I decided to look at investments again today before looking at this thread. The US stock market is the most over priced so i avoided that & I'm already overweight in UK so avoided that. I plumped for Emerging markets & Asia exc Japan in some funds. Chose 4 different funds.
Agree with TelMc32 re the pension pot recovering mine now at its highest value ever.
Pot is still down overall, but that’s a consequence of going in on last day of June 2020 and something I totally understand. Since the start of the year it is 4.57% up. Fingers crossed it continues to pick up.
The upside on the perceived poor return in the first 18 months is that I obviously took my pension out of the bank at the right time. My cousin is 18 months younger, at another bank but was offered a similar figure not long after I took mine. He didn’t make the move and his offer is now £350k lower because of the change in the yield curve.
I have recently invested in PB and have just found out that i have won 50 quid. How does NS&I make the payment? Do they send a cheque or is it paid directly into a bank account? If its paid directly into my account how long do i wait before I see this credit?
I have recently invested in PB and have just found out that i have won 50 quid. How does NS&I make the payment? Do they send a cheque or is it paid directly into a bank account? If its paid directly into my account how long do i wait before I see this credit?
if you havn't opened an account online and opted for the funds to be paid directly to your bank account or alternatively re-invested then you will be sent a cheque. If it goes directly into your account it's normally about ten days.
I decided to look at investments again today before looking at this thread. The US stock market is the most over priced so i avoided that & I'm already overweight in UK so avoided that. I plumped for Emerging markets & Asia exc Japan in some funds. Chose 4 different funds.
Care to tell us what 4 funds you went for ??
I hope you didnt avoid Japan altogether as that's one area you should be investing in. I usually recommended 2%-3% in there, the same for emerging markets & 5% Asia - so around 10% in total.
Markets doing really well, my Pension has gone up a ridiculous amount since the turn of the year, over £13.5k just in the month of February so far!
Well yes, my beloved LS20 has gained 4 percentage points in five weeks, and is now down only 10% on the year, from its low of -18 in mid-October. What a time to be alive.
But the question is whether it will keep it up? That means, will bonds generally continue to improve?
I had an interesting pitch yesterday from a young lad who is the investments manager at a branch of one of my Czech banks. He called me because he'd noted the large cash deposits I'd built up there (paying 5.3%). Normally I'd dismiss such calls out of hand but he was polite and also listened as i tried to explain why my situation is different to nearly all his other potential punters. So I popped down to hear what he had to say.
Basically, he was pushing one of their "conservative" funds - but as a short-term play. A tad unorthodox, breaking a lot of investment 'rules' but I could see where he's coming from. His argument is that they believe in a sharp rebound for bonds -this is a bond fund, actively managed - and therefore I might make more than a 5.3% gain over maybe 8 months or so. And actually I've been pondering whether exactly this may happen to LS20, which is 80% bonds. It's all about "should" and "may", whereas 5.3% cash is guaranteed and indeed one of their rivals is offering 6% now. But I promised to look at his fund, try to benchmark it against UK based funds, and give it some thought.
Anyone got any views? He seems to be genuinely interested in feedback, and it's good to encourage young people like him who show a bit of initiative and still listen.
I decided to look at investments again today before looking at this thread. The US stock market is the most over priced so i avoided that & I'm already overweight in UK so avoided that. I plumped for Emerging markets & Asia exc Japan in some funds. Chose 4 different funds.
Care to tell us what 4 funds you went for ??
I hope you didnt avoid Japan altogether as that's one area you should be investing in. I usually recommended 2%-3% in there, the same for emerging markets & 5% Asia - so around 10% in total.
Fidelity Funds - Asian Smaller companies Fund Y- ACC -GB Comgest Growth Emerging Markets GBP U Acc HSBC MSCI AC FAR EAST ex JAPAN UCITS ETF GB Schroder Oriental Income Fund Ltd.
Markets doing really well, my Pension has gone up a ridiculous amount since the turn of the year, over £13.5k just in the month of February so far!
Well yes, my beloved LS20 has gained 4 percentage points in five weeks, and is now down only 10% on the year, from its low of -18 in mid-October. What a time to be alive.
But the question is whether it will keep it up? That means, will bonds generally continue to improve?
I had an interesting pitch yesterday from a young lad who is the investments manager at a branch of one of my Czech banks. He called me because he'd noted the large cash deposits I'd built up there (paying 5.3%). Normally I'd dismiss such calls out of hand but he was polite and also listened as i tried to explain why my situation is different to nearly all his other potential punters. So I popped down to hear what he had to say.
Basically, he was pushing one of their "conservative" funds - but as a short-term play. A tad unorthodox, breaking a lot of investment 'rules' but I could see where he's coming from. His argument is that they believe in a sharp rebound for bonds -this is a bond fund, actively managed - and therefore I might make more than a 5.3% gain over maybe 8 months or so. And actually I've been pondering whether exactly this may happen to LS20, which is 80% bonds. It's all about "should" and "may", whereas 5.3% cash is guaranteed and indeed one of their rivals is offering 6% now. But I promised to look at his fund, try to benchmark it against UK based funds, and give it some thought.
Anyone got any views? He seems to be genuinely interested in feedback, and it's good to encourage young people like him who show a bit of initiative and still listen.
Are you overthinking this?
Of course bonds or other assets might rebound / respond better but at a risk.
If you are getting 5 or 6% risk free what is that worth to you versus the risk of some loss / lesser return?
Broadly anything over a double digit return would be exceptional / above normal expectations (I generalise) so is the ‘difference’ really worth it / important or not?
Markets doing really well, my Pension has gone up a ridiculous amount since the turn of the year, over £13.5k just in the month of February so far!
Well yes, my beloved LS20 has gained 4 percentage points in five weeks, and is now down only 10% on the year, from its low of -18 in mid-October. What a time to be alive.
But the question is whether it will keep it up? That means, will bonds generally continue to improve?
I had an interesting pitch yesterday from a young lad who is the investments manager at a branch of one of my Czech banks. He called me because he'd noted the large cash deposits I'd built up there (paying 5.3%). Normally I'd dismiss such calls out of hand but he was polite and also listened as i tried to explain why my situation is different to nearly all his other potential punters. So I popped down to hear what he had to say.
Basically, he was pushing one of their "conservative" funds - but as a short-term play. A tad unorthodox, breaking a lot of investment 'rules' but I could see where he's coming from. His argument is that they believe in a sharp rebound for bonds -this is a bond fund, actively managed - and therefore I might make more than a 5.3% gain over maybe 8 months or so. And actually I've been pondering whether exactly this may happen to LS20, which is 80% bonds. It's all about "should" and "may", whereas 5.3% cash is guaranteed and indeed one of their rivals is offering 6% now. But I promised to look at his fund, try to benchmark it against UK based funds, and give it some thought.
Anyone got any views? He seems to be genuinely interested in feedback, and it's good to encourage young people like him who show a bit of initiative and still listen.
I don't see a sharp rebound in bonds (capital value) until interest rates start to reduce again. Sounds like frying pan and fire to me.
It's really hard on a forum, I don't know what % of your total investments are in LS20 or how much else you have in shares, high risk, cash etc etc.
FWIW in my SIPP I had around 3.5% in bonds, I sold some (and lost some value!) so have only around 1% now, I moved what I sold into three ETF's, all of which have more than made back the reduction in the bonds and profit on top in the past two months.
My difficulty is banking profit's, my best performer since July is FTSE Developed Europe UCITS ETF which is up 15.52%, although the holding is in relative terms small. My biggest holding (around 20% of my SIPP) is S&P500 ETF, up 12.9% since July, I'm very tempted to bank some of that.
My brother moved back to Ireland last year, kept his Barclays account here, this is now being closed in April due to Brexit. He wants to keep an account here so he has sterling. Any ideas how he could do that without using someone else’s address?
Would his Revolut account do? He has PBs and wants winning to go into account.
My brother moved back to Ireland last year, kept his Barclays account here, this is now being closed in April due to Brexit. He wants to keep an account here so he has sterling. Any ideas how he could do that without using someone else’s address?
Would his Revolut account do? He has PBs and wants winning to go into account.
Revolut are certainly positioning themselves as a main bank and saying you can have your salary paid in. Looking at the NS&I site, you just need to provide your sort code, account number & account name. If he can do that, he should be fine.
All the banks had a “purge” on accounts that they deemed were affected by Brexit. I had my Euro account closed and I worked for them. We also closed accounts for EU entities of our clients who were holding accounts here as a “just in case” scenario (they had been cautious about their own country’s economy several years previous.
The other alternative could be for him to open an account with one of the Irish banks that have branches here (or the North).
My brother moved back to Ireland last year, kept his Barclays account here, this is now being closed in April due to Brexit. He wants to keep an account here so he has sterling. Any ideas how he could do that without using someone else’s address?
Would his Revolut account do? He has PBs and wants winning to go into account.
Revolut are certainly positioning themselves as a main bank and saying you can have your salary paid in. Looking at the NS&I site, you just need to provide your sort code, account number & account name. If he can do that, he should be fine.
All the banks had a “purge” on accounts that they deemed were affected by Brexit. I had my Euro account closed and I worked for them. We also closed accounts for EU entities of our clients who were holding accounts here as a “just in case” scenario (they had been cautious about their own country’s economy several years previous.
The other alternative could be for him to open an account with one of the Irish banks that have branches here (or the North).
Wouldn't it be enough to find an Irish bank that offers a multi-currency account? Maybe it doesn't exist yet, but it occurs to me that if HSBC are there, they might offer a Global Money account soon. The UK launch isn't the first from them, they've offered it in Australia for several years. Personally I'd rather that than Revolut. Dodgy Russian shit. But then again. that's just me...
Markets doing really well, my Pension has gone up a ridiculous amount since the turn of the year, over £13.5k just in the month of February so far!
Well yes, my beloved LS20 has gained 4 percentage points in five weeks, and is now down only 10% on the year, from its low of -18 in mid-October. What a time to be alive.
But the question is whether it will keep it up? That means, will bonds generally continue to improve?
I had an interesting pitch yesterday from a young lad who is the investments manager at a branch of one of my Czech banks. He called me because he'd noted the large cash deposits I'd built up there (paying 5.3%). Normally I'd dismiss such calls out of hand but he was polite and also listened as i tried to explain why my situation is different to nearly all his other potential punters. So I popped down to hear what he had to say.
Basically, he was pushing one of their "conservative" funds - but as a short-term play. A tad unorthodox, breaking a lot of investment 'rules' but I could see where he's coming from. His argument is that they believe in a sharp rebound for bonds -this is a bond fund, actively managed - and therefore I might make more than a 5.3% gain over maybe 8 months or so. And actually I've been pondering whether exactly this may happen to LS20, which is 80% bonds. It's all about "should" and "may", whereas 5.3% cash is guaranteed and indeed one of their rivals is offering 6% now. But I promised to look at his fund, try to benchmark it against UK based funds, and give it some thought.
Anyone got any views? He seems to be genuinely interested in feedback, and it's good to encourage young people like him who show a bit of initiative and still listen.
I don't see a sharp rebound in bonds (capital value) until interest rates start to reduce again. Sounds like frying pan and fire to me.
It's really hard on a forum, I don't know what % of your total investments are in LS20 or how much else you have in shares, high risk, cash etc etc.
FWIW in my SIPP I had around 3.5% in bonds, I sold some (and lost some value!) so have only around 1% now, I moved what I sold into three ETF's, all of which have more than made back the reduction in the bonds and profit on top in the past two months.
My difficulty is banking profit's, my best performer since July is FTSE Developed Europe UCITS ETF which is up 15.52%, although the holding is in relative terms small. My biggest holding (around 20% of my SIPP) is S&P500 ETF, up 12.9% since July, I'm very tempted to bank some of that.
I've got two separate tranches of LS20. One, in my SIPP. The other on the Vanguard platform and that's what I call my 'health insurance fund.
The SIPP tranche isn't the issue, but FYI, the LS20 and LS40 holdings are 43% of the total (the "low risk ballast"). They are the reason why my SIPP, unlike yours, remains about 10% off its all time high, even though it has pulled back a lot in the last couple of months, as others' have. Never mind that, I have to resolve what to do with my SIPP overall, which I've already discussed with Golfie, and will open up for discussion later, as I'm sure others are pondering the same thing.
I keep the LS20 on the Vanguard platform as something separate to all other investments. This is what I'm pondering now. The complication in my case is that it is an investment denominated in GBP for something which if needed will most likely be spent in CZK or euros.
There has already been a sharp rebound in bonds, especially UK based. That's why LS20 has recovered 8% points from the October low. Some commentators argue that this a recovery from the Moron Factor, by which they mean Kwarteng, so we are now back in the same boat as the rest of the global bond market. The bond advocates seem to be arguing that the battle with inflation is being won, so interest rates will fall, but if you want to take advantage of that you have to buy bonds now, before the central banks actually start to loosen up. That was the essence of the pitch I got on Thursday.
Hoping for some advice from anyone slightly savvy about dealing with currencies.
I’m British and my wife is American, so we have UK bank accounts and she has an US bank account. We pay taxes in UK and US. I also have an old Australian bank account still open from many years ago.
My wife has an inheritance payment coming from Australia. The lawyers for the estate are now arranging the payment and want to know where we want it sent. Anyone got any experience on how to minimise any fees and best deal with impact from exchange rates?
Hoping for some advice from anyone slightly savvy about dealing with currencies.
I’m British and my wife is American, so we have UK bank accounts and she has an US bank account. We pay taxes in UK and US. I also have an old Australian bank account still open from many years ago.
My wife has an inheritance payment coming from Australia. The lawyers for the estate are now arranging the payment and want to know where we want it sent. Anyone got any experience on how to minimise any fees and best deal with impact from exchange rates?
Just wondering how my main pension fund is doing it’s gone up 6.75% since 1/1/23 to me that’s seems quite good, but I wondering how that compares to others. I’m 70 and won’t need to draw on my various pensions for around 8 years. Obviously the % increase may reduce after todays downturn 😀
Just wondering how my main pension fund is doing it’s gone up 6.75% since 1/1/23 to me that’s seems quite good, but I wondering how that compares to others. I’m 70 and won’t need to draw on my various pensions for around 8 years.
That’s pretty good, my personal share/fund portfolio is up about 9% in the same period. But, bloody hell wont need to draw for 8 years ? Draw it and get spending, your 70 for gods sake , you can’t take it with you.
friends in Cyprus had to close their Barclays accounts. spoke to an IFA in Cyprus and have opened HSBC accounts in Guernsey.
Which is odd, because we had clients trying to open with us because HSBC gave them notice to close there. Nothing wrong with the clients, it’s all down to how someone in the bank interprets the rules about opening/holding accounts since Brexit. I saw them change twice in my own bank before I left 18 months ago, but they were all doing the same. Clear as mud!
Just wondering how my main pension fund is doing it’s gone up 6.75% since 1/1/23 to me that’s seems quite good, but I wondering how that compares to others. I’m 70 and won’t need to draw on my various pensions for around 8 years.
That’s pretty good, my personal share/fund portfolio is up about 9% in the same period. But, bloody hell wont need to draw for 8 years ? Draw it and get spending, your 70 for gods sake , you can’t take it with you.
I so, so agree with this!
Health wise, when you get to 70, who knows what is just around the corner.
Similar, but 2022 was still an ugly year if look at the performance over that period.
Interesting as if I go back to 1/1/22 and add in my contributions then my present total should be around 4% higher than it is now, so yes it was an ugly year as you say. Wished I hadn’t looked it up😢 but that the chances you take I suppose with investments, you just got to hope that in long run the good times outweigh the bad.
Yes, sorry to outline that reality but it's important as we (retail investor) can often get seduced by a time period of excellent performance, because of that being presented to us.
My brother moved back to Ireland last year, kept his Barclays account here, this is now being closed in April due to Brexit. He wants to keep an account here so he has sterling. Any ideas how he could do that without using someone else’s address?
Would his Revolut account do? He has PBs and wants winning to go into account.
Revolut are certainly positioning themselves as a main bank and saying you can have your salary paid in. Looking at the NS&I site, you just need to provide your sort code, account number & account name. If he can do that, he should be fine.
All the banks had a “purge” on accounts that they deemed were affected by Brexit. I had my Euro account closed and I worked for them. We also closed accounts for EU entities of our clients who were holding accounts here as a “just in case” scenario (they had been cautious about their own country’s economy several years previous.
The other alternative could be for him to open an account with one of the Irish banks that have branches here (or the North).
Wouldn't it be enough to find an Irish bank that offers a multi-currency account? Maybe it doesn't exist yet, but it occurs to me that if HSBC are there, they might offer a Global Money account soon. The UK launch isn't the first from them, they've offered it in Australia for several years. Personally I'd rather that than Revolut. Dodgy Russian shit. But then again. that's just me...
The UK banks that have a presence in Dublin only have corporate licences. They don’t, at the moment, have personal banking capabilities there. AIB and Bank of Ireland, as examples, do offer GBP accounts, but I’m not certain that would be acceptable to NS&I as they would be international payments and not UK sort codes.
Just wondering how my main pension fund is doing it’s gone up 6.75% since 1/1/23 to me that’s seems quite good, but I wondering how that compares to others. I’m 70 and won’t need to draw on my various pensions for around 8 years. Obviously the % increase may reduce after todays downturn 😀
I’d be happy with that. Mine is up 5.23% since the start of the year. Now 2.54% down since my pension went into the SIPP on 30 June 2021, but had been nearly 12% down last year.
Hoping for some advice from anyone slightly savvy about dealing with currencies.
I’m British and my wife is American, so we have UK bank accounts and she has an US bank account. We pay taxes in UK and US. I also have an old Australian bank account still open from many years ago.
My wife has an inheritance payment coming from Australia. The lawyers for the estate are now arranging the payment and want to know where we want it sent. Anyone got any experience on how to minimise any fees and best deal with impact from exchange rates?
Thinking about this more, and in the lack of any better ideas, I reckon the new HSBC UK Global Money account might be the best solution for you. If the inheritance payment is more than around £25k then you run into problems with many banks when transferring those larger amounts. The lawyers may not want to mess around sending money via Wise or Revolut, especially in more than one transfer. They want to use a "proper" bank, I expect.
If you've got your HSBC account, they can at least send the money direct in OZ dollars, so you avoid any exchange rate costs. Then the big advantage is that you can then shift the money inside your HSBC account to GBP or USD according to your needs, and there will not (I think) be any daily limit to the amount you shift within the account.
You'll need an HSBC current account too, I believe but if you are UK resident that's no issue. You don't have to make it your main current account.
Comments
The US stock market is the most over priced so i avoided that & I'm already overweight in UK so avoided that.
I plumped for Emerging markets & Asia exc Japan in some funds.
Chose 4 different funds.
The upside on the perceived poor return in the first 18 months is that I obviously took my pension out of the bank at the right time. My cousin is 18 months younger, at another bank but was offered a similar figure not long after I took mine. He didn’t make the move and his offer is now £350k lower because of the change in the yield curve.
I hope you didnt avoid Japan altogether as that's one area you should be investing in. I usually recommended 2%-3% in there, the same for emerging markets & 5% Asia - so around 10% in total.
But the question is whether it will keep it up? That means, will bonds generally continue to improve?
I had an interesting pitch yesterday from a young lad who is the investments manager at a branch of one of my Czech banks. He called me because he'd noted the large cash deposits I'd built up there (paying 5.3%). Normally I'd dismiss such calls out of hand but he was polite and also listened as i tried to explain why my situation is different to nearly all his other potential punters. So I popped down to hear what he had to say.
Basically, he was pushing one of their "conservative" funds - but as a short-term play. A tad unorthodox, breaking a lot of investment 'rules' but I could see where he's coming from. His argument is that they believe in a sharp rebound for bonds -this is a bond fund, actively managed - and therefore I might make more than a 5.3% gain over maybe 8 months or so. And actually I've been pondering whether exactly this may happen to LS20, which is 80% bonds. It's all about "should" and "may", whereas 5.3% cash is guaranteed and indeed one of their rivals is offering 6% now. But I promised to look at his fund, try to benchmark it against UK based funds, and give it some thought.
Anyone got any views? He seems to be genuinely interested in feedback, and it's good to encourage young people like him who show a bit of initiative and still listen.
Comgest Growth Emerging Markets GBP U Acc
HSBC MSCI AC FAR EAST ex JAPAN UCITS ETF GB
Schroder Oriental Income Fund Ltd.
Broadly anything over a double digit return would be exceptional / above normal expectations (I generalise) so is the ‘difference’ really worth it / important or not?
It's really hard on a forum, I don't know what % of your total investments are in LS20 or how much else you have in shares, high risk, cash etc etc.
FWIW in my SIPP I had around 3.5% in bonds, I sold some (and lost some value!) so have only around 1% now, I moved what I sold into three ETF's, all of which have more than made back the reduction in the bonds and profit on top in the past two months.
My difficulty is banking profit's, my best performer since July is FTSE Developed Europe UCITS ETF which is up 15.52%, although the holding is in relative terms small. My biggest holding (around 20% of my SIPP) is S&P500 ETF, up 12.9% since July, I'm very tempted to bank some of that.
Would his Revolut account do? He has PBs and wants winning to go into account.
All the banks had a “purge” on accounts that they deemed were affected by Brexit. I had my Euro account closed and I worked for them. We also closed accounts for EU entities of our clients who were holding accounts here as a “just in case” scenario (they had been cautious about their own country’s economy several years previous.
The SIPP tranche isn't the issue, but FYI, the LS20 and LS40 holdings are 43% of the total (the "low risk ballast"). They are the reason why my SIPP, unlike yours, remains about 10% off its all time high, even though it has pulled back a lot in the last couple of months, as others' have. Never mind that, I have to resolve what to do with my SIPP overall, which I've already discussed with Golfie, and will open up for discussion later, as I'm sure others are pondering the same thing.
I keep the LS20 on the Vanguard platform as something separate to all other investments. This is what I'm pondering now. The complication in my case is that it is an investment denominated in GBP for something which if needed will most likely be spent in CZK or euros.
There has already been a sharp rebound in bonds, especially UK based. That's why LS20 has recovered 8% points from the October low. Some commentators argue that this a recovery from the Moron Factor, by which they mean Kwarteng, so we are now back in the same boat as the rest of the global bond market. The bond advocates seem to be arguing that the battle with inflation is being won, so interest rates will fall, but if you want to take advantage of that you have to buy bonds now, before the central banks actually start to loosen up. That was the essence of the pitch I got on Thursday.
I just got a text today from Barclays informing me that they are closing my account.
I’m British and my wife is American, so we have UK bank accounts and she has an US bank account. We pay taxes in UK and US. I also have an old Australian bank account still open from many years ago.
My wife has an inheritance payment coming from Australia. The lawyers for the estate are now arranging the payment and want to know where we want it sent. Anyone got any experience on how to minimise any fees and best deal with impact from exchange rates?
Health wise, when you get to 70, who knows what is just around the corner.
Thinking about this more, and in the lack of any better ideas, I reckon the new HSBC UK Global Money account might be the best solution for you. If the inheritance payment is more than around £25k then you run into problems with many banks when transferring those larger amounts. The lawyers may not want to mess around sending money via Wise or Revolut, especially in more than one transfer. They want to use a "proper" bank, I expect.
If you've got your HSBC account, they can at least send the money direct in OZ dollars, so you avoid any exchange rate costs. Then the big advantage is that you can then shift the money inside your HSBC account to GBP or USD according to your needs, and there will not (I think) be any daily limit to the amount you shift within the account.
You'll need an HSBC current account too, I believe but if you are UK resident that's no issue. You don't have to make it your main current account.