YOUR INVESTMENT STRATEGY

10 April 2025

YOUR INVESTMENT STRATEGY

Your investment strategies are clear

 

- for short-term projects such as saving for a deposit on a house*, then put your money into something safe - a single government bond that matures in a few months to coincide with your anticipated purchase; or even easier is a money market fund.

- for longer term projects going as far as retirement, just carry on drip feeding into a world index with a low fee - VHVG, though ACWI is the current favourite because it is all the world, including emerging markets, and because it's fee is half that of VHVG, you can buy this on InvestEngine.

- this is for 90% or so of your investment, maybe 100% till you get more adept, so this is your stalwart fund; 

and you can have a satellite flutter fund where you try out a few ideas - e g an energy ETF, or small caps, or copper, or gold, or some single stocks... For bigger gains, or of course, bigger losses!

NOTE

Any global index will still be dominated by the US, but worth bearing in mind that the US has done tremendously well this last decade on account of the magnificent seven, which are absolutely superb companies; but since 1975 US markets have beaten other markets on an annual basis on only 55% of the time. This year-to-date, Europe has out-performed the US.

* there will be plenty of gilts to choose from, so consider those maturing at around the same time, but with different coupons, and pick the one with the lowest coupon as the gain at maturity will be mainly capital on which there is no income tax.

** of course, it's time in the market, not market timing for us amateurs, but if you want to chance your arm, try doping your monthly transfers according to the data point in the Bollinger Bands or according to the RSI. If you want to manage major turning points, then try Fibonacci.