Putting money to work

DAIR;30470714 said:
I have a grand or two spare. What would be the best way to see a return of around 15% - 25% within a short period of time (Im talking weeks or months here)?
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Roulette, put it all on black.
 
joeyjojo;30475336 said:
Stock market tip offs.
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best tip is don't listen to tips

DAIR;30478492 said:
I guess I should've been more detailed.

I want something to invest my monies in. A few people at work have mentioned day trading. Something I know nothing about.

Just after some thoughts.
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You were more detailed in the OP than you're being in the followup post where you acknowledge that you ought to have been more detailed :confused:

Anyway - you're likely better off not trying daytrading, you will almost certainly lose money (in the long run).


Nanoman;30485186 said:
O.M.G. :eek:

I just don't get how people can go all-in with their house and/or retirement fund like this.
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because they're perhaps a fairly innumerate and perhaps share similar traits to people prone to gambling addictions

SPG;30482263 said:
Premium bonds

No brainier really.
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??? prize fund interest rate of 1.25%

DAIR;30470714 said:
I have a grand or two spare.[/]bWhat would be the best way to see a return of around 15% - 25% within a short period of time (Im talking weeks or months here?)
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The most viable option for you would seem to be matched betting, though it is much much less lucrative these days and apparently quite time consuming.

Jim99;30484983 said:
You might walk out with a 25% profit. You equally might walk out with a 100% loss.

A significant proportion of professional investors (i.e. people paid a fortune on the basis that they are good at this stuff) cannot beat the general market fluctuations. Let alone joe public.

http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2014/10/24/the-ftse-100-will-always-beat-you/

And even if you think you can beat the market, 25% even annually is ridiculously high on an ongoing basis.
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This is a bit confused - just to be pedantic but 'equally might' - there is no 'equally' about it - he very likely will lose in the long run if he attempts day trading.

Your second sentence is conflating this topic with something rather different - professionals who trade securities or other instruments intraday (this is something which is largely automated these days) tend to do so with proprietary capital and would be out of business very quickly if they couldn't make money. They make plenty of money and don't need huge amounts of capital either thus it is a game for prop firms.

Your statement is true however when it comes to asset managers, though they can sometimes be hampered somewhat by restrictions they might have and the size of the portfolio being managed etc..

Lastly that professional asset managers can't beat the FTSE doesn't necessarily mean that an ordinary retail investor can't - granted with a small portfolio costs might get in the way but assuming that wasn't an issue if you were to pick a subset of FTSE 100 or S&P 500 stocks at random and equally distribute funds across them you'd probably beat the relevant index.
 
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Skillmister;30485478 said:
Christ that GTAT investment thread made for some cheery morning reading..
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Yep. Tbf, eggs and baskets spring to mind. You should never ever invest all of your money in a single company or share, or even in a single sector. You should build a portfolio of risk across sectors, for example at the moment i've got 10K (not a tremendous amount) spread across gold and general (Blackrock) which is going great guns this year, and a few other 'higher risk' funds such as European growth, and then i've got shares in some of the more stable blue-chips like Microsoft, which is delivering 4% YoY. If i whacked it all into 'Startup A' and it all crashes down (like Fitbit, Twitter, Fireeye to name a few recent crashes), then its my fault IMO.

EOTD, if you dont know what your doing, pay someone else. This is money, not a shelving unit.
 
Englander91;30483745 said:
Bearing in mind, inflation just rose to 1.6%, so now cash ISAs, averaging <1%, are gradually losing spending power.
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I hadn't really thought about that. Will have to get rid of the cash ISA (1%) fairly soon. :(
 
I may as way head to the casino and spend more time playing poker.

Thought it might be nice to make money while I sleep lol.
 
joeyjojo;30485799 said:
I hadn't really thought about that. Will have to get rid of the cash ISA (1%) fairly soon. :(
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Bear in mind, that you'll lose the tax benefit if you have a substantial investment if you remove it from an ISA completely and will be restricted in how much per year you can pay back in if things improve again.
 
Jokester;30487248 said:
Bear in mind, that you'll lose the tax benefit if you have a substantial investment if you remove it from an ISA completely and will be restricted in how much per year you can pay back in if things improve again.
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A fair point worth considering. In my situation, particularly now that the annual ISA allowance is going up to £20,000, I can afford to dip in and out of them as if they were a savings account. If one already has six figures invested held in ISAs, then it will certainly take a lot longer to rebuild that amount if one were to withdraw it all, for example.
 
dowie;30485344 said:
This is a bit confused - just to be pedantic but 'equally might' - there is no 'equally' about it - he very likely will lose in the long run if he attempts day trading.
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Yes, that was an error in retrospect. "Very likely" is much more apt.

dowie;30485344 said:
Your second sentence is conflating this topic with something rather different - professionals who trade securities or other instruments intraday (this is something which is largely automated these days) tend to do so with proprietary capital and would be out of business very quickly if they couldn't make money. They make plenty of money and don't need huge amounts of capital either thus it is a game for prop firms.

Your statement is true however when it comes to asset managers, though they can sometimes be hampered somewhat by restrictions they might have and the size of the portfolio being managed etc..

Lastly that professional asset managers can't beat the FTSE doesn't necessarily mean that an ordinary retail investor can't - granted with a small portfolio costs might get in the way but assuming that wasn't an issue if you were to pick a subset of FTSE 100 or S&P 500 stocks at random and equally distribute funds across them you'd probably beat the relevant index.
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In my defence, it's difficult to post a thorough rebuttal without going on for pages. I don't disagree with most of what you've said, but don't think it changes the material thrust of what I was trying to say.

I was really talking about asset managers - getting into trading can wander into market making territory etc which is not really relevant to the debate as it's impossible to replicate as an individual.

I don't really agree with your final paragraph though - literally, I think you're right (though I'd question your use of 'probably'). But if we consider that the spirit of it is about someone wanting to make money based on performance of the FTSE, I think you'd be better off buying a low-cost tracker ETF / fund and leaving it be. As an individual trader, the costs involved in rebalancing etc could be quite problematic, and the time is considerable as well. On the flipside, you can outsource all of that to Vanguard (as an example) for 0.08% ongoing costs. Personally, I'd go for the latter.

Anyway, mostly semantics, but wanted to explain a bit more.
 
Hi all. I have around 8.5k in premium bonds at the moment is there anything I can do with it that will earn me a little bit within the next 6 months that's not going to require a lot of work and hassle ? My other savings are elsewhere
 
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joeyjojo said:
I hadn't really thought about that. Will have to get rid of the cash ISA (1%) fairly soon. :(
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I'm in the same position regarding a cash ISA worth just under 6 figures; I'm contemplating breaking it into 25% chunks and sticking it in to accounts I already have in FC, RS, SS and Zopa. I can't knock the average returns of 7% across the board I got with those guys over the last 12 months.
 
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darkgen said:
I'm in the same position regarding a cash ISA worth just under 6 figures; I'm contemplating breaking it into 25% chunks and sticking it in to accounts I already have in FC, RS, SS and Zopa. I can't knock the average returns of 7% across the board I got with those guys over the last 12 months.
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Just bear in mind that when ISA rates do go back up, you won't be able to put all that capital back in.
 
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