I'm soon to be a qualified investment analyst and I'm currently a qualified financial advisor and I specialise in managing retirement funds.
Now that I have waved my willy about a bit, my professional advise is "I need a detailed picture of your overall wealth and assets" Given I dount you are willing to pay me £300 an hour, I am giving you soundbites!
Don't buy individual company stocks or start trading. I should be good enough to and I don't. Why? Are you going to beat Goldman Sachs and Moody's analytics? If you trade, keep that to 10% or so of your capital. Either way, you will probably not win 51% of trades over your lifetime.
Only buy passive US equity. Index funds are rightly mentioned.
Use an asset alocation tool. Don't limit to stocks. A decent portfolio, under say 10-15 years duration, should hold commercial property, a seletion of bonds, Gilts (government debt), commodities, and cash.
I personallly don't like guaranteed products or anything derivative based unless you are funding a definate goal.
However, it's down to your risk appetite.
Also, you have to consider whether it's a good time to invest at all.
My own portfolio is about 30% invested (outside my retieement fund which is fully invested)
You can hold cash and wait for dips and buy in the dips. Or, drip that money in over 4 quarters.
Bottom line is, unless you are a bang on trader with 5 years experiene and an Oxford or Harvard degree, actively traded money is risky as hell. Unless you can wait 5 years minimum, stick with cash. We are sat on the biggest asset revaluation for a long, long time. Innglish, that means we appear to be on the crest not the bottom of a wave. For professionals,they HAVE to invest. They are paid to. The advantage of private investing mewans yo9u can keep your powder dry for big events (eg 2008, 2003)
