Investment ideas

[chazamilami]

Finally opened a SIPP today with Interactive Investor. I have also started the consolidation process bringing 4 different pension pots to ii in the next few weeks. Once transferred, I will have just over £100K in my ii SIPP.

In the meantime I paid in £1k as starting contribution but planning to keep up the monthly top ups at this level or just under.

I picked ii because of the flat fee over £100k funds which in comparison to other platforms seem reasonable. But every investment is extra and more charges apply within funds themselves. All this got me confused as I feel you can never accurately know what it will
cost you day-to-day!

I have to say I am completely new to the world of investment and find it quite overwhelming. But I'm trying to go with a simple plan of only holding/buying few solid and popular funds and sit in them for years. Example is HSBC, Fidelity Index World Fund etc. Hopefully this keeps things straight forward.

I do find myself struggling with a few questions though and hope someone here can clear the fog for me. My questions are:

I generally want to invest in a portfolio which is around 75% / 25% or 80% / 20% equity to bonds or other safer assets. Can this be achieved by just buying funds which broadly have this split?

Or what else I need to buy to balance the portfolio to achieve this risk level (say 4 out of 5 risk factor). I'm not interested in individual shares.

How do I know how many deals I will
do a year? Is it fair to assume that if I buy the funds and don't move, in theory I can have no deals all year? Is this a good idea?

Seem that ii have a free way of buying but your trading will only kick off 1st Wednesday of each month. Is this a good idea to wait and avoid charges?

What should I do with the £1k I transferred today? Nothing? Does it earn any interest or just being waisted? Can I drop it in one of my top target funds and add later to it when my pension consolidation process is complete?

Finally, what else would you buy with c. £100K in a SIPP? What's a good portfolio with my risk target should look like in a SIPP? Does people have lots of different funds or stick with only few for simplicity?

I should say I am 52 and factored in retirement at 65, so 13 years to go!

Sorry for the newbie questions but any friendly advice would be much appreciated. 🙏🙏

anyone?

Hello

To keep fees as low as possible you will want to look for a passive fund rather than an active fund. Fees will be around 0.25%.
Based on the weightings you are after you don't want to invest only in index funds which are 100% equities.

World index funds are generally a good investment so you could balance funds yourself (eg 80% in world index and 20% in a bond fund) or you can find a fund that does that for you eg vanguard life strategy.

The Factsheets available on funds will give more info and risk ratings, eg world index funds would usually be around 5/7 risk.

With 13 years to go you can afford to be heavier on equities for now to achieve higher returns but you may want to move towards lower risk investments as retirement nears.

With your other pensions you are consolidating, assuming none are DB? Generally don't touch those.
However you may also find lower fees/ more support if you keep pensions invested on other platforms and you should be able to transfer funds into one of those if you have one - eg my employer platform is much more "do it for me" with targeted retirement funds which automatically move as I get nearer retirement. I'm more comfortable that they know what they are doing rather than me.

What should I do with the £1k I transferred today? Nothing? Does it earn any interest or just being waisted? Can I drop it in one of my top target funds and add later to it when my pension consolidation process is complete?

Yes you could put into a fund, unsure if your cash will earn interest - the platform should be able to tell you however

This fund will do everything you need https://www.ii.co.uk/ii-super-60/vanguard-lifestrategy-80-equity

You shouldn't need to make any switches either.

Thank you for these ideas! I will have a look