Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Welcome to MEREN Talk to Your Money. The personal finance
Speaker 2: edison of MEREN talks money. In these weekly episodes, we
Speaker 2: talk about the best strategies for making the most of
Speaker 2: your money. I'm MEREN sum Stweb and with me senior
Speaker 2: reporter and Money Distilled author John Steppack.
Speaker 3: Hi, John, Hi Melton. It's not happy New Year anymore,
Speaker 3: is it?
Speaker 4: We did that last week, so it's just measurable in
Speaker 4: your year.
Speaker 2: I'm folding rather as we suspect it isn't it? Never mind,
Speaker 2: More of that later. This is another one of those
Speaker 2: episodes where we built but this is not God. This
Speaker 2: is one of those episodes where we bring in an
Speaker 2: expert voice to help us tackle the question of the
Speaker 2: week as well. John and I know a lot. Amazingly,
Speaker 2: we don't know everything. So with us today is Holly mackay,
Speaker 2: Founder and see of Boring Money, a go to resource
Speaker 2: to help normal people make smart investment decisions. Welcome Holly,
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Him aren good for you.
Speaker 2: Now we're asking a lot of you today. We've got
Speaker 2: a lot of listener questions in on the same sort
Speaker 2: of topics. Everyone wants to know how to get started
Speaker 2: on investing. What do I do to kick the journey off?
Speaker 2: So we want to talk about things like what platforms
Speaker 2: you'd recommend for beginners, what is it reasonable.
Speaker 3: To pay, and how do you how do you choose?
Speaker 2: How do you get started with choosing a platform and
Speaker 2: then choosing the investments to put into whatever wrapper is
Speaker 2: it is that you've chosen on the platform. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to start with something so basic that you're going
Speaker 2: to think it's ridiculous, but it's still important. What Holly
Speaker 2: is an investment platform?
Speaker 1: No, it's a good question, Baron. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: of it like it's a combo between a department store
Speaker 1: and a storage deposit unit. So it's somewhere you go
Speaker 1: to buy your investments, and then once you've bought them,
Speaker 1: is someone that actually keeps them for you and does
Speaker 1: all all the admin, gives you that website you can
Speaker 1: log onto. So really, the investment platform, it's just a
Speaker 1: word right that says it's where you go and buy
Speaker 1: and hold investments in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's what you would do if you're doing
Speaker 2: it DIY, And then if you were to use a
Speaker 2: Wealth Manager or an IFA, etc. You would go through them,
Speaker 2: but they would be using their own.
Speaker 1: Platform exactly exactly the sort of tech that they all use.
Speaker 1: But I think what's really interesting, particularly for people not
Speaker 1: using an advisor, is the massive growth we've seen of
Speaker 1: these platforms. And I was looking today actually at some
Speaker 1: stats they've grown seventy eight percent over the last five years.
Speaker 1: Everyone's sort of holding their money and buying sort of
Speaker 1: things this way. So it's really the go to for
Speaker 1: DIY investors in particular.
Speaker 3: And most people will know the big names.
Speaker 2: They'll have heard of Huggridge, Landsdown, they'll have heard of
Speaker 2: Interactive Investor, They'll have heard of Aja Bell.
Speaker 3: But there are many more.
Speaker 2: And if we're looking at the universe that an ordinary
Speaker 2: person coming to this fresh might choose from, how many
Speaker 2: are they choosing from? How many reputable, profitable brands are
Speaker 2: there that you would say we could go to.
Speaker 1: So there are some reputable ones that probably aren't profitable today,
Speaker 1: but kind of those that I think are worthy of
Speaker 1: consideration is about sort of thirty five to forty in
Speaker 1: the market. I've got test account. O.
Speaker 3: God, oh that's more than I thought of. It is terrible.
Speaker 1: Oh, my phone is like my sort of search unit.
Speaker 1: I have about thirty two accounts. I think test accounts
Speaker 1: sort of out there with with DIY investment platforms, which
Speaker 1: makes my sort of annual tax return quite interesting.
Speaker 2: God, I bet I'd like to back off, by the way,
Speaker 2: from saying it's terrible. It's not terrible. It's wonderful. We
Speaker 2: love competition, We adore competition. The more competition the better,
Speaker 2: but it does make it hard to.
Speaker 3: Choose, so it does.
Speaker 2: What are the criteria? So we're coming at this. We've
Speaker 2: got we've we've we've done a bit of googling. We've
Speaker 2: got a list of thirty five. What criteria are we
Speaker 2: looking for?
Speaker 1: I think they're in. The very first thing people need
Speaker 1: to be honest with themselves about is how confident are
Speaker 1: they and how much choice do they actually want? Because
Speaker 1: for many people, out of their choices a nightmare. It's
Speaker 1: actually complicated. It does your head and you've got other
Speaker 1: things you'd rather focus on. So I think really people
Speaker 1: should answer initially, how interested in this am am? I?
Speaker 1: Do I want to learn? Do I want to check in?
Speaker 1: Do I want to choose? Or does that sound like
Speaker 1: hell on earth to me? Because the answer to that
Speaker 1: question will pretty much split the type of option you
Speaker 1: have into two. If you're the sort of person that says, oh, no,
Speaker 1: too much chores, I haven't got time. I've got other
Speaker 1: fish to fry. You want someone that can pretty much
Speaker 1: do it all for you and manage it for you,
Speaker 1: and that might point you to something that we call
Speaker 1: a robo advisor, so more on them later. If you're
Speaker 1: someone that says, actually, no, you know, I am interested
Speaker 1: in this stuff.
Speaker 3: I want to.
Speaker 1: Build a portfolio. I want to choose between some shares
Speaker 1: and some whatever it might be, then you'll be in
Speaker 1: the market for a more traditional type platform. So for me,
Speaker 1: that's the very sort of first question. People should ask
Speaker 1: how much choice door I want? How competent do I feel?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, why don't we start right there. Let's assume
Speaker 2: that we are the person who wants to invest, knows
Speaker 2: they should invest, but really doesn't want to get to involve.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about robo advisors first. So these are platforms
Speaker 2: that will effectively make the decisions for you. You input
Speaker 2: your your information, input what you perceive is your risk
Speaker 2: levels perhaps, and then it'll create a portfolio for you
Speaker 2: and you don't need to do anything except for top
Speaker 2: that portfolio up on a monthly or an annual basis,
Speaker 2: whatever suits you use, is that.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. My kind of thing of it, My
Speaker 1: analogy is it's like someone that might say I want
Speaker 1: to eat, but I'm rubbish at cooking as well, buy
Speaker 1: a ready meal please, So for me, they're the ready
Speaker 1: meal of the investment world. You can go, as you say,
Speaker 1: to a website, you can answer some pretty straightforward questions
Speaker 1: about your atta to money, your time frames, etc. And
Speaker 1: they'll spit out a sort of suggestion view. You can
Speaker 1: set it up and off you go. So you know
Speaker 1: some of the biggest names in that space where we
Speaker 1: have groups such as Nutmeg, there's money Box people might
Speaker 1: have heard, or in the pensions world, you've got Pensions Be.
Speaker 1: So there are I would say about ten sort of
Speaker 1: to fifteen incredible players in this space now for people
Speaker 1: to look at. I think what's great about these options
Speaker 1: as well is that you can set them up to
Speaker 1: accept direct debits as well, so you really can set
Speaker 1: and forget and really only have to check in every
Speaker 1: sort of six to twelve months and try and set
Speaker 1: up these direct debits so you're chipping in little and
Speaker 1: often you're not just buying everything at one point in
Speaker 1: the market. You're kind of drip feeding into markets. So
Speaker 1: there is and and the tech has got so much
Speaker 1: better around these options too, and the apps are pretty good,
Speaker 1: so people can can check in with their investments as
Speaker 1: list or as often as they want.
Speaker 3: And what would you expect that to cost? What do
Speaker 3: you pay for that?
Speaker 2: And is there a difference in how you might choose
Speaker 2: based on how much money you have? I mean, let's
Speaker 2: say you're starting with five hundred pounds and putting in
Speaker 2: one hundred a month.
Speaker 3: Is there when you might.
Speaker 2: Choose that is different to when you would choose if
Speaker 2: you were, for example, putting in ten thousand pounds and
Speaker 2: then adding two thousand pounds a yew?
Speaker 3: How does it work? What would you expect to pay.
Speaker 1: In terms of this sort of first question? What should
Speaker 1: people pay? Roughly? I think for this option which is
Speaker 1: all in so it includes admin, includes all the investments,
Speaker 1: it's anywhere between about zero point seventy five and one
Speaker 1: percent a year. So to translate that into pound terms,
Speaker 1: it's about seventy five pounds to one hundred pounds a
Speaker 1: year for every ten thousand pounds you have to invest. Now,
Speaker 1: one way they do differ is in investment performance, because
Speaker 1: of course there's team sitting there running the money, and
Speaker 1: we track at boring money. We track on a coarty
Speaker 1: basis performance and we can see there is great difference
Speaker 1: between these groups in how well they're doing based on
Speaker 1: what they're picking and based on what they're doing under
Speaker 1: the bonnet. So one thing people should look at is
Speaker 1: the performance over time. Now, as you'll know, kind of
Speaker 1: looking at this over a relatively short term can be misleading,
Speaker 1: particularly if we look back at twenty twenty four, where
Speaker 1: to be honest, anyone that through darted or board and
Speaker 1: landed anywhere near the S and P five hundred will
Speaker 1: have done pretty well. But people should look at performance,
Speaker 1: and we do sort of track that and make that
Speaker 1: available on our website.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're not going to let you just skip over that.
Speaker 3: We want to know. We want to know who's doing
Speaker 3: the best over the last five years or so. Who
Speaker 3: are there? Who are the couple that stand out?
Speaker 1: Do you think, as I sort of said before, it
Speaker 1: depends how spicy you want your your investments. So there's
Speaker 1: different what they call risk profiles for those people that
Speaker 1: were saying, look, this is long term money, I can
Speaker 1: ride out some ups and downs. You'll typically put in something.
Speaker 1: They've all got really silly names like Ambitious or a
Speaker 1: grill or adventurers, but that just means you're all in
Speaker 1: the sort of shares rather than anything more more cash.
Speaker 1: Like now, if we look at that risk profile, actually
Speaker 1: groups that have done well, and that'springked mind, are HSBC,
Speaker 1: in Pact, money Box, aj BELL have done well because
Speaker 1: they've typically common denominator tended to have more money allocated
Speaker 1: to the US than to other markets, and that's typically
Speaker 1: been mods driven returns. But also if we look back
Speaker 1: over the last few years, you'll recall, you know, the
Speaker 1: hiatus we had with Liz Truss is not so many
Speaker 1: mini budget when the bond markets sort of behave really
Speaker 1: abnormally and did weird things. What actually happened then is
Speaker 1: that the so called low risk stuff did really badly
Speaker 1: because bonds didn't behave as they were supposed to. They
Speaker 1: weren't being the safe, goody goodies in the portfolios, so
Speaker 1: they had a bit of a hiatus. And what that
Speaker 1: meant is that some people who picked a low risk
Speaker 1: option got a really nasty shock. And luckily some of
Speaker 1: the banks and banks hate risk, so there's loads of
Speaker 1: compliance people that are running around in banks going don't
Speaker 1: do anything naughty, don't do anything risky, so they're lower
Speaker 1: risk portfolios ten to sort of load up on the
Speaker 1: things that went really nuts during Liz Trust's mini budget,
Speaker 1: like government bonds and things. So you've actually had a
Speaker 1: period where groups that were very, very cautious didn't do
Speaker 1: particularly well. So some of the banks in particular have
Speaker 1: had sort of bad performance periods over the last two years.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hope that answers your question. There are
Speaker 1: some groups that do better.
Speaker 4: Something you just said Erelow I think is also really interesting,
Speaker 4: the point about the slightly I guess intellectually mechanical way
Speaker 4: that the risk set up is put together so that
Speaker 4: boinds are saying as low risk and shares are saying
Speaker 4: as high risk, and that is historically a reasonable assumption,
Speaker 4: but sometimes things do go pair shaped and at the
Speaker 4: moment also we've also kind of left a forty year
Speaker 4: bond bull market and actually now boinds are causing quite
Speaker 4: a lot of trouble in markets generally. I know that
Speaker 4: obviously this is a podcast for beginners. But I think
Speaker 4: is that maybe a reason for people to also just
Speaker 4: be a little bit cautious whenever and to understand that
Speaker 4: these definitions are are don't necessarily mean you can't lose
Speaker 4: money even if you are invested in the low risk
Speaker 4: say the things.
Speaker 1: I might be a bit controversial here for DILI investors
Speaker 1: who pick a low risk option, it is often because
Speaker 1: people have just got the hebgb's about investing, rather than
Speaker 1: people sort of taking a measured view on volatility. And actually,
Speaker 1: I think for anyone with a timeframe of less than
Speaker 1: three years, if you look at where interest rates are today,
Speaker 1: I can't think why you'd invest in a low risk
Speaker 1: sort of I SUP portfolio rather than in a really
Speaker 1: decent pain cash kind of basis. You can still get
Speaker 1: you four point seventy five percent istion the sort of
Speaker 1: top paying easy access accounts. That's pretty good, right. So
Speaker 1: for me, especially given the volatility of recent years, I
Speaker 1: personally question why you're a beginner and you're looking to
Speaker 1: make your money work hard, but you've got that time
Speaker 1: frame of two to three years. Interest rates are so
Speaker 1: high at the moment relatively speaking, and looking at the
Speaker 1: hiatus that we've had in their bomb markets and sort
Speaker 1: of inflation still uncertain for me. I think robo advisors
Speaker 1: and these ready made options really come into their own
Speaker 1: for people with time frames of five years or more,
Speaker 1: in which case we should be looking at at least
Speaker 1: you know, if there's five options, at least actions three,
Speaker 1: four or five.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So basically it comes don't risk actually been in
Speaker 4: a functioning time frame rather than your own level of
Speaker 4: fear or not about investing.
Speaker 2: Is there is there one of the robo advisors in
Speaker 2: your mind that stands out as having the correct mix
Speaker 2: of low fees and good performance and not asking you
Speaker 2: to actively recommend one in particular, But is there one
Speaker 2: that over the last say, five to seven years, has
Speaker 2: shown that that mix.
Speaker 1: Here's an interesting point. I think the row advisors got
Speaker 1: all the press. It sort of came to sort of fame,
Speaker 1: well fame in my world.
Speaker 5: We're all these, you know, for being the disruptors. They've
Speaker 5: got better apps, they slicker, they're shiny, and they're better
Speaker 5: to use. But if you're after a low cost there.
Speaker 1: Are other ways, and we can come on to talk
Speaker 1: about this that will be lower costs. If you look
Speaker 1: at the robo advisors, They are not the cheapest way
Speaker 1: to get that ready meal. You're actually better off buying
Speaker 1: what it's called a multi asset fund from a big
Speaker 1: name like a Vanguard or a black Rock on one
Speaker 1: of the traditional platforms and having it there. That will
Speaker 1: cost you probably half or sort of two thirds of
Speaker 1: what you would pay a robo advisor. So actually, a
Speaker 1: really important point here is it comes down to what
Speaker 1: do people value. Some people might say, actually, I like
Speaker 1: the idea of an app, I like the idea of
Speaker 1: getting good articles. I like the idea of being in touch.
Speaker 1: Mind paying a wee bit more for that. But if
Speaker 1: you're someone that wants rock bottom, listen to the next
Speaker 1: bit of the podcast when we talk about the auditional platforms,
Speaker 1: because they might be a bit less sexy, you know,
Speaker 1: in their sort of tech and how they sort of
Speaker 1: deliver stuff to you, but they will be cheaper than
Speaker 1: a robo advisor. If we had to look at.
Speaker 3: The robo advisors.
Speaker 1: To your question, we're just in the middle of doing
Speaker 1: our annual kind of best buys and sort of digging
Speaker 1: around behind the scenes. If you bount with monso you know,
Speaker 1: their ux and their sort of solution is pretty good,
Speaker 1: not mega being around for the longest they remain competitive.
Speaker 1: They remain good. If you have pensions you want to consolidate,
Speaker 1: pension b are good. But they are not the cheapest
Speaker 1: you know there, And so I think it's up to
Speaker 1: people to be clear on what they want. How much
Speaker 1: do they want the app and the service and all
Speaker 1: of the bells and whistles, or how much do they
Speaker 1: want them lowest cost?
Speaker 3: Okay, brilliant, thank you.
Speaker 2: Right, let's move on then to the traditional platforms or
Speaker 2: the platforms that might be more more DIY.
Speaker 1: So I think with these platforms, cost is a really
Speaker 1: sort of fundamental part of it. Comparing cost is not straightforward. Now,
Speaker 1: some of your listeners will have heard of Hard Greaves Landsdown.
Speaker 1: They're the biggest platform in the UK by some way.
Speaker 1: They are renowned for being pretty expensive. They cost zero
Speaker 1: point four five percent for funds that you hold on
Speaker 1: that platform. However, and here's the cat if you only
Speaker 1: hold shares or exchange traded funds or investment trusts, there's
Speaker 1: a cap on an ISA there of forty five pounds
Speaker 1: a year. So actually, this platform, which kind of has
Speaker 1: a reputation for being expensive, if you only use exchange
Speaker 1: traded funds and shares, for example, they are fantastic value.
Speaker 1: So I think what, unfortunately I for your list as
Speaker 1: they need to do is be quite specific when looking
Speaker 1: at the costs about what sort of investments they've got
Speaker 1: in this platform, how often they're likely to trade, because
Speaker 1: some platforms will charge about ten quid a trade, others
Speaker 1: might charge nearer a pound if you do it as
Speaker 1: part of a regular investing program. So people need to
Speaker 1: kind of be quite specific about what their portfolio looks
Speaker 1: like and go and work out the fees. This is
Speaker 1: of course a very boring headbanging exercise to do. Or
Speaker 1: do have a price calculator on our website that we've
Speaker 1: built for people which will give them you can put
Speaker 1: in how much you've got and we'll sort of tell
Speaker 1: you what the fees and charges will be.
Speaker 2: Do you need to pay to use that calculator, Harlie, No,
Speaker 2: you don't do.
Speaker 4: Any of them stand out in terms of like I
Speaker 4: suppose if you're it's that I can a base platform
Speaker 4: for someone who actually does quite a lot of shit
Speaker 4: trade and on this aide, but has a kind of
Speaker 4: bored in portfolio setting there.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean I think with this you can just
Speaker 1: sort of throw scenarios at me because it is of course,
Speaker 1: it depends what range of stuff you want to trade.
Speaker 1: So if you want to read quite a broad range
Speaker 1: of things and you want to include, say, for example,
Speaker 1: international shares, then something like an interactive or an aj
Speaker 1: bell are pretty good options. Also, Saxo have have some
Speaker 1: new sort of starter deals with people who want to
Speaker 1: trade sort of US equities, which is quite interesting. At
Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum, if you have people
Speaker 1: sort of starting out with an ISA, don't particularly have
Speaker 1: sort of large amounts, want to learn, want a decent
Speaker 1: app Trading to one two doesn't charge people for holding
Speaker 1: an ISO, so that can be interesting. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: if you have just exchange traded funds or shares or
Speaker 1: investment trusts and you've got quite a large portfolio, I
Speaker 1: actually think the hard Greaves landsdown are brilliant value. You know,
Speaker 1: they are expensive if you have funds in your portfolio,
Speaker 1: as I've sort of mentioned, but if you've just got
Speaker 1: those what's called listed securities, they're fantastic value. And their service,
Speaker 1: for example, is typically good. When you phone someone up,
Speaker 1: you get through quite quickly and you speak to a
Speaker 1: sort of you know, typically polite young growd from brittel
Speaker 1: Uni who seems to know what they're on about, and
Speaker 1: you know, so it's really worse. I think people being
Speaker 1: clear on do I want the lowest charges, how much
Speaker 1: do I want a human being to talk to, or
Speaker 1: how much do I want to sort of a nice app?
Speaker 1: Those are the things that I think will drive people's decisions.
Speaker 2: A lot of our listeners will be investment trust investors,
Speaker 2: so higris Land would make sense for LAMB. The only
Speaker 2: thing I find with their website is it can be
Speaker 2: quite difficult to analyze your portfolio.
Speaker 1: I find not too bad for research. What I find
Speaker 1: behind the scenes more and is it quite often will
Speaker 1: break down. These platforms can look really shiny, can't they
Speaker 1: When you go onto the public site and it all
Speaker 1: looks lovely. Then sometimes you become a customer and you
Speaker 1: get into their secure site and you feel that you've
Speaker 1: stepped into a different world. I often there's a disconnect
Speaker 1: between wanting to find out about stuff and research it
Speaker 1: and do something I e.
Speaker 3: Buy it.
Speaker 1: I personally find har Grease relatively good there. I think
Speaker 1: Aged Bell are also strong on that. I think interactive
Speaker 1: investor have got a lot better, really interesting insights, not
Speaker 1: just for investment trusts and shares, but also for funds.
Speaker 1: So I still find those guys are typically better than
Speaker 1: some of the newer.
Speaker 3: Kind of wanna be you.
Speaker 1: Know, a competitors, sort of a rising up through the
Speaker 1: ranks in terms of research.
Speaker 2: And I suppose the other thing we should say about
Speaker 2: these big platforms particularly relevant at the moment with and
Speaker 2: again we'll have a podcast later in the week about
Speaker 2: investment trusts and the saber activist intrusion into the gentle
Speaker 2: world of UK investment trust But one of the interesting
Speaker 2: things about the platforms is how they've worked very hard
Speaker 2: to make it easy for you to vote on your shares,
Speaker 2: and we think that's quite important.
Speaker 3: The easier it did, the better.
Speaker 1: It is, Merron. I mean, there's still a really long
Speaker 1: way to go in terms of the tech, isn't there.
Speaker 1: It's still now as easy and whereas it should be.
Speaker 1: But I think that's a really good example of sometimes
Speaker 1: how big and boring can be better. And I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the apps and some of the sort
Speaker 1: of shiny stuff that the newer guys have, but you know,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, I'll give you another really tiny which
Speaker 1: definitely fills into sort of fits into the boring camp.
Speaker 1: But just as an example with the thirty two test
Speaker 1: accounts of God the bigger guys, if you need to
Speaker 1: find something like so, for example, your tax certificate when
Speaker 1: you're coming to do your self assessment, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's January, and why haven't I done it?
Speaker 3: And I was supposed to do earlier today.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a lovely opportunity for John to tell
Speaker 2: me again that he finished his tax return in November.
Speaker 3: John, would you just like to tell me that again.
Speaker 4: I'd love to be able to tell you that, but
Speaker 4: I haven't done it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, listen as well, remember you telling me
Speaker 2: you've done your tax.
Speaker 3: For this was? This was last year?
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: I got last years done in April, and I felt
Speaker 4: so proude of myself. I was like, the new tax
Speaker 4: should just started and that nued to get myself assessment
Speaker 4: for men for the previous year. But no, I feel.
Speaker 1: John, Actually, I'm sorry, I seen doing it in April.
Speaker 1: It's not organized. I think it's so that it's Actually
Speaker 1: that's a bit boring, John, embarrassing John.
Speaker 4: It is, okay, it is, I mean, I didn't actually
Speaker 4: have a very complicated texture to on that yet. I
Speaker 4: don't have a complicated when.
Speaker 2: Any complicated years tell us more right, anyway, we're going
Speaker 2: off topic again. Everybody, get going with your tax return.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what we will do next week. We'll
Speaker 2: do a last minute tax return pod.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 2: John, Well, there were last minute things that things that
Speaker 2: get it done quickly. I have no idea what those are,
Speaker 2: but hopefully I'll find out over the next week.
Speaker 3: While I complete mind.
Speaker 4: We should do Earl's Live for the audience.
Speaker 3: It's not even funny.
Speaker 2: An American politicians, honestly, anyway, Reality off topic, Off topic, Holly,
Speaker 2: is there anything else that we should talk about with that?
Speaker 1: For me, one of the things that people should look
Speaker 1: at is a lot of the platforms have got better
Speaker 1: at regular investing. So I think this is something that
Speaker 1: people should have a look at. If you typically, if
Speaker 1: you set it up to repeat something, to do a trade,
Speaker 1: for example, every month, you'll pay lower trading fees. It's
Speaker 1: about sort of setting up those good habits. It's January,
Speaker 1: so you may as well sort of talk about that.
Speaker 1: So I think that's something people should investigate. What I
Speaker 1: would say as well, if people are listening who have
Speaker 1: had a platform for a week while, do check out
Speaker 1: the fees because things are moving, things are changing, and
Speaker 1: there's constant sort of downward pressure. So a platform that
Speaker 1: might have been competitive three or four years ago may
Speaker 1: well not be competitive today, I think for people, particularly
Speaker 1: as we move into twenty twenty five and what will
Speaker 1: be I think a very uncertain sort of market for
Speaker 1: investments difficult to call. Diversification for me remains the name
Speaker 1: of the game, and interestingly, I think more people should
Speaker 1: look at the ready made options or should consider these
Speaker 1: multi asset funds at least as a core part of
Speaker 1: their portfolio because that diversification and the avoiding all that
Speaker 1: concentration risk, I think is something that's really key. So
Speaker 1: little and often regular investing, check the fees and make
Speaker 1: sure you've at least got a part of your portfolio
Speaker 1: from my point of view, well diversified in an easy
Speaker 1: sort of managed option.
Speaker 3: Brilliant Holly, Thank you so much, John. Is there anything
Speaker 3: you think we've missed?
Speaker 4: The only one thing I would ask Coley's view is
Speaker 4: how much people should think about FSCs protection when that
Speaker 4: can sudden know wait to block at it choose and
Speaker 4: if you've got a lot of money, who should you
Speaker 4: think about maybe having more than one ale?
Speaker 1: Well, really the main thing people need to look at
Speaker 1: is the custodium because if the platform and John the
Speaker 1: majority of them do reputable what is called custodian in place,
Speaker 1: your money is completely ring fenced from all platforms money.
Speaker 1: So in the event that anything does go wrong, your
Speaker 1: money is ring fenced and protected. So it's not about
Speaker 1: looking for any upper monetary value. It's about saying, is
Speaker 1: there a decent custodian There is my money kept separate
Speaker 1: from the operating sort of fonds of the platform, And
Speaker 1: if it is, you actually don't need to spread your
Speaker 1: money around. So this is a sort of misconception we
Speaker 1: see that actually means people have two or three platforms
Speaker 1: sometimes when in fact they don't need to because their
Speaker 1: money is separated and in the event that anything went wrong.
Speaker 1: One thing I would say, though, is that that peace
Speaker 1: of mind that many people is the most important. I
Speaker 1: remember years ago John talking to Gorham who used to
Speaker 1: run hard landsdown, and he said to me that the
Speaker 1: number one concern our customers have is security as their assets,
Speaker 1: like where are they where are they held and from
Speaker 1: many people. We've talked Maren, You've asked me about fees,
Speaker 1: We've talked about apps, we've talked about all of that.
Speaker 1: For a lot of people, that peace of mind is
Speaker 1: so fundamentally important that that will be the primary driver
Speaker 1: of why they might pick a bank, or why they
Speaker 1: might look for a footzy one hundred or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. So that's another thing I think people should
Speaker 1: think about. But with a decent custodian in place, people's
Speaker 1: money is ring fenced and should be safe.
Speaker 3: Brilliant.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Holly, Thanks for listening to this week's Maren
Speaker 2: Talk to Your Money. If you like us a rink
Speaker 2: review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, or to
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Speaker 2: I'm at Maren sw and John is John Underscore Stepec.
Speaker 3: Holly are you on Twitter for X?
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I've given up to it. I'm an Instagram
Speaker 1: girl now, Maren when I can be bothered to brush
Speaker 1: my hair.
Speaker 2: And you can find Holly on Instagram at Boring Money Holly.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by some Saudi production support and
Speaker 2: sound designed by Moses and Questions and comments on This
Speaker 2: show and all our shows are always welcome. Our show
Speaker 2: email is merin Money at Bloomberg dot net