Choosing a junior ISA and a portfolio

Hi,

New to investing and eagerly awaiting the Android roll out!

I have a 3 year old and I’m thinking investing now will mean when she’s 18, she can party harder and more irresponsibly than I could ever afford to.

Does anyone know of any impartial resources to teach the complete beginner with a less than basic understanding of economics to help choose a JISA and the portfolio to invest in? Preferably a basics to genius 5 minute long video taught using finger puppets and primary colours…

Cheers all.

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I don’t have a resource to point you at, but in terms of choosing a JISA, you’d go with the platform that has the lowest fees. I think platforms that even offer JISAs are few are far between, and the best that I could find was Vanguard. (I hope Freetrade offer a JISA in the future; please vote for the idea!)

As for the portfolio to invest in, I’d say follow the general advice for a stocks&shares ISA for yourself, but consider yourself 18 years old if following the "x - your age" guidance on how much of your portfolio should be in equities.

For myself, I believe these things to be true:

  1. I cannot pick stocks such that I beat the market
  2. I cannot predict which markets will do well in the future
  3. There is no secret guide I can follow or advanced learning I could take that could rectify 1) or 2); magical future prediction abilities actually do not exist

Which means I’m 100% in a world stocks index tracker with a low fee, offered by Vanguard.

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To that excellent list, I add:

  1. Nor do I have the ability to select the investment managing experts who will do well in future. All of these things mean that while investment “edge” can exist for some investors, I am not one of them.

(Though in truth I’m more like 95% in low cost trackers, not 100%.)

Anyway, I too would love to see the JISA idea get some more votes! @R.E.S On the off chance that you already have an account with Interactive Investor, I think you can add a JISA free.

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