The UK stock market has been hammered, at one point down 47% from its peak in June 2007. Big banks have been nationalised and small company shares are going for pennies.
I’m sure I’m not the only investor who isn’t pleased to find his secret hobby now dominating the evening news.
Time to put money under the mattress? Hardly! More like the perfect time to open your stocks and shares ISA!
Chin up troops! In my humble opinion it’s time to get out of bed, dig out any coins you lost down the sofa, and start investing - and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.
Admittedly I started trickling money in too soon (I’ve written before about why buying in bear markets will eventually make you money, but in the short term it can hurt to watch your net worth fall) but even with a recession imminent, the UK stock market’s valuation looks cheap.
At one point in October, the FTSE 100 was back at the same level as in the late 1990s! I didn’t start investing properly until the 21st Century began, and as far as the market was concerned, I might as well have stayed in cash for the whole time and read the Beano instead of researching investment. (In reality, I’ve traded shares and moved in and out of cash, but you get the point).
Nobody knows the future, the market could fall 20% or more from here or soar, but the point is we shouldn’t be scared after such a torrid time - we should be greedy for bargains. Even Warren Buffett, who has become the richest man in the world by buying shares when they’re cheap, reckons we should fill our boots.
A stocks and shares ISA protects your portfolio from tax
If you do want to invest, the best way in the UK is inside an ISA.
ISAs are tax-efficient ‘wrappers’ that the UK government created to encourage saving. They are provided by all the usual high street banks, plus fund managers such as Legal and General, Fidelity, Jupiter, New Star and so on, as well as specialist online brokers. You can put up to £7,200 a year into a stocks and shares ISA, or up to £3,600 into a cash ISA and the rest in a stocks and shares ISA. The deadline every year for opening one is April 5th.
Most people only ever bother opening cash ISAs, which do offer decent tax-free cash savings. But stocks and shares ISAs can be even more useful:
- You can trade shares and receive dividends, all free of tax
- When you come to remove money from your stocks and shares ISA in years to come, you don’t have to pay any capital gains tax
- You can invest in all kinds of equities, including funds, index trackers, bonds, and individual shares
- You don’t even have to tell the taxman about your ISA transactions (and believe me, if you ever have to fill in a tedious capital gains tax form, you’ll fall to your knees with thanks that all your shares are in an ISA. Not all my portfolio is ISA-protected, and sometimes it hurts…)
Stocks and shares ISAs aren’t just for the rich
Perhaps because the market has been so volatile and overall returns poor for the past decade, many people think ISAs are a rich man’s concern, since very few have experience of paying capital gains tax, or even income tax on share dividends.
But modest savings can really add up to a big portfolio in a bull market, at which point the tax protection is invaluable.
For instance, John Lee, a veteran columnist in the Financial Times, put the maximum amount into PEPs (the forerunner of ISAs) from the moment they were introduced in 1986, and later filled his ISAs. A few years ago he revealed his total PEP/ISA investment pot had grown to over a million pounds!
I’d imagine Lee’s portfolio has shrunk a bit since then - whose hasn’t? - but it still proves the power of compound interest and the benefits of an ISA.
If you begin investing £7,200 a year into a stocks and shares ISA and enjoy average growth of 10% a year in your portfolio for 30 years, you will eventually have over a £1 million salted away to boost your retirement savings.
If you invested and grew that £1 million outside of the ISA, you’d have to pay £180,000 in capital gains tax to the Government!
Saving £7,200 a year is a lot for most people, but we all have to start somewhere. I’d argue even saving £100 a month will make a difference - and it’s worth starting early. Also remember that you can’t claim back ISA allowances in future years that you’ve missed once the April deadline ends.
(Confused? Learn more about ISAs, and make sure you’re ready for stock market investment with my 10 steps to financial freedom checklist.)
Don’t wait until April - start your ISA savings now
Every year there’s a mad rush as people try to open their ISAs before the Government’s April 6th deadline. This is madness, in my view, for several reasons:
- For most people, trickling a regular sum of money every month into an broad index tracking fund held inside an ISA is the best way to save for the long-term.
- Start sooner and you’ve more time for your investment to grow
- As the market falls and rises, you’ll automatically benefit from pound/cost averaging, whereby you invest more when the market is cheap and less when it’s expensive
- The market is cheap now - yes it could be cheaper in April, but it could also be much more expensive (it will be some day!)
- Some even believe the seasonal ‘ISA rush’ drives up the price of shares
Equally, if you intend to invest directly in shares held in a ’self-select’ stocks and shares ISA, now is the time to put the money in, when there are so many apparent bargains about. Remember that you don’t have to invest money you put into a self-select stocks and shares ISA all at once. You can bide your time, as long as you do intend to eventually invest the money in equities.
ISAs sound much more confusing then they really are, so do read my previous post of ISA tips for more information about ISAs, or check out Plonkee’s guide.
Best of luck if you do decide to take the plunge into the markets, and do make sure you know exactly what your portfolio is for in these turbulent times.
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{ 5 comments }
I’m glad you have started posting again, your posts are both interseting and insightful.
David
@David — Thanks very much for noticing, and for the kind words! I’ve got to admit that it’s a lot more work keeping up a blog than I expected, and the past few months has had plenty to keep us all busy! But I do hope to post a bit more frequently from now on.
I know what its like!
I’m glad to hear that. I bet you are loving the look of some of the high yield shares at the moment, as I am too.
Here is a random question…have you ever heard of Money Week magazine? Its a great read, sad as it is, its one of the things I’m missing about the UK at the moment.
@David - Ah Moneyweek, the home of the fragrant Merryn Somerset Webb. She might have been just as wrong as me about a recovery in Japan, but I have to admit her uber-bearishness on just about everything else has been right on the money so far (though I think she was a bit over-bullish on commodities if I remember correctly). And she’s a fellow traveler when it comes to house prices, which have only partly corrected against the long-term price-to-earnings ratios…
Anyway, predicting this stuff is mighty hard. At least it makes a nice change to see a woman doing it.
haha your talents are wasted in whatever job you do, unless of course you are a writer! You have a great style.
I think you are right about her predictions on Japan, and commodities. It’s hard though, everything has gone down, even the investments which historically have been negatively correlated.
Japan does look cheap, especially the smaller companies. I think I might seriously transfer all my pension to a nice Japanese Index Fund or 2.
What are you doing with your money at the moment, if you don’t mind me asking?
I am coming up with a nice shortlist of dividends shares. I feel like a kid in a candy store!
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