Anyone else using the Motley Fool share advisor service?

[Numista]

I already have £15k in the Trading 212 Cash ISA using most of the £20k allocation for tax free ISA investing but I have £5k I can invest in a S&S ISA before the end of March 2025 and will have another £20k to invest next year. I've not put anything into an S&S ISA before so thought I'd pay for the Motley Fool suggestions for 6 months. I wondered if anyone else was making any investment decisions based on their suggestions. MF makes the suggestion that you spread your investments over about 15 different funds - so in the next 2 years that's what I'm aiming for... I think... as a starting point. How do you decide to split the amount you invest across different funds - split equally or favour ones you have a more positive feeling about? What determines the amount you invest - I could do 10 x £500 or 5 x £1000 - or do you consider lower amounts? It's probably a dumb question - horses for courses and all that - but I thought I'd shake the tree and see what falls down. I can make my own decisions and accept the consequences but I see no problem in asking. My thoughts ATM are to pick 10 suggestions from the "fire" and "ice" funds, biased towards the "ice" funds - I'm looking at investing (rather than trading - buy/sell/buy/sell, etc) for about 5 years to begin with. It's money I've had in 1yr accounts earning 4-5%pa for the last few years - I've decided to take a small amount and try to do more with it, knowing I might make a loss - it's not going to kill me - I have enough money in safe savings and in instance access accounts and pension funds I can start drawing down in about 5 years time - I probably won't need to.

Anyway - just thought I'd try and start some chat on the subject - it's a solitary activity - investing.

I'm confused can you max out a cash ISA with 20K and then also have a sticks and shares ISA with another 20k?

I thought you could only have one?

@icantwaitforsummer no - I just split the £20k pa across both S&S and Cash ISA. ATM I've got £15k in the Cash ISA at 4.9% (ATM!) and £5k left of the £20K allowance to put into any form of ISA; you can't put £20k into both in the same year. The Trading 212 app stops you from doing that anyway but obviously it doesn't know if you have put money into other ISA's outside Trading 212.

As always - there's a lot of uncertainty about even things like indexed funds like the S&P500 - I think Trump taking up the presidency again is not helping! But - if it's not one thing - it's another!

I know my limitations - in terms of risk and knowhow - that's why I decided to pay for the share recommendations from The Motley Fool - there's a lot to get to grips with so I'm taking some time to try and learn about and understand what I'm doing - I never look for other people to solve my problems in any area of my life - I like to make my own decisions - I'm far from an expert on anything - I try and ask the right questions and garner opinion on top of doing my own homework as it were. Any idiot can click on a button and invest in something. I may not act on the Motley recommendations at all - it'll be £50 spent on info - it's all part of the learning process.

I think the general advice is often to not have more than 5% of your portfolio in each fund or stock . However if you make small investments and have to pay a fee to trade then your investment has to grow quite a significant % to cover those trading costs . In your position I would probably make 5 £1000 investments . Not familiar with trading 212 - I use ii . You may also want to consider drip feeding your £5000 in over the next 3 months as stocks are generally high at the moment thanks to Mr Trump and the Magnificent 7 If you can do so for free anyway otherwise that’s a lot of trading costs . I like Motley Fool , though not paid for anything . I like Investors Chronicle and have done quite well from some of their recommendations ( not all !)