WTF? 20 grand to blow...

[Scouse]

So I'm going to take a massive blind gamble and spunk it on shares in Barclays Bank.

And I'm a total and utter noob.

My thinking is thus:

That 20 grand is sitting in a bank account offsetting the interest on my mortgage. It saves me about 20 quid a month as interest rates are fuck all (great, thanks for rewarding the savers and responsible people) and anyway, it's overall value is going down because of high inflation.

So. Barclays share price is at a long-time low. Used to be 8 quid until the crash. Went down to 50p but quickly gained to 4 quid.

Been slowly coming down in value 'cause of regulatory and economic uncertainty. QE3 may (or may not) hit soon and the regulatory issue will be resolved either way in September. Markets hate uncertainty.

Barclays has healthy capitalisation and good profits. They're going to be merging the Barcap and Group IT divisions with redundancies - aiming for a 250m cost saving for the next two years. N' stuff...


I speculate that the share price is going to go up. And I'm not risk-averse so I cba purchasing a portfolio to limit the risks.

If I'm right then I'll flog 'em and make a tidy sum. If I'm wrong I'll go long because I can't see bad long-term prospects bar going belly up. Which I think is extraordinarily unlikely as they never took any money off the BoE. They've got Arab backers.


So. What I want to know?

Where best to buy shares online? Nice n' easy recommendation.
What are the tax implications of selling early (i.e. pre 12months)
Anything else pertinent to me gambling big on Barclays

What don't I want to know?

Where else to stick my cash. I'm buyin shares.

 

[old.user4556]

I wouldn't touch banking stock with a 100 foot shitty stick.

If I was to be utterly insane and invest in banking stock, I'd put my balls on the line and plunge it into RBS because they genuinely can't really get any lower.

20p a share, only need to go up to 25p a share then you've made a very tidy return.

 

[Lamp]

If you want to buy single equities, think long term (15 / 20+ years) & blue chip.

I used Charles Schwab for my personal share dealing, but there are plenty of competitive dealers.

If I were you, I'd see an Independent Financial Advisor, and take tax advice from your accountant.

 

[old.user4556]

If I were you, I'd see an Independent Financial Advisor, and take tax advice from your accountant.

This. Take financial advice from those qualified to do so.

On that note, and related to banking stocks, my ex girlfriend's dad (who worked at the same financial that I did) sat me down one day to dole out financial advice. He pointed right into my face and shouted "you're fucking stupid to take your bonus as cash, put it into shares and you'll double it - you can't lose with the banks".

He was a cunt.

I took the cash and spent / invested elsewhere.

He lost tens of thousands.

Sucks to be him.

 

[throdgrain]

When I was a debt collector loads of my customers were independant financial advisors ...

 

[Jupitus]

I know someone pretty damned well who feels that Barcap's risk exposure on European debt is very much under control. FYI.

That said.... professional advice dude

 

[Scouse]

Gah, you guys are no fun.

Isn't there a "throw it all on black" button I can press somewhere?

 

[Tom]

I'd shove it either onto the house, into the mortgage, or into my pension.

Boring but reliable.

 

[ilaya]

invest in a new matress

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

Seeking professional advice from an accountant is not how you get rich. If it was, why are they working?

Research / Monitoring the shares and taking a sensible risk is what makes money. My step did put 3k in 2 Oil drilling company's (Rockhopper & Another) just because his boss told him to. He made 7k in 2months, I told him to sell and go to the next one but he got greedy and keep waiting for more finds / reports ..... he lost the 7k.

You research, you invest at the right time and you sell, and invest else where. Now is the best time to make money on other peoples miss fortune .... and I'd say Banks / Oil / Medical Research.

Personally I like Forex Currency trading.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Gah, you guys are no fun.

Isn't there a "throw it all on black" button I can press somewhere?

How uncharasterically non-reasony non-anal of you(was about to say how religious of you, but might take it the wrong way)

I'd put it in gold(if i wanted to invest), or what was the material that was at an all time low. Probably not gold, anyway, minerals. They usually don't do anything else but gain value as they diminish

 

[dysfunction]

Seeking professional advice from an accountant is not how you get rich. If it was, why are they working?

You're quite right because they don't give advice on how to get rich!
They will give you advice on how to do your tax returns, do your accounts etc...

Investment advice is for other people to do!

If I had £20k to invest I would pay off some of my mortgage.

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

Scouse, start small (2k) and have a play as it will be still learning, don't sink 20k in one investment.

I saw this morning and it's quite good advice 7 lessons to learn from a market downturn - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Finance

You're quite right because they don't give advice on how to get rich!
They will give you advice on how to do your tax returns, do your accounts etc...

Investment advice is for other people to do!

If I had £20k to invest I would pay off some of my mortgage.

That's the difference between regular people and million / billionaire stock broker, you have to take a risk to get there. I forgot the American guy who was a billionaire in stocks and lost it all overnight, house / car etc as well and filled for bankruptcy. Hes a billionaire again now ....

Why pay 20k off a mortgage hen overnight you could make 100.

 

[MYstIC G]

I wouldn't recommend all the put your eggs in one basket option.

That said the only risk I see to barclays is if they force through this whole rubbish about splitting the corporate and personal banking.

Also RBS are fucked. They're going to stay fucked and IMHO they're the next northern rock but we can't let it dump just yet. Lloyds is more likely to recover IMHO.

 

[dysfunction]

That's the difference between regular people and million / billionaire stock broker, you have to take a risk to get there. I forgot the American guy who was a billionaire in stocks and lost it all overnight, house / car etc as well and filled for bankruptcy. Hes a billionaire again now ....

Why pay 20k off a mortgage hen overnight you could make 100.

Indeed. But not everyone is able to do that. If it was that easy then everyone would be doing it. You are more likely to lose your money and set yourself further back than you started off.

Not everyone has that flair or the taste for that amount of risk.
If it does pay off great but if it doesn't can you afford to lose the money?

 

[Chilly]

firsy off: it's not an investment. It's gambling. Investment is a rationally thought out distribution of cash into various asset classes to give a good overall growth and minimise volatility or loss.

What you're doing is putting 20k on a 1/10 shot. Sure, you might well make some money, but you might end up losing most of it.

If you genuinely want to gamble, then deposit it with a bookies and make 5 short odds bets. No tax on your GUARANTEED PROFITS.

FFS, I cant believe you are seroiusly considering this.

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

Indeed. But not everyone is able to do that. If it was that easy then everyone would be doing it. You are more likely to lose your money and set yourself further back than you started off.

Not everyone has that flair or the taste for that amount of risk.
If it does pay off great but if it doesn't can you afford to lose the money?

I wouldn't put next months mortgage payments on it but I would save a % of my wage to invest.

My old mate from the UK and now my business partner went from Kingston uni to the USA owning 3 property's and now 100k USD job. He's got about half a mill of assets already at 25 mostly due to investing all his wages (minus living costs) in stocks and currency.

He even has paid for feeds from top Forex investors and copy's their every move. However you have to be available every minute of the day / night to get that Feed and invest otherwise it's no good.

Putting 20k on an investment and you are a noob with no research is asking for trouble though. Start with 1k, and learn how to play the game.

 

[Gumbo]

Boring I know, but Dys is right. Pay it off your Mortgage, if you have £20k to spare, someone can do the calcs, but I bet it will save you a ton over the remainder of your term.

 

[old.user4556]

Also RBS are fucked. They're going to stay fucked and IMHO they're the next northern rock but we can't let it dump just yet. Lloyds is more likely to recover IMHO.

They're already up 7% (at time of posting) today.

BBC NEWS | Business | Market Data | Share Prices | London Stock Exchange LSE | Royal Bank of Scotland Group RBS

If Scouse had hairy giant balls of steel, he'd already be up £1400 gross if he bought at 20p .

 

[taB]

I'm incredibly risk averse and would put it against the mortgage. I have recently started putting some money into wine - some to drink, some to sell one day - it's going pretty well.

 

[old.user4556]

Yes in seriousness I would clear my debt / mortgage first, then once that was done and I had spare cash I would play around more.

 

[TdC]

give it to meeeee. I'll call you up every day to tell you what a great guy you are! with this kind of personal empowerment, you could make millions!

 

[Scouse]

If Scouse had hairy giant balls of steel, he'd already be up £1400 gross if he bought at 20p .

Scouse's giant hairy balls are up a more modest £350 quid as my first transaction through my stockbrokers had a maximum value of £10,000.

Fuckloads of Barclays shares bought. My financial life on t'interwebz for all to laugh at or be envious of.

Fucksocks, I can't win either way here can I?


Anyway. Got a feeling they're going to go down more before they go up again so a medium-term investment methinks.

Yes in seriousness I would clear my debt / mortgage first, then once that was done and I had spare cash I would play around more.

Had it in the mortgage offset account, as I said. It's just losing value there. I'd rather take a risk and see if I can make my money work for me.

Plus. I'm quite enjoying the change.

 

[Raven]

Apple shares just dipped, that wont last long.

 

[Trem]

Buy 10 solar panels @ roughly £1000 each, takes 10 years to pay them off with the £1000 a year the government gives you then after that the £1000 a year keeps getting given. Iirc it is guaranteed to be paid for 25 years (don't quote me on any of this, it's early) so a profit of £15000. Very long term but meh.

 

[Ch3tan]

Scouse, join someone like Hargreaves Lansdown | ISAs, SIPPs, funds and shares | Share prices, use your share ISA allowance for some tax free investments, and then you can play with the rest and invest in silly things like banks

I'd look at EM (emerging markets) funds, and if you want to take a gamble, try silver or platinum instead of banks. They traditionally track the price of gold, but are a far way off right now, so they've got to catch up.

 

[Killswitch]

My advice comes in three parts;

1) Max out ISA and pension contributions first
2) Pay off as much of your mortgage as possible as fast as possible
3) If you must invest, read *everything* on Investopedia.com: Beginner Investors first

 

[Jiggs]

You basically took a gamble on there being a new round of QE.

Good luck.

 

[Garaen]

How do you guys rate premium bonds? I've also got some spare cash lying about that I know could be more lucrative elsewhere, but i'm not batshit crazy to throw it into stocks and shares

 

[Scouse]

Buy 10 solar panels @ roughly £1000 each, takes 10 years to pay them off with the £1000 a year the government gives you then after that the £1000 a year keeps getting given. Iirc it is guaranteed to be paid for 25 years (don't quote me on any of this, it's early) so a profit of £15000. Very long term but meh.

A mate has just bought solar panels for his house. He says it's the best finanical investment he's ever likely to make..

You basically took a gamble on there being a new round of QE.

Good luck.

I was hoping. But it's looking unlikely to be soon if they do do it. So I simply fall back on a long position instead...