The Money Thread...

[That's not a growth]

I read that sub Reddit quite a bit and I think their reasoning is to ensure someone is prepared if their car breaks down so they can still get to work, and that kind of thing - rather than that step being the most optimal strategy in the long term if you have no issues.

I think part of it comes down to who's most likely to visit the sub - and those who are barley scraping by and feel overwhelmed and struggling month to month and don't necessarily have good habits yet will be more likely to post asking for advice than those who have things a bit more steady.

[Tomous]

Yeah, I think it's far more prudent to move yourself off living paycheck to paycheck. It might not be the most optimum strategy in the long term but it is better to lower the risk of you getting into a bad spot in the short term.

[Tomous]

Not sure I've asked this before but I'm finally getting my gooseberry fool together-what's the best way of investing in index funds?

I want to use the £20k ISA allowance and put it in some index fund where it can sit for the long-term and tick along nicely.

What are the best online portals to do this through? Obviously looking for as low a fee as possible. Nutmeg is one I've been looking at.

[That's not a growth]

I keep hearing about vanguard, primarily due to their low fees, on ukpf.

[Tomous]

Yeah, was just looking into vanguard

[pjbetman]

Not sure I've asked this before but I'm finally getting my gooseberry fool together-what's the best way of investing in index funds?

I want to use the £20k ISA allowance and put it in some index fund where it can sit for the long-term and tick along nicely.

What are the best online portals to do this through? Obviously looking for as low a fee as possible. Nutmeg is one I've been looking at.

Look into Blockfi. 8.6% on balances.

Use this ccode for $10 each:-

https://blockfi.com/?ref=958e20e9

[Super Dragon 64]

If the payment into the pension is showing in the deductions column then you need to contact HMRC as HR relied is not automatically applied to it.

Would I need to contact HMRC for a self-assessment or is there another way to claim pension relief for HRT?

[Grumpy David]

If the payment into the pension is showing in the deductions column then you need to contact HMRC as HR relief is not automatically applied to it.

Would I need to contact HMRC for a self-assessment or is there another way to claim pension relief for HRT?

Are you a Ltd Company Director or Sole Trader / some other self employed situation?

If you're a regular employee AND don't earn over £100,000 then you do not need to do a self assessment to claim HR Tax Relief.

Instead you just use the HMRC Webchat service and let them know your pension contributions and they'll adjust the tax code to balance it out so you pay less tax going forwards.

That's only necessary if the Pension payment in the payslip shows on the Deductions section rather than Gross Payments section.

[Captain Kinopio]

Question about this Reddit thing, since I'm seeing people gleefully gloating online about Internet memes trumping Wall Street hedge funds. I only know superficially what's happening, but while people are laughing at costing hedge funds a lot of money, are these funds not made up of 100s of thousands of ordinary people's savings and pensions?

It's all well and good creating a joke of a failing company's stock to make a few people a quick buck and give Wall Street a punch on the nose. But are they just not hurting ordinary people?

Or is that not the type of hedge fund this is or am I misinterpreting things.

[That's not a growth]

At the most basic level, the reason anyone would be losing money would be because they bet that Gamestop would be less valuable; i.e. they would be making money from other people's misfortune.

So either way someone would be hurt, and I guess some people see it as "I'd rather a speculative gambler loses their money".

Whether those who are losing money are gambling with people's pension / 'ordinary peoples' money is unknown to me.

[Qikz]

Question about this Reddit thing, since I'm seeing people gleefully gloating online about Internet memes trumping Wall Street hedge funds. I only know superficially what's happening, but while people are laughing at costing hedge funds a lot of money, are these funds not made up of 100s of thousands of ordinary people's savings and pensions?

It's all well and good creating a joke of a failing company's stock to make a few people a quick buck and give Wall Street a punch on the nose. But are they just not hurting ordinary people?

Or is that not the type of hedge fund this is or am I misinterpreting things.

The hedge funds are run and contain the money of the ultra rich. It's not made up of normal peoples money for the most part as far as I'm aware.

[Grumpy David]

Question about this Reddit thing, since I'm seeing people gleefully gloating online about Internet memes trumping Wall Street hedge funds. I only know superficially what's happening, but while people are laughing at costing hedge funds a lot of money, are these funds not made up of 100s of thousands of ordinary people's savings and pensions?

It's all well and good creating a joke of a failing company's stock to make a few people a quick buck and give Wall Street a punch on the nose. But are they just not hurting ordinary people?

Or is that not the type of hedge fund this is or am I misinterpreting things.

Most ordinary people will have the default employer provided pension which is likely to be globally diversified and contain a mixture of equities and bonds (which tend to offset each other e.g. People want bonds when the stock market tanks as a safe haven).

These tend to be with normal pension companies, L&G, Aviva, Nest etc and there's no chance a Meme stock like Gamestop makes up anything other than the tiniest fraction of a percentage (and likely isn't even a part of the portfolio as often only large cap stocks feature in the default pension fund everyone is enrolled into).

Gamestop has a tiny market size in comparison to the total US Stock Market, let alone the global stock market.

Shorting a company is how you can discover fraudulent companies like Enron and Wirecard so it does have a role of sorts in financial markets but the issue with Gamestop is they shorted 149% of the shares so they get absolutely strawberry floated if people buy up all the available shares and reduce liquidity by holding. They are forced to either close their position and take losses or buy what few shares are being sold but in doing so they create a reverse free fall situation with the shares sky rocketing upwards.

[Tomous]

[Mafro]

That puts most wrestling promos to shame

[pjbetman]

Question about this Reddit thing, since I'm seeing people gleefully gloating online about Internet memes trumping Wall Street hedge funds. I only know superficially what's happening, but while people are laughing at costing hedge funds a lot of money, are these funds not made up of 100s of thousands of ordinary people's savings and pensions?

It's all well and good creating a joke of a failing company's stock to make a few people a quick buck and give Wall Street a punch on the nose. But are they just not hurting ordinary people?

Or is that not the type of hedge fund this is or am I misinterpreting things.

Most ordinary people will have the default employer provided pension which is likely to be globally diversified and contain a mixture of equities and bonds (which tend to offset each other e.g. People want bonds when the stock market tanks as a safe haven).

These tend to be with normal pension companies, L&G, Aviva, Nest etc and there's no chance a Meme stock like Gamestop makes up anything other than the tiniest fraction of a percentage (and likely isn't even a part of the portfolio as often only large cap stocks feature in the default pension fund everyone is enrolled into).

Gamestop has a tiny market size in comparison to the total US Stock Market, let alone the global stock market.

Shorting a company is how you can discover fraudulent companies like Enron and Wirecard so it does have a role of sorts in financial markets but the issue with Gamestop is they shorted 149% of the shares so they get absolutely strawberry floated if people buy up all the available shares and reduce liquidity by holding. They are forced to either close their position and take losses or buy what few shares are being sold but in doing so they create a reverse free fall situation with the shares sky rocketing upwards.

Love it.

Worth still buying a couple of shares?

[pjbetman]

How strawberry floatin good is that.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I've only really just read about this whole GameStop thing but is it just me or does it represent what could possibly be a major turning point in the history of the stock market?!

Or will the rich and powerful people make sure it is stopped?

[Drumstick]

Where is Igor for my update on how to get rich?

[Oblomov Boblomov]

For FFS I've just read a bit more and...

Or will the rich and powerful people make sure it is stopped?

...has already happened!

[Snowcannon]

Question about this Reddit thing, since I'm seeing people gleefully gloating online about Internet memes trumping Wall Street hedge funds. I only know superficially what's happening, but while people are laughing at costing hedge funds a lot of money, are these funds not made up of 100s of thousands of ordinary people's savings and pensions?

It's all well and good creating a joke of a failing company's stock to make a few people a quick buck and give Wall Street a punch on the nose. But are they just not hurting ordinary people?

Or is that not the type of hedge fund this is or am I misinterpreting things.

Most hedge funds have minimum investment requirements that far exceed what the average person can afford to invest.