Investment portfolio

[AtW]

Okay so after yesterdays post on pension, I now want to start squirelling money away.

Word of advice: don't be like red squirrels who put all nuts into one place - be more like superior grey squirrels who use scatter hoarding approach AKA diversification.

HTH

[BlasterBates]

I wonder about weather derivatives. At the moment everyone is assuming the globe is warming, but I think not; hmm might try this myself.

[MPwannadecentincome]

Hows about this -combine the following

salt shortage
Gold is expensive
looming water shortages

Invest in SEAWATER.

It contains lots of salt for snowy conditions and for fish and chips, 6kg of gold per cubic kilometer, and it contains loads of water as well.

Wow I didn't realise there was gold in seawater so do they separate out the gold when they make salt in the middle east?

Invest in Desalination plants in Africa and the middle east, powered by solar concentrators (see last week's Sunday Times business section for news on innovation in solar concentrators as deployed in Andalucia, Spain).

Each desalination plant could be set up to heat the water, use the steam to drive a turbine to generate some leccy which could be used to split some water into Hyrdogen and Oxygen and the rest of the distilled water can be used to supply the local region.

So the products are:

Salt
Distilled water
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Gold

and as a benefit the CO2 emissions would be decreased through consumption of the Hydrogen in suitably powered vehicles.


And what you have left is lots of salt and some bits of gold

[MPwannadecentincome]

Okay it seems I might need financial advice.

I have been reading the money pages and Motley Fool but I am no expert.

In terms of Financial Advice I would like it from someone who is an expert and not a glorified salesman who will be hell bent on just pedalling his products.

I would like to buy their advice on a no sell/no commission basis. Is this a good idea and if so is it possible and where would I find this advisor.

I've never heard of anyone operating like this. You can pay for advise by the hour from an independant financial advisor.

But anything you invest in is a risk. Depends how much you have to invest, put different proportions of it into lower, medium and high risk things, over the long term the higher risk things should pay off but these days long term means 20 years plus - it used to mean 10 years plus.

Good luck

[Scary]

And nobody really knows what's going to happen, not even the experts (especially the experts).

[BlackenedBiker]

knowledge is power:

So I have just bought this.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Financial-Ti...3291905&sr=1-1

[rootsnall]

knowledge is power:

So I have just bought this.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Financial-Ti...3291905&sr=1-1

I think you should of started here, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Investing-On...3298969&sr=1-1

[DieScum]

I'd max out your share isas. If you have no short term need for the money I wouldn't bother with the cash part.

Either go for the lowest fee FTSE 100 tracker or roll your own.

I went on to the motley fool site when I was about 23 and asked for some advice on starting off investing. I think I had all of about 3 grand to put away!

The general advice given was stick it in a tracker. To be honest looking back it was bad advice. I would have been better taking more risk going for individual shares.

As it stood the tracker went up a bit but because there was so little in it, and my income has subsequently grown lots, that it was hardly worth it.

Looking back it would have been better to do proper investing in hand picked and researched shares. Even I'd lost the lot it was a small amount and you learn a lot from the investment process.

Now I pick my own shares for my portfolio with all the associated ups and downs - especially in 2008! It's an interesting hobby. Makes you take an interest in some weird and wonderful things. It's always nice to know that maybe this time next year I'll be a millionaire if a few boats come in.

[BlackenedBiker]

I'd max out your share isas. If you have no short term need for the money I wouldn't bother with the cash part.

Either go for the lowest fee FTSE 100 tracker or roll your own.

I went on to the motley fool site when I was about 23 and asked for some advice on starting off investing. I think I had all of about 3 grand to put away!

The general advice given was stick it in a tracker. To be honest looking back it was bad advice. I would have been better taking more risk going for individual shares.

As it stood the tracker went up a bit but because there was so little in it, and my income has subsequently grown lots, that it was hardly worth it.

Looking back it would have been better to do proper investing in hand picked and researched shares. Even I'd lost the lot it was a small amount and you learn a lot from the investment process.

Now I pick my own shares for my portfolio with all the associated ups and downs - especially in 2008! It's an interesting hobby. Makes you take an interest in some weird and wonderful things. It's always nice to know that maybe this time next year I'll be a millionaire if a few boats come in.

Thanks for the advice I will take it on board.

Can I chose my own share portfolio and wrap it up in an ISA wrapper, thus wreaping the rewards of interest free saving????

[DieScum]

Yeah, ISA is a good tax wrapper. No CGT but still 10% on dividends.

Think the limit has gone up to 10k this year so you can get a good chunk in there.

My ISA has earned more than me this week.

You don't want to know how much it lost in 2008 though. Still clawing that back.