£200k to invest - what would you do ?

[Spoiler]

Screw investing.

Go straight to Lambo

I missed classic cars off the original list - think there is some 'mileage' in that

[Platypus]

I think 'Asking a mate to post on in the General section of a random anonymous Internet forum about what to do with 200k' is possibly the worst start to an investing strategy I've ever seen.

Well, that's 'cos I didn't tell you about my foray in to Bitcoin!

[GJABS]

I've got most of my investments in the following FTSE100 tracker ETF (you can buy them like shares on the stock exchange):

Vanguard Funds plc (VUKE) FTSE 100 UCITS ETF GBP Share Price | VUKE

Boring, yes, but it currently pays 4%/year as dividend yield, and is likely to go up in value at least with inflation.

[DimPrawn]

This.

Not a bad place to start:
Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio- 2018 update | Financial Page

Harry Brown always gives good advice.

[DimPrawn]

"A friend" has £200,000 (net) coming their way, and wants to invest it in a lower-risk way that would provide some level of income (i.e. ideally above a standard 1.5% savings account). What would you do ?

BTL seems the initial choice - maybe a house or a couple of flats, possibly with a small mortgage depending on area and get <10% return. I'm not up to speed on the BTL space, but whilst there seems to be a few more hurdles these days in terms of return, it still seems a reasonable choice.
One concern is that as an owner of an existing (mortgaged) property, the majority of their 'portfolio' would be in housing.

Anything else - shares (hands-off tracker-type thing), wine, gold ???

It probably won't be invested in bitcoin

Well, you have to consider:

Length of the investment?
Tax considerations (would you like tax free income)?
How much risk vs reward?

[Mordac]

"A friend" has £200,000 (net) coming their way, and wants to invest it in a lower-risk way that would provide some level of income (i.e. ideally above a standard 1.5% savings account). What would you do ?

BTL seems the initial choice - maybe a house or a couple of flats, possibly with a small mortgage depending on area and get <10% return. I'm not up to speed on the BTL space, but whilst there seems to be a few more hurdles these days in terms of return, it still seems a reasonable choice.
One concern is that as an owner of an existing (mortgaged) property, the majority of their 'portfolio' would be in housing.

Anything else - shares (hands-off tracker-type thing), wine, gold ???

It probably won't be invested in bitcoin

I'd spunk the whole lot on the mother of round-the-world holidays. Mr Corbyn will help himself to your friend's investment anyway, as soon as he gets the chance, but if your friend does decide to spend it on something sensible, make sure it's offshore.

[tomtomagain]

Ask your friend to close his eyes, concentrate really hard and imagine how he'd feel if he:

• lost 25% of it in a year
• lost 50% over 2 - 3 years

When he has a good understanding of his tolerance of risk, then he can start to figure out what to do with it.

First goal when starting out investing is not figuring out how you are going to tripple your money. It's working out how you will react if your find yourself 30% down.

There's no such thing as "safe". Just degrees of risk.

[stonehenge]

Ask your friend to close his eyes, concentrate really hard and imagine how he'd feel if he:

• lost 25% of it in a year
• lost 50% over 2 - 3 years

When he has a good understanding of his tolerance of risk, then he can start to figure out what to do with it.

First goal when starting out investing is not figuring out how you are going to tripple your money. It's working out how you will react if your find yourself 30% down.

There's no such thing as "safe". Just degrees of risk.

+1000

I wish someone had drummed this into my thick skull before I started actively "managing" my pension.

We live in very strange times (ZIRP, QE), which makes it even harder to quantify risk.

The only free lunch in the markets is diversification.

The OP joked about bitcoin but there's nothing wrong with investing in bitcoin as long as you keep it commensurate with the risk. Eg. £2k in bitcoin can't jeopardise a £200k portfolio.

[Yorkie62]

PM me your friends bank details and I'll invest it for him

NOTE: The value of your investment can go down as well as up

[Whorty]

I'd spunk the whole lot on the mother of round-the-world holidays. Mr Corbyn will help himself to your friend's investment anyway, as soon as he gets the chance, but if your friend does decide to spend it on something sensible, make sure it's offshore.

Project Fear

You're welcome