Informed decisions to improve your chances of achieving your financial goals
If you want to plan for your financial future, it helps to understand risk. If you understand the risks associated with investing and you know how much risk you are comfortable taking, you can make informed decisions and improve your chances of achieving your goals.
Spreading risk between different kinds of investments
When you start investing, or even if you are a sophisticated investor, one of the most important tools available is diversification. Whether the market is bullish or bearish, maintaining a diversified portfolio is essential to any long-term investment strategy.
Making the decisions about when to buy and sell assets
There are many reasons to invest through a fund, rather than buying assets on your own. At a basic level, investing in a fund means having a professional fund manager make investment decisions on behalf of the investor.
Investing in different things, with different strategies
Pooled investment funds – also known as ‘collective investment schemes’ – are a way of combining sums of money from many people into a large fund spread across many investments and managed by a professional fund manager.
Fewer ups and downs than investing directly in shares
If you save regularly or invest a lump sum using a life insurance policy, you might choose to invest in a with-profits fund. These aim to give you a return linked to the stock market but with fewer ups and downs than investing directly in shares. However, they are complex and are not as popular a form of investing as they used to be.
An investment trust is a public company that raises money by selling shares to investors, and then pools that money to buy and sell a wide range of shares and assets. Different investment trusts will have different aims and different mixes of investments.
Investing in a wide range of different tax-efficient investments
Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) can be used to hold stocks and shares or cash, or any combination of these, up to the current annual limit. An ISA is a tax-efficient ‘wrapper’ that can be used to help save you tax.
No longer something that only affects the very wealthy
Inheritance Tax is no longer something that only affects the very wealthy, but the good news is that there are ways to limit the amount of Inheritance Tax your family may potentially face.
If you don’t know where you want to go, you’ll find it tricky getting there! Investment goals cover everything from the old adage of saving for a rainy day to planning for a comfortable retirement.
Half a million workers past pension age could be paying unnecessary tax
A significant number of people working past the state pension age could be paying unnecessary tax on their state pension, according to new research[1]. This is because they failed to take up the option of deferring their state pension until they stopped work. As a result, their entire state pension is being taxed, in some cases at 40%.
