Which stocks and shares ISA?

[PinkPillow11]

I have until tomorrow to decide this!

I opened a cash Isa this year and can't add any more to it. I have £8,500 to invest to take me to the £20,000 limit for this tax year 23/24

I can open a stocks and shares ISA today.

Does anyone have a reasonable idea which is a good option?

I can invest £8,500. I don't need access to the money and happy to lock it in. I need guidance on where to invest and therefore a 'managed' fund?

Do you have a s&s isa that is a good performer and easily manageable? Medium risk I guess. Any advice greatly appreciated.

I find Hargreaves Lansdown an easy platform to use for my S&S ISA.

They have a lot of fund choices, but they also have a list of recommended ones which helps.

As for "Medium Risk" it feels a bit like you've just picked that based on a gut feel selection of the middle of the range, rather than a careful consideration of your investment objectives and risk tolerance. Are you investing for 5 years or 10 or 30? How impacted would you be if the fund value fell 20% in the next year? I think you should read up a bit more before deciding that. A lot of the medium risk funds will just end up returning much less over the long term, but falling much less in a market crash ... which of those two things is really the most important to you??

Vanguard. You can pick between 20 40 80 100 % risk. I put in £50 per month and it's doing very nicely.
It's my first experience with ISA or S&S and it's straightforward and worth it. I'm planning on hopefully 7-10 years.

There's a difference between the platform that you use and what you invest in. If you are not sure exactly what you want to invesst in you might want to pick a platform, put £8.5k in cash into the ISA and then decide (without the pressure of the deadline) what you want to invest in.

Personally I would choose the cheapest platform that had the kind of choice I was interested in. This might help https://moneytothemasses.com/saving-for-your-future/investing/compare-cheapest-best-investment-isa-platforms

I would look at Vanguard (cheap but only their products so depends on whether you are happy with that), Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown. These are all big players with easy websites. Of course you can open a second ISA with a different platform next week if you want to.

It's only a small amount so far (not quite £2k) but it would be at £50 pcm - it's all I'm able to save with a risk attached.

If you know the company you want to use (iWeb here) just get an account open and get the money transfered in.
You can choose which funds to invest in afterwards. Most important bit is to get the cash transfered in before the tax year ends!

This is fantastic! You must be pleased 😀

Thanks for all the info. In the interest of time, I have opened a stocks and shares ISA with my usual bank and transferred the funds today. I've gone for a 'high risk' option (can't think of the actual name) It's a ready made option. I did look at vanguard options and almost went for that, but I ended up going round in circles... should I get the lifetime retirement option, the risk % option, reading feedback here suggests going for one of their FTSE global funds. In the end I got paralysis by analysis so went back to the easy option with my own bank.

I know it's not the best deal on the market but like PP's have said, I can decide next week to transfer it elsewhere if I want to.

That's excellent! Which fund/risk have you chosen? And what has your timeframe been if I may ask?

@TotteringonGently @PinkPillow11
I started April 2022 with £500, then later in the year I set up a regular £50 pcm drip.
I started with 80% risk but when this made it's first £200 cash profit I spent this on a global all cap fund.
I just read lots on here.
So altogether I've paid in about £1500 and my total is now 1700ish, 24 months later.
So, in the scheme of things its not vast amounts, but it spent most of 22 and early 2023 losing money or staying still. It's rising now, slowly and surely, but I'm adding some bits back into it.
Its a long term thing for me, at £50 a month.

I'm not sure how old you are but the FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund Accumulation from Vanguard is a good performer and risk is widely spread due to it being global. Stay out of funds that are heavily weighted to UK companies, growth will be limited.

Why is age relevant butterflycatcher?

If you mean the Vanguard Lifestrategy fund family, it's a bit misleading to call it "80% risk". These funds divide your investment between equities, a.k.a stocks and shares (in this case 80%), and bonds (20%).

Bonds are generally safer than equities, but they are not zero risk. The only thing that is zero risk is a cash deposit that is protected by the FSCS, as most are here in the UK up to £85k. e.g. savings account, cash ISA, premium bonds.

The Vanguard funds are probably a fairly wise investment since they spread your money across a wide range of asset classes and geographical sectors. But it's worth looking up what the top 10 holdings are in any particular fund before you invest. You might not want to invest in, say, Exxon Mobil.

Morningstar is very good for fund research. It's kind of fun once you get into it!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/5020453-best-stock-share-isas-and-how-it-works

May be useful.

To see how long you can/should lock money away for. If you're younger you can afford to take more risk and invest in more volatile assets as you should be looking to invest for at least five years.

You didn't have to actually pick an investment before the end of the tax year, you could have opened a S&S ISA with your platform of choice and made the deposit as cash until you had more time to decide what is right for you.

Unfortunately your bank is unlikely to the best option for most people, they probably will have limited investment options and the fees are usually higher than you can get elsewhere. You can transfer ISAs to another provider (as a proper transfer and not withdrawal). I use Vanguard at the moment but am likely going to move over to Trading212 this year.

You need to think about what your objectives are for the money. For mine I'm not planning to need the money for at least 10 years, so I'm 100% equities in a global index fund. For most people you don't need a managed fund, they are relatively expensive and 90%+ fund managers can't beat the average market return consistently.