The Investment Newbie

Iā€™m glad that I could help and youā€™re most welcome.
When I opened my Freetrade account, I didnā€™t go for an ISA right away. Theyā€™re serious and not for me, I thought. If your goal for now is Ā£20 to Ā£30 a month, the Ā£3 management fee probably isnā€™t worth it for you. It ultimately is the best way of doing things for a lot of people, because you pay no capital gains tax at all when you sell shares or on dividends. As I understand it, anyway. Naturally, thereā€™s a fee of some kind with almost all providers.

If you reach a point where you can either justify paying for Plus or put a lot more a month into this, though, Iā€™d give it a serious look. The frequency of trading that not paying a fee to trade encourages and making profit here and there might ultimately make it worthwhile. Especially if say, 6 months from now you realise you actually have quite a decent position in a company and itā€™s going to make you a profit.

For me I always ask the question, and I suppose this is relevant for beginner or not: if I opened FreeTrade later today and all of the money was gone (letā€™s say severe market crash or every business I invest in by chance went under), would it impact my life in any substantial way?

Based on that Iā€™m never making any ā€˜realā€™ risk, I can make decisions and learn from them, and as I research, learn more and go deeper into the rabbit hole, I can gradually grow my portfolio and learn and enjoy it along the way.

I think this is a good post for newbies, spreading the risk by buying ETFs (wtih some suggested example portfolios):

Hi everyone, I have just moved 1k I had sitting in an account to a S&S ISA on freetrade.

Could anyone guide me on some good first time investments for the money?

3 Likes

Hi Alvyn, congratulations on beginning your ISA journey

As a beginner you should research broad index ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).

10 Likes

Newbie guide worth reading

8 Likes

Investing for the first time is exciting but scary at the same time. Aside from the excellent resources shared above, my advice is to just ā€œset and forgetā€.

It can totally happen that your portfolio drops a few percentage in the first days / months, but this is very normal and no reason to sell. Just stick with it and it will likely grow overtime and you will see the beautiful green digits all over your screen :grinning:

Take your time to learn continuously (it will take years!) and slowly optimise your portfolio when you are in a position to add more money to your ISA.

7 Likes

I have read the posts and put the money in to some ETF

Will just let it sit now for a while, it is much better off in this than sitting in a bank account

6 Likes

You picked a decent day to invest as global markets are generally 5% down from their recent highs.

1 Like

Thanks, I have put money into

FTSE All World
MSCI Small World Cap
Indexed U.K. Gilts
U.K. Gilts
Develops markets property

Does this seem a decent opening spread? Or should I have went with fewer funds?

3 Likes

canā€™t go wrong with VWRL
small caps tend to do well in an economic recovery.
I see youā€™ve mixed up asset classes with some UK gilts as a bit of a safe haven. These wonā€™t yield you much because rates are near zero but are generally seen as a safe store.

I donā€™t know too much about developed market property ETF. My understanding of property at the moment is that residential and housing is doing well because mortgages are so cheap but commercial real estate is struggling as no one is visiting shops and everyoneā€™s working from home so who needs offices.

2 Likes

I think its fine, not to many that you can keep up to date with them.

I agree with @J4ipod94 VWRL is a safe and reliable all world ETF, my entire SIPP (sitting elsewhere atm while it transfers) is VWRL. :smile:

I think it will very much depend on what properties are included. some commercial may be struggling but others wont be, people still have to pay the rent even if they arenā€™t using the building. But short lease office rentals for example may dry up a little in the short term as some smaller companies decide to permeant work from home.

If youā€™ve not already @Alvyn heres the ETF pages for reference

https://www.vanguard.co.uk/professional/product/etf/equity/9505/ftse-all-world-ucits-etf-usd-distributing

3 Likes

So maybe drop the gilts on Monday for something else?

I had this money just sitting in my starling account not doing anything. So hopefully can a bit more than for 7p per month it was making. But not exactly expecting to make millions from 1k :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

It really depends on your personal risk threshold
In the bond market generally UK gilts or US bonds are seen as risk free

There is also something called an Aggregate Bond ETF which is a collection of investment grade government and corporate bonds. Well diversified.

1 Like

Its very much up to you. I started out investing with a Vanguard ISA with a small amount (about Ā£1000 initially) in the LifeStrategy 80% fund which weighs about 80% equity and 20% bonds. It was what i felt comfortable with at the time. It was a good 6 months to a year before i started being happy investing more directly in ETFs like VWRL and i personally was happy with a 100% ISA, but thats me, and im a long way off needing to consider reducing the risk further. Saying that, I still have most of my money in ETFs or trusts which both types invest in a range of companies to spread risk a little, plus the trusts i have im confident with their management of it. I have some single stocks but not a huge amount.

Gilts, honestly i dont know a lot about. They donā€™t earn a huge amount these days but are generally seen as safer, government bonds being the safest usually.

I did read something briefly not long ago about the consideration for changing from bonds to other types of equity investments focused on stability and income. but Id need to see if i can find the article again.

I like investment trusts and green ETFsā€¦ but thatā€™s me :smiley: You might want to look at aggregate bonds as @J4ipod94 suggests if you want to keep some bond exposure.

At the end of the day, thereā€™s no rush. And the trades are free, so if you refine your investments and you decide you want to change it slightly in a week or a month or a year thats all good.

Best thing you can do is invest regularly for the long term. My opinion is investing is the single most useful way of improving your wealth and your families wealth (and generational wealth).

2 Likes

Hi Newbie here

Iā€™m looking to make a withdraw on my investment. The money has been confirmed as withdrawable cash in the app and when I click on with daw it says to verifiy my account.

Can anyone tell me how to do that? Thanks

Did you top-up with Apple or Google Pay?
If so, youā€™ll need to add a bank account. This is ā€œverifiedā€ via a bank transfer.

Awesome thanks for that - just sent Ā£1 over now with the reference details they quoted

2 Likes

Hi . New to freetrade. Looking for tips for trading. What to look for and possible trends

Welcome to the forum :wave: The best thing to do is browse the site for a bit and get a varied range of views and then only you can make the choice that is best for you. A good start is to add little and begin with ETFs. The link below is very handy for new members and one about ETFs.

Ask your beginners questions here :hatching_chick: - First Time Investing :hatching_chick: - Freetrade Community

Passive Investors - Whatā€™s your reason for not putting all your funds into an All-World ETF? - First Time Investing :hatching_chick: - Freetrade Community

1 Like