Sensible investment for the next 3-4 years?

[Jonny_]

I suspect the ultimate answer to this is YMMV but I'm going to ask anyway...

I've got about £30k sat in a S&S ISA after selling a chunk of shares acquired via a company sharesave scheme.

This money will form part of the funds for a house move in 3 or 4 years time, so I want to achieve a decent above inflation return over that period, without running excessive risk.

The remainder of my savings are sat in various cash ISAs, premium bonds, and bog standard savings accounts, so I don't think I want to do any more of those safe but low return options. In fact I do wonder if I should pull some or all of the money (about £55k) out of the non-ISA savings accounts and invest it as well. No mortgage or any other debt to pay off.

Plenty of friends and colleagues advocate the various S&P500 trackers as they've had good returns in recent years. However, these look to me like more of a long term investment. Plus the American index funds make me a bit nervous, what with the state of their politics. I'm not entirely sure what to make of tech-centric funds either; maybe I'm at the ideal time to take advantage of the AI bubble and get rid before it bursts, but that is of course risky - it could always burst before I offload the investments. Mining perhaps? Gold, copper etc. And then maybe balance the riskier funds with something like the Vanguard FTSE all world fund.

With that in mind, which funds or mix of funds would you all suggest?

[butchstewie]

For me there's a very core question here.

In 3-4 years time when you need the money do you need to guarantee you will see at least the £30K you put in?

If not what would you be comfortable to see?

[mikeiow]

butchstewie said:

For me there's a very core question here.

In 3-4 years time when you need the money do you need to guarantee you will see at least the £30K you put in?

If not what would you be comfortable to see?

This!
& a tweak on it - if you have a bunch of cash-based savings, could THEY be the ones you absolutely keep safe? If so, maybe continue the S&S investments, & view them as longer term.

No easy answer to "what is safe investing".

The only thing you can guarantee is the capital, by using eithers Cash ISA/GIA or indeed. premium bonds.
PBs are *not* investing, but we have always made around the promised rate (3.6% now?), & there is a small chance of going large. I had £5K in Jan, then had a £1K win - probably ought to take it all out after that big one

[Lincolnshire]

The all world indexes will all include a large weighting towards US, large cap and tech by default! The only way to avoid them in an index is to seek out a managed one where they are excluded, but you won’t get much return though - it’s tech that is driving the markets right now! I can’t see that suddenly changing in the short term.

Morningstar has tech as fair value at the moment rather than overpriced.

[okgo]

Isn’t this usually where someone says gilts?

[butchstewie]

okgo said:

Isn t this usually where someone says gilts?

This is usually where someone says NASDAQ