money" with these sort of companies.

Might just be me but it's not like using an established reputable broken is significantly more expensive if you're investing v day trading type stuff.

[DonkeyApple]

bhstewie said:

Interesting

I'm probably a bit cautious in my view but I don't get why anyone would put "real money" with these sort of companies.

Might just be me but it's not like using an established reputable broken is significantly more expensive if you're investing v day trading type stuff.

Standard common sense rules apply: Coke and hooker funds only. Same as all these stinky bookies, sorry, digital wealth managers as they now like to call themselves.

It does stagger me though. We have had the total collapse of the sthouse Iceland banks that offered excessive returns on cash and idiots hurled their life savings at entities where their capital was 100% at risk. We then had the P2P lending junk where idiots put their capital 100% at risk but thought they were doing nothing different to putting their money in a real savings account. Of course then the minibond park where the next batch of idiots hurled all their money in the moronic belief that you could get greater yield than the market without taking any capital risk. And now we have things like this 5.2% money market fund where not one punter knows what the fk is in that fund, who is running it, what leverage it has and I suspect few even realise that it's not a savings account or that their capital is at risk.

It's just an utterly endless saga.

[bitchstewie]

I had money in Icesave.

Back then I was very ignorant of anything financial and naively assumed there were rules and regs where they couldn't offer those products if the regulators weren't happy they were safe.

A very lucky escape that I got every penny back.

Taught me a lesson to be much more careful about doing my own due diligence.

Fool me once and all that.

[simon800]

DonkeyApple said:

212 is a Bulgarian bookies whose customers are in regular contact with the FCA. They are also the pioneers of the rented gold car to induce the thickest gamblers. Good luck.

The fact that you want to do do your own stock picking, think you understand the risks and then pick a spanker's choice broker is information heavily at odds with itself.

Go gambling or go investing but don't be so stupid as to go gambling and hoodwink yourself that you are investing and somehow superior to the losers who stumble in and out of bookies.

And don't forget, the worse the firm the higher the interest they have to pay on client cash to convince them to hand it over.

Not that opting in to receive a payment from 212 is actually interest in cash though. And why do you need to opt in? What is it about the terms one has to agree to in order to take protected cash and hand it to some Bulgarians to go gambling in the money markets with? What are they buying with your cash? What leverage is being run?

We have had been her largest financial crisis in living memory, we live in an era of the greatest access to knowledge and education of all time. We have watched every high yielding trick over the last 20 years implode and yet for some utterly baffling reason blokes who are smart enough to have an excess £500/month remain some of the dumbest punters to easily tap.

You're a smart guy. You don't know a single thing at all about investing. Not one thing. You are destined to lose all your savings but you can just stop and think while you're at the outset of your journey.

The secret is to apply the brains and educations that has got you this excess income and use it to not then piss it away like all the other idiot gamblers.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Saturday 23 March 08:41

Excellent post this

[DonkeyApple]

bhstewie said:

I had money in Icesave.

Back then I was very ignorant of anything financial and naively assumed there were rules and regs where they couldn't offer those products if the regulators weren't happy they were safe.

A very lucky escape that I got every penny back.

Taught me a lesson to be much more careful about doing my own due diligence.

Fool me once and all that.

It's hard for any of us to avoid these things. The key is to be very wary of anything that that offers above average return and to not go all in.

We're all likely to get spanked by someone or something at some point and the safest path tends to be to not go into something with amounts that would be life changing. It's that latter element that ruins lives.

[torqueofthedevil]

Not putting in life changing amounts, investing in vanguard S&P so well established and low risk, rest going into pension.

I’m not putting cash in for the 5.2% interest, just buying shares via 212 platform so I presume the Bulgarians some are concerned about can’t take those shares once bought.

I’ll crack on and report back in a year to let you know how I’ve got on.

[DonkeyApple]

torqueofthedevil said:

Not putting in life changing amounts, investing in vanguard S&P so well established and low risk, rest going into pension.

I’m not putting cash in for the 5.2% interest, just buying shares via 212 platform so I presume the Bulgarians some are concerned about can’t take those shares once bought.

I’ll crack on and report back in a year to let you know how I’ve got on.

Anyone can take what they want, the key is that your assets are 100% covered by the FSCS and that you have other means should one end up waiting for a payout.

The real risk is that digital wealth management is typically a lost leader used to onboard users which you then heavily market your real money products to, whether that's getting the 'investor' into gambling regularly on fractional US stocks or penny shares or taking out entirely different products. As you can well imagine, a customer who just puts in £500/month and buys a boring, low cost tracker or ETF is going to lose you money (no one wants an actual bone fide investor, they're losers who never pay enough comm or even let you spank them via the house book) so it's important to get them to change their original plan to one that is profitable for you. The smoothest path being to get the client to download an app which allows you to target your marketing much better than relying on sending them emails about how much money could be made if someone only did something else. . Plus, if someone is dumping £500 a month in that marks them out as a serious playa worthy of attention. The last thing you want with a broker is to be on their radar.

[durbster]

EVOTECH3BELL said:

S&p 500

Picking your own stocks is a mugs game unless you're treating it as a bit of fun, much like a trip to the casino.

From my experience of trying this, I agree.

I didn't want to go in totally blind so I signed up to The Motley Fool for a while and used some of their picks. After seven years, these have so far returned me a mighty -8% (yes, minus)

Thankfully it was money I was happy to risk and learn from so I don't mind, but I'm migrating the ones that have returned something over to funds and I'll just leave all the red ones to remind me of my folly and forever hope that one day they'll go blue.

[bitchstewie]

I don't think I'd trust a single one of these share tipping sites or articles.

Questor, Fool, whatever, if I knew a sure fire share that would make me rich the last thing I'd be doing is encouraging everyone else to pile into it.

[YorkshireStu]

torqueofthedevil said:

Not putting in life changing amounts, investing in vanguard S&P so well established and low risk, rest going into pension.

I’m not putting cash in for the 5.2% interest, just buying shares via 212 platform so I presume the Bulgarians some are concerned about can’t take those shares once bought.

I’ll crack on and report back in a year to let you know how I’ve got on.

Everyone here loves to point out how noobs at self-investing/trading, like myself, will lose all their money as if it is a guaranteed fact because we aren’t experts with 50yrs experience like them but it’s pure scaremongering to generalise like that because money can be made.

It is correct that most lose however and for a variety of reasons. So caution is indeed wise. Research is very important. Extensive, time-consuming research.

I’ve not been picking my own stocks for very long but I’m now trading with the profits of profits made last year! My current Portfolio since January this year is nearly 16% up and nudging £90k now on what Seeking Alpha, Delta etc suggest are currently relatively low risk Stocks.

Yes, also true I’ve been lucky with timing: post-covid comebacks (RCL/CCL/NLCH) shipping and AI (bubble?) tech (NVDA, SMCI, ARM, AMD etc) but so can anyone take advantage.

Sure, you can take risks on Crypto, Leveraging, Options, go all in for maximum profit but with the associated increased risk. I avoid all that and the Broker I use hasn’t suggested I try them either, in fact, I’ve been very happy with the service.

My strategy is only stocks, always go long, no leverage risks, only the biggest companies, all NYSE / Nasdaq. I’ve had some losses but gained much more so far.

If I lost my current 2024 Portfolio entirely now I can still be comfortable that my initial investment capital is out and securely invested elsewhere.

My “fun” money investing has turned out ok so it must work out for others too so worth trying it out. I don’t intend to keep trading though, just another year or two then I’ll cash in to invest what is there into property abroad.

[okgo]

It isn’t scaremongering. There’s been numerous studies to show that over longer periods of time between 80-99% or managers will lose against the index. It’s mentioned in that video.

If you believed your own hype, why have you invested your original stake in ‘secure investments’ - surely you’d be trading with them?

Edited by okgo on Saturday 23 March 12:56

[bitchstewie]

YorkshireStu said:

It is correct that most lose however and for a variety of reasons. So caution is indeed wise. Research is very important. Extensive, time-consuming research.

I’ve not been picking my own stocks for very long but I’m now trading with the profits of profits made last year! My current Portfolio since January this year is nearly 16% up and nudging £90k now on what Seeking Alpha, Delta etc suggest are currently relatively low risk Stocks.

I honestly wish anyone investing nothing but the best of luck but genuinely do you ever worry that there might be a tiny bit of confirmation bias at play here?

[torqueofthedevil]

I get everyone saying to exercise caution but are you saying nobody should bother?

People do make money by investing, just as banks, bonds and pensions do.

Anyway I’m going to crack on and see how it goes.

[okgo]

torqueofthedevil said:

I get everyone saying to exercise caution but are you saying nobody should bother?

People do make money by investing, just as banks, bonds and pensions do.

Anyway I’m going to crack on and see how it goes.

Yes. Don’t bother, your posting here shows a massive lack of knowledge even to my untrained eye. People aren’t saying don’t invest, people are saying don’t think you’re going to be successful picking stocks, you won’t be.

[bitchstewie]

torqueofthedevil said:

I get everyone saying to exercise caution but are you saying nobody should bother?

People do make money by investing, just as banks, bonds and pensions do.

Anyway I’m going to crack on and see how it goes.

Not that nobody should bother but that the average investor probably shouldn't and should just stick to a cheap simple diversified investment like a tracker or a suitable multi-asset fund.

Turn it around for a moment.

Why aren't you average?

What's your edge?