When it comes to investing into the financial markets, moneystepper’s advice is straight forward: invest any money that you do not need in the short term (i.e. emergency fund, saving for a house deposit, etc) into a diversified portfolio of equities.
This is great for long-term investing, and it is easy to do. See the pros and cons of investing in the financial markets in the following article to understand why:
What should I invest in: property vs shares vs cash
However, when it comes to actually investing their money online, people are often hesitant to get started without having a hand to hold or having readily available advice. This is understandable, especially for those who have never invested money online before. Therefore, you shouldn’t be ashamed to seek advice to help you invest online.
Are there services out there which could help you?
Banks and investment professionals have moved their focus in the recent years to only high net worth individuals which leaves the individual small investor in an “advice gap”, without access to the right help.
Here at moneystepper, we personally use an online execution service which allows us to invest money very quickly and cheaply. However, this is all the service provides and does not provide us any advice of how we should be investing our money. This is fine for those who have plenty of time to do their own research, understand all the risks themselves and choose their own investments.
However, many people base their decisions on terrible advice coming from the media or from others with a vested interest and could end up losing their hard-earned cash. Both of these articles highlight the risk of this happening:
There are many people who wish to invest online, but aren’t sure where to start. They don’t have millions to invest, but they don’t want to fall for the mistakes highlighted above and feel they need some advice to help them on their way (at least at the outset).
Well, Wealth Horizon is a new company which attempts to address exactly this problem. They offer a simple, online service which provides advice to help you invest online quickly and with confidence. At any point should you need to speak to someone, you can pick up the phone to one of their advisers or even do the same via an online webchat.
For larger decisions and financial planning, Wealth Horizon will refer you to see an independent financial adviser. However, for straightforward investment needs you can simply go online and they will create a balanced portfolio that meets your needs and requirements.
How does the Wealth Horizon service work?
Simply go online and answer a series of simple questions about your finances and attitudes towards money. Wealth Horizon’s advisers will then determine a portfolio of investments designed to provide a return on investment that is in line with your attitude to risk. If they don’t think investing is right for you at this moment in time, they’ll also let you know that. Responsible and regulated advice: how refreshing!
How much does it cost?
The most pleasant thing about this service is how reasonably affordable it is to obtain this advice. There is an initial charges of 0.25% (so £25 on an investment of £10,000) and then an ongoing annual charge of 0.75% of the portfolio.
Whilst the TER %s on market tracking ETFs (which we’ve suggested for new investors before) may be less, the additional charge may be worthwhile to you as it will provide you with access to financial advice, and confidence that you need to get started (which you just might not have on your own).
There is a lot more information available – even if you don’t sign up
If you haven’t started investing yet, but aren’t quite ready to jump in (even with Wealth Horizon’s help), then there is a wealth of information on their blog which is accessible absolutely free. I would particularly recommend the following:
Why playing the long game beats short term investing.
This very much aligns with our analysis of passive vs active investing which shows that over the long-term, passive investing is much more profitable than active investing.
That still not enough for you? They even have a new free e-book available highlighting the seven principles of successful investing. They also have an e-book to download for free which outlines the seven deadly money sins.
Check out the following link to obtain these e-books for free.
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