# If you had 100K to invest.



## Nicksmith (Jan 5, 2015)

Hi folks. I'm not looking for financial advise here just your thoughts. If you had 100K to invest short term (5-6yrs) where would you invest. 59 yr old,married,won't be working,living in Spain,renting long term. Thanks. Nick.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Equities. Mix of small and medium sized companies that invest a large amount in research.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Consult a qualified broker or reputable fund manager. 
Companies in research are better for long term, methinks.


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## Rabbitcat (Aug 31, 2014)

3.40 at Exeter


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

Precious metals IMO.


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## Nicksmith (Jan 5, 2015)

Rabbitcat said:


> 3.40 at Exeter


Mmm,been there got the T shirt.


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## Nicksmith (Jan 5, 2015)

VFR said:


> Precious metals IMO.


Interesting....must have a look. Thanks.


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## Libbyzx (Aug 7, 2014)

The UK premium bonds, I understand you can have two lots of 30thousand pounds each, money is safe and money back when you want it, One of our friends in Spain has these, one of them seems to get a win every month of many small amounts and the latest is a 500 pound win.

One Ounce Silver Eagles can be cheap at the moment but they are really for the longer term and to be looked on as an investment rather then making money. Gold a little risky.

Forget the money experts who have awesome super ideas on how to quickly invest your money, and lose the bulk of it just as quick.


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## Williams2 (Sep 15, 2013)

Use the money to buy a metal detector - to hunt for Spanish doubloons, there's
sure to be a hoard hidden away somewhere in Spain. Just that I haven't come
across it yet !!


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## el pescador (Mar 14, 2013)

LLoyds Bank.
Government selling their stake off as we speak in drips.
Divis announced earlier in the year and to be rising year on year.

Got their house in order after bailing out halifax for the government.


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## raynard (Nov 26, 2014)

Land and Gold. stands the test of time


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

el pescador said:


> LLoyds Bank.
> Government selling their stake off as we speak in drips.
> Divis announced earlier in the year and to be rising year on year.
> 
> Got their house in order after bailing out halifax for the government.


Hmm...have you checked their outstanding liabilities? Court cases in the UK and US? 

RBS will no doubt be sold off soon but it has £billions in liabilities for 'misdemeanours' in the UK and US.

Frankly, if I had good sound investment advice I'd not be giving it away for free. Like all competent fund managers, I'd want a fee.
A substantial one.


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## Isobella (Oct 16, 2014)

raynard said:


> Land and Gold. stands the test of time


You could also have lost a lot on gold recently, would have to be very long time. Land depends where, not been good in Spain for the last ten years. What about buy to let in the UK. All these asylum seekers will push up rents:behindsofa:


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

Nicksmith said:


> Hi folks. I'm not looking for financial advise here just your thoughts. If you had 100K to invest short term (5-6yrs) where would you invest. 59 yr old,married,won't be working,living in Spain,renting long term. Thanks. Nick.


I'd invest a portion of that in a second honeymoon or a second wedding to your wife. Great investment.


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## pnwheels (Mar 3, 2013)

Libbyzx said:


> The UK premium bonds, I understand you can have two lots of 30thousand pounds each, money is safe and money back when you want it, One of our friends in Spain has these, one of them seems to get a win every month of many small amounts and the latest is a 500 pound win.


You can now own £40K each in Premium Bonds


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## raynard (Nov 26, 2014)

Gold in the long term has done well,UK agri land has out performed London property over the last 7 years,plus you get rent and lovely single farm payment.Buy to let has had its day.


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## morlandg (Jun 8, 2008)

*Premium Bonds*



pnwheels said:


> You can now own £40K each in Premium Bonds


Do you know if a resident in spain can purchase premium bonds? One certainly cannot buy ISAs or Unit Trusts....


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## pnwheels (Mar 3, 2013)

Yes you can....but as a resident any winnings are taxable! Also if you hold more than €50,000 worth they have to go on Modelo 720!


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## caromac (Nov 16, 2008)

The limit for UK premium bonds is now £50,000.:fingerscrossed:


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## michaellavin (Sep 14, 2015)

*A few basic tips*

Full disclosure: I am a financial adviser. I am not pitching for business, but happy to offer some free tips to help you organise something sensible with this £100k. Without having knowing anything about your circumstances, I can only speak generically but hopefully can help you stay on the straight and narrow!

First, please avoid anything that sounds incredibly clever, promises double digit returns or appears to be a way of tapping into some fantastic way of producing money out of thin air. With money, boring and simple is often best. If something sounds too good to be true.... 

Second, 5-6 years is a relatively short time horizon for an investment. Therefore you should avoid holding too high a % in shares. Shares have provided great returns over the long term. However over 5 years, the issue is that you don't have enough time to recover a loss if there is a market crash - and despite what any expert says, no one can predict short term market movements.

Third, diversify as much as possible. Don't put your hard earned money at the mercy of one firm or industry. Rule of thumb would be to avoid any more than 5% in the shares/bonds of any one company. It just makes no sense not to spread your risk. If you invest in 100 companies it is highly unlikely all will do badly. Invest in one company on the other hand and anything could happen. Most investors are best using what are called 'collective' funds, which pool investors money – the big advantage is that when you look ‘under the bonnet’ these funds will likely hold no more than 1% or 2% with any one company. It's almost impossible to achieve this spread and then monitor it regularly this without using a collective fund. (these funds should be regulated in the EU too, avoid Cayman islands funds etc)

Finally consider an investment with a capital guarantee if you don’t want to risk your money – sorry not to have any ‘red hot tips’ but if it’s like watching paint dry, it’s normally a good investment!

Hope this helps!


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

michaellavin said:


> Full disclosure: I am a financial adviser. I am not pitching for business, but happy to offer some free tips to help you organise something sensible with this £100k. Without having knowing anything about your circumstances, I can only speak generically but hopefully can help you stay on the straight and narrow!
> 
> First, please avoid anything that sounds incredibly clever, promises double digit returns or appears to be a way of tapping into some fantastic way of producing money out of thin air. With money, boring and simple is often best. If something sounds too good to be true....
> 
> ...


I see you are from Malta ... do you by any chance work for Blevins Franks?


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## Nicksmith (Jan 5, 2015)

michaellavin said:


> Full disclosure: I am a financial adviser. I am not pitching for business, but happy to offer some free tips to help you organise something sensible with this £100k. Without having knowing anything about your circumstances, I can only speak generically but hopefully can help you stay on the straight and narrow!
> 
> First, please avoid anything that sounds incredibly clever, promises double digit returns or appears to be a way of tapping into some fantastic way of producing money out of thin air. With money, boring and simple is often best. If something sounds too good to be true....
> 
> ...


Thanks for that advice Michaellavin and to everyone else.


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## michaellavin (Sep 14, 2015)

No problem Nick and best of luck. And The Skipper... I can see the logic as they have their back office in Malta but no I do not work for Blevins!!


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## Horlics (Sep 27, 2011)

I think the below is good advice and as good as you will get without knowledge of your circumstances. If you will be paying tax over the 5-6 year period, investments that avoid tax will probably out-perform those that don't.

I use some "collective" funds as mentioned below, and they're the ones that have done best for me over the past 5 years. It's better than choosing a few shares of your own, I do that also and have picked 3 that have grown 35%, but have also picked a couple of duds that have lost as much.

Have a look at the peer-to-peer lending platforms too. Funding Circle is working well for me.

The only point I would debate is that shares have done well over the long-term. The FTSE is where it was 13 years ago so a 100 tracker would have been pretty awful over that period. If shares had done so well, people would still be buying endowment mortgages. Or am I missing something?

And Op. My initial assumption was that you were looking for advice about investments in Spain in Euros, given that you asked there question here in a forum for expats in Spain. There are some good sites specifically for financial advice where you might get more ideas.



michaellavin said:


> Full disclosure: I am a financial adviser. I am not pitching for business, but happy to offer some free tips to help you organise something sensible with this £100k. Without having knowing anything about your circumstances, I can only speak generically but hopefully can help you stay on the straight and narrow!
> 
> First, please avoid anything that sounds incredibly clever, promises double digit returns or appears to be a way of tapping into some fantastic way of producing money out of thin air. With money, boring and simple is often best. If something sounds too good to be true....
> 
> ...


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## michaellavin (Sep 14, 2015)

Yes Horlics fair point about the FTSE from 2000 - 2015. Credit Suisse produce a really good 'investment returns yearbook' each year which is worth googling and downloading for any financial nerds like me! It has a really good analysis of global recent and historical returns displayed in a user friendly format. 

An American website called behavior gap dot com also is also highly recommended for practical common sense financial planning tips. (the guy wrote a best selling book of the same name)

Tax is something I should have mentioned too, products approved by the Hacienda qualify for attractive tax treatment. Just watch the charges though - sometimes when you get a calculator out these can be so high that they erode any real tax benefit. This is normally because the financial adviser is planning his next 5/6 years around the commission form your money too!! (perhaps surprisingly the big firms are often the worst here)


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Horlics said:


> ...
> 
> The only point I would debate is that shares have done well over the long-term. The FTSE is where it was 13 years ago so a 100 tracker would have been pretty awful over that period. If shares had done so well, people would still be buying endowment mortgages. Or am I missing something?


The FTSE is nearly twice as high as it was 13 years ago. Sept 2002 was right in the aftermath of the dot com crash.

However you do bring up a good point that as well as not putting your eggs in one basket regarding which companies or funds to invest in, neither should you invest everything at the same time. It's far better to drip feed money into your investments over time, so you are less exposed to market fluctuations.


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## Horlics (Sep 27, 2011)

Chopera said:


> The FTSE is nearly twice as high as it was 13 years ago. Sept 2002 was right in the aftermath of the dot com crash.
> 
> However you do bring up a good point that as well as not putting your eggs in one basket regarding which companies or funds to invest in, neither should you invest everything at the same time. It's far better to drip feed money into your investments over time, so you are less exposed to market fluctuations.


Well, you can of course choose the lowest troughs for your comparison. However, doing so would reveal that about 6 years later it was back down at dot-com crash levels. Of course, it's a question of when you get in and out, and that's the secret of managed investing. 

Most, though, pay in across a couple of decades or more and if you remove the extremes, high and low, the stock market hasn't been a great performer. That's why insurance companies had to write to people telling them they weren't going to pay off their mortgages and have large bonuses left over.

Up to around 1996 the stock market had been providing steady growth. Since then it's been volatile. And that's the fault of the effin bankers.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Horlics said:


> Well, you can of course choose the lowest troughs for your comparison. However, doing so would reveal that about 6 years later it was back down at dot-com crash levels. Of course, it's a question of when you get in and out, and that's the secret of managed investing.
> 
> Most, though, pay in across a couple of decades or more and if you remove the extremes, high and low, the stock market hasn't been a great performer. That's why insurance companies had to write to people telling them they weren't going to pay off their mortgages and have large bonuses left over.
> 
> Up to around 1996 the stock market had been providing steady growth. Since then it's been volatile. And that's the fault of the effin bankers.


It depends on which stock market index you look at. I prefer to invest in small/medium sized companies outside the FTSE 100, and if you instead look at the FTSE 250 which contains companies with more growth potential you get a different picture:


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## Horlics (Sep 27, 2011)

Yep, the 250 is certainly better.

Even the FTSE 100 is not as simple to work out as it appears though. Here's a snippet from the FT....

The FTSE 100 has at last topped the record it set at the close of 1999. Should Britons celebrate? Probably not.

Reality is more complex than the simple headlines suggest, though. To start with, the level of the index ignores the income provided by dividends (except in Germany, where the Dax already includes dividends). Reinvest the payments, and investors would have made a none too shabby 68 per cent from the FTSE 100, assuming they did not pay tax.

Relative returns are all very well. But a chunk of this return was really just inflation, as market historian Elroy Dimson of London Business School points out. In real terms, including dividends the Footsie averaged only 0.5 per cent a year. Investors would have been far better off buying boring gilts.​
So, the graphs can look great but when you work it all out, it's made 3 fifths of sod all. Like I said, if returns were good people would still be buying endowment mortgages.

And the worst thing of all is that the value of companies is about what it was 15 years ago, and that's after they've had pension funds tipped into them throughout the period. It's not good.


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