£10k to invest in my stocks and shares ISA - what to do?

[CrownCoats]

I have £10k cash sitting in my stocks and shares ISA that needs to be invested. What would people suggest? Currently the bulk of my investments are in the S&P 500, some in tech shares, and various other funds including vanguard life strategy and Invesco high yield.

I may need the money for a house deposit in the next 24 months.

A low cost global tracker eg FTSE all world, vanguard global all cap. BUT it’s a risk investing at all if you need the money in less than five years. If the interest rate in cash is competitive I’d be tempted to leave as is.

If you need it in 24 months, conventional wisdom is not to invest in S&S as too volatile.

Keep it as cash if the platform pays interest on cash. Otherwise a money market fund perhaps, so it is very low risk.

I have quite a lot of cash in mine at the moment, waiting for the next drop. It is also part of my emergency fund which I may dip into now that I have been made redundant from my childcare job.

There’s no interest paid if it’s kept in cash since it’s already in my S&S ISA. I have cash elsewhere in savings accounts if I need cash in an emergency. I’m prepared to take a small risk and invest it for a couple of years.

For 24 months I would put in high interest savings account. I wouldn’t risk in S&S if you need the cash so soon.

We have liquidated quite a few of the shares in our S&S ISA and are holding much more in cash in there than usual. DH is watching a couple of things but thinks everything is a bit volatile

Do you have to move in two years, or could you put it off if the markets have fallen?

If you could put it off, I'd do a diversified mix - probably FTSE100, all FTSE, Europe, and USA. Probably wouldn't risk an all world for that short a time frame.

If you can't put it off and have to move in two years then I would see about doing an ISA to ISA transfer and shifting into cash if possible.

I don’t have to move but I’d like to. Two years feels like a long time to keep it in cash.

Well if it is a like not a necessity you can risk it right - either it will be lower value and you'll decide moving is worth crystallising your losses, it will be lower and you won't be able to afford to move and that will piss you off, or it will be higher and that will be great.

As long as all three of those scenarios are ones you can cope with, there isn't a problem taking the risk. If any of those scenarios aren't acceptable then you need to think again.

Tech tends to be US based, and the S&P has a high tech weighing. So you've got a lot of overlap. I'd look for something away from those 2 things to diversify.

If you're determined to invest, that is - as others have said, 2 years is well below the recommended time frame.

If you have two years it's more like gambling than investing in my opinion. It could work out really well for you or we could see a large market correction especially focused on the S&P500 and the big tech stocks. Over two years no one knows and if they say they do then they are lying.

You don't seem keen on putting it all in cash. Why not do half and half? Put £5k in a global ETF such as VWRP and the other half in cash or a money market fund.

If you need the money in 2 years, do not invest in shares, too volatile. You'd need a time horizon of 5ish years for that.

Some options can be:

• cash ISA
• saving accounts outside of the ISA (do you pay tax on interest? Many people don't)
• short-term bond funds or money market funds inside the SS ISA. Short-term means that duration is low so they don't move much even if interest rates change. You can probably get around 4ish % now. But it's not locked for 2 years, so it will change. But only buy it if you know what those things are: if this sentence sounds like a foreign language, don't buy it! Never buy stuff you don't understand