Stock market crash!

[BrilloPad]

Anyone know of any decent defensive stocks?

Tesco. people always need to eat.

HTH

[Andy2]

Primark, poundland, lidl, Mcdonald should do well

[DimPrawn]

I would look at defensives around the world, not all your money on London stock exchange stocks.

US, Canadian, Asian, European.


Food retailers, petro-chemicals, utilities, pharma, oil and gas.

Look at their balance sheets, forward P/E, dividend cover and yield.

[KentPhilip]

I'd go from Sterling to Edinburgh, much more hapening place ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling

(but you knew that didn't you )

[BlasterBates]

Good idea to subscribe to some Equity research.

Without it you're stabbing in the dark really. Standard and Poors costs you £30 for the monthly issue, read it up and pick some recommendations. Not all are correct, about 40% are, roughly, so buy at least 10. The 4 gooduns will make you enough return to make up for the dogs. Usually in a portfolio of ten you have 2 or 3 dogs, ie ones that go down, the rest usually give you returns, and one or two will be stellar.

check P/E ratio and dividend yields. Telco's give you wopping dividends.. Not sure I would call Pharma defensive these days, what with patents running out and governments cracking down on health spending, but certainly big consumables like Coca-Cola are. Don't buy stocks that have gone up a lot recently, the best ones are the ones languishing and waiting to pop back up.

[AtW]

Without it you're stabbing in the dark really.

gambling

Ze Spekulants

[TimberWolf]

gambling

Ze Spekulants

Is it any less of a gamble leaving savings in a UK bank account over the next couple of years?

[AtW]

Is it any less of a gamble leaving savings in a UK bank account over the next couple of years?

It's more of a gamble.

[TimberWolf]

It's more of a gamble.

What's more of a gamble over the next few years? Savings left in a UK bank account, gold or stocks?

[DimPrawn]

What's more of a gamble over the next few years? Savings left in a UK bank account, gold or stocks?

Who knows?

All I know is after the event it will be bloody obvious.