Member Info for Bonz1957

Sounds like you have a very good pension if they will pay 10% in for you, I certainly would not advise you to lose that. While you cannot change the trustees, you should have some flexibility as to what funds or type of funds they invest in. The only one the wife still contributes to as she is a civil servant, uses BlackRock to invest the money. We have a choice of about 20 funds that we can choose, so I have spread the payments across three world equity funds, instead of their very cautious default funds. I monitor it regularly and switch when it seems appropriate. Your trustees should have something similar, and may give their suggested group of funds collective names like Cautious, Managed, Adventurous and High Risk. Ask for the fund details and see what they are investing in. Cautious may be in Gilts and Cash, very low growth but very low risk, this may be ideal if you are within 5 years of retirement and want some certainty that the fund will not fall by very much. On the other hand Adventurous may have an element of Far East including China or Emerging Markets, both of which have done well over the last year. You will have the choice to say split your contributions say 50% Managed and 50% Adventurous, or 100% to a single fund. You may even have the choice to invest in just one of the components of say the Adventurous fund. But, unless I am completely wrong - which has been known - you will have some sort of choice. Last year was a difficult year for all of us, including pension providers, so you need to do a little research as to what you were invested in and why it had such a poor performance. I know it is not nice to lose 10%, but you are still ahead of the game, let me explain. You say the Co pays in 10% and then matches what you pay in, and I'll assume that you paid 5% which they matched. So the company paid in 15%, you paid in 5%. This then fell by 10%, effectively leaving you with 18% - a 10% fall on the 20% contributions - so your 5% is still safe and you still have 13% of their 15%. Your pension pot is still nearly four times what you paid in. So if you earn £20k, co pays £2k and matches your 5%, another £1k each. You have £4k in the pot, this falls by 10% to £3.8k and although a loss is still way above your contribution of £1k. Have I explained that in a way you can understand? Have I even understood how your pension works? I hope so. You seem to have a very good deal there, just do a little research and see how you can improve the situation. If you have a long way to go before you retire then you can afford to be a little more adventurous with your fund choice, but please do not gamble it all on a high risk strategy. As long as you can protect your contributions, and gamble a little with the company 's ones then you should do very well. And as you are saving directly into the market as well you will have a chance to build up two funds. Best of luck.

Sorry I ran out of room, my last sentence should have finished.....'and their performance to date has been impressive'. Should probably advise you to get professional advice about your pension. You probably shouldn't listen to the ramblings of an old fart who saw the value of his pensions being eroded before I finally took the bull by the horns and decided to improve the situation myself. I am now in a far better position financially than I would have been just contributing blindly to a managed fund.

I cut and pasted the piece about the cheap tickets from another website, so can take no credit myself. Are you 100% sure that you have no choice as to where your pension is invested? Even if it is a company scheme they should be able to offer you a choice, you just need to ask. It all depends on how long you have to reach retirement as to how much risk you take, but it is quite easy to beat a managed fund by being a little adventurous. I monitor all of my and the wifes pensions at least 6 monthly and have improved on their managed funds. If you have a personal pension then the options you will have will be almost endless. I am prepared to be proved wrong but please check with your pension provider and ask if you have a choice. Even if you cannot switch your fund to date, you should be able to pay future contributions into a different fund. And if you have found yourself in a pension in which you have no choice, you can always stop paying in and open a new one that gives you more choice. You can have as many pensions as you want, I have three and the wife has six, all but one is now paid up. These days I prefer to have my money where I can get at it when I want. Remember, with a pension you can normally only get 25% of the 'pot' out as cash when you retire, the remainder has to buy an annuity, currently at the rate of about £6500 for every £100,000 of pension pot. So with a pot of £200,000 you will get about £50,000 as a lump sum and a pension of approx £10,000 per year. Whereas if you had that money outside of a pension you would have access to the whole £200,000 whenever you wanted. You could look at a SIPP (Self Invested Pension Plan) into which you can put just about anything - shares, unit trusts, paintings, wine, property, classic cars, etc. Pensions used to be really great savings vehicles for retirement before they lost most of their tax benefits. Now, unless you have a truly exceptional company scheme - like the civil service - or are a top earner able to build up a pension pot of millions, then personally I would question their worth. If you can save regularly, build up a good spread of investments and be determined to keep your money for your retirement, then you will probably do as well as most average pension funds. And the money is accessible in an absolute emergency, unlike money in a pension. With a pension you are gambling that you will live long enough to get your money back, die in the early years and all of your contributions count for nothing. Of course if you live to be 100 you will get back a lot more than you ever paid in. I am sure there will be people out there who will accuse me of heresy for speaking out about pensions, but I am not sure they are right for everyone, you just need to realise that you will not have access to all of the money at the end of the day. As for the fund I suggested that invests in CFD's they can make money in a rising or falling market, and their performance t

National Express £1 coach fares. You can get £1 single fares for selected National Express journeys to over 150 locations with this offer. To get one, just register and book via this link: http://www.nationalexpress.com/home.aspx (go to the blue 'travel across the UK by coach' tab in the middle of the page), then print your e-Ticket. The offer’s valid for travel until Wed 30 June. There are over 150 routes available for £1, including London – Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester – Birmingham and Portsmouth - London, subject to availability. Travel to/from airports is not included in the deal. Though there are 100,000 £1 fares, they’re likely to go quickly so book early. You’ll need to book at least two days before you go.

Not only are the dividends good at 5%, but you also get some useful money off vouchers once a year with the reports. So if you like the taste of Thorntons chocolate - my fave's are the Viennese Truffles - then it's a win win situation.

Carpetright plc, Europe's leading specialist carpet and floor coverings retailer, today announces a trading update for the 7 weeks ended 20 March 2010. The pace of recovery seen towards the end of 2009 has not been sustained and whilst Group profits (for the year to 1 May 2010) will be considerably ahead of last year, they are likely to fall below current market expectations. Lord Harris of Peckham, Chairman and Chief Executive, said: "As we reported in our last trading statement, poor weather in the UK after Christmas severlyey affected the final weeks trading of our third quarter. Nevertheless, based on previous experience we expected to recover some of this lost trade in the remaining weeks of the year. It is now clear that recent like for like sales growth, while remaining positive, has not returned to pre-Christmas levels and the recovery from weak trading in January has not been as significant as expected." "Our businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium continue to trade well." "Carpetright will make its usual year end pre-close update on trading on Wednesday, 28 April 2010."

Pensions went down the toilet when our beloved chancellor took away the tax credit on dividends. The only chance you have now of making any real money in them is to opt for a high risk fund, investing in China or emerging markets. The gains can be spectacular, but the risks are very high. Having said that some of my best performing funds in recent years have been Templeton Emerging Markets and Invesco Perpetual Hong Kong and China. If you have a SIPP or a pension that allows you freedom of fund choice it may be worth having a look at how they have done compared to your managed fund. One fund I am looking at at the moment is the Octopus Partner Fund (Absolute return). They invest in CFD's so are able to make money regardless of whether the market rises or falls. The fund grew by 25.5% in 2008 and by 42.6% in 2009, not bad considering they were poor years for the Footsie. I have roughly a 50/50 split between shares and unit trusts. While it is fun to play with individual shares, it is easier to cover a region, say China or Europe, or a sector, say Technology or smaller companies, with a unit trust and use the fund managers expertise in that area. The greater the breadth of your portfolio the greater the chance you have of catching the next big rise, without having to spend all of your time researching absolutely everything.

I only have 1 share in a PEP/ISA all of the rest I hold as paper certificates. The problem with an ISA is that you could end up paying increased dealing charges and management charges every year, and as the only real advantage to an ISA is that any gains are tax free, with a £10k capital gains allowance is this going to be a problem?? If you invest £10k and your shares double in value then all of your gain is tax free. If your £10k trebles in value - you would be doing very well indeed and I would be coming to you for share tips - then you could take £10k profit one year and £10k the next, once again all tax free. If you are in the position of making over £10k a year and wanting to take your profit out then you need to look closely at the tax savings against the extra costs. As my portfolio is my 'managed' pension fund then in a few years I will be looking at taking out £10k per year - part base cost, part profit - to give me an extra £200 per week on top of my private and state pensions. Remember, if you have £60k worth of shares then you can sell £30k/£40k/50k if you need a large lump sum, and as long as there is no more than £10k profit in there you will pay no tax. REMEMBER just because it is in a 'Tax Free Wrapper' does not mean it is right for you. For example, you could get 0.5% interest in a Natwest Cash ISA, but you could earn 2.75% - 2.2% after tax - in a Tesco instant access account!! Where would you put your money?? MWH: This is a football club share - Millwall - and one of the main reasons for holding is that you could own 1million shares for only £300!! But all you are ever likely to do is double your money if they were to get promoted. The real value here lies in unlocking the potential of the land that they own, but that could be a very long way off, if indeed ever!! PRU: This is not a share I follow, so don't know what the upside could be. Would have thought they are likely to be a safe long term bet with a reasonable dividend stream, but could fly if there is ever any takeover talk. Happy investing DYOR and GL.

Dont have a view on RBS, but I do hold Lloyds long term. I'm sure 10 years down the line todays prices will look like absolute bargains, but there is a lot that can happen between now and then. Nice to see the NEX price recovering so well since the RI - hope I haven't spoken too soon!!! The best place to make some money at the moment seems to be on some of the small oil co's - but which one??!! Two tips I was given recently are MWH and AFC. Both have done well this week, but is there anymore upside in either?? As always DYOR and best of luck.

I had 500 from years ago and then bought a further 1000+ in the RI @ 105p. I reckon I now own at leat three rivits and a wheel nut!!

While divs are a nice little bonus, a share that rises 10% in the year is better than one that is flat but pays a 3-4% div. There has been a nice steady rise here since the post-ri price of 173.9p so hopefully the sp will continue to rise to compensate you for no div. We should find out in the next set of results when they plan to re-instate divs.

Would have thought this share would be just your cup of tea if you prefer trains. Stagecoach is involved in running around a quarter of the country's passenger network. They run South Western, the UK's busiest commuter rail franchise, the East Midlands rail franchise, and also have a 49% shareholding in Virgin Rail Group (VRG), which runs the West Coast inter-city franchise. Or are you only into steam trains that puff around with a Thomas face???

Some of us have neither the time or the knowledge to continually trade. I live very comfortably off of the divs I receive, along with the interest earned on my cash deposits. I regard my portfolio as my pension fund, and as I retired in my 40's, any divs I get are a little bonus until my pensions pay out. I would rather spend my time renovating an old property I bought recently and landscaping an overgrown wilderness of approx 3 acres. If you can make money out of trading the shares that I sit on, then I wish you all the very best. Hopefully the day will come for you when, like me, you have made all of the money you will ever need, and can sit back and enjoy the things in life that you really want to do.

You can transfer in your other ISA's and earn the higher rate on money you have already saved this ISA year, so getting the high rate on all of your existing ISA's.However, the real catch here is that you must also invest in one of their 'Qualifying Investments'. Which usually means a 4 or 5 year Stock Market linked plan. And who knows where we will be in 5 years!!! Totally agree with you on the merits of reading the small print before investing. Like the savings accounts that promise 6-8%, only to find out that it is a regular savings account with a maximun of £500 per month and only available to customers with a premium bank account - usually costing £5-10 per month!! Or the account that pays 6% up to £1000 if you credit your salary, but only 0.1% above £1000. These days with 'Faster Payments' now more widely accepted, you are better off with a basic bank account - I can highly recommend 1st direct - and an online savings account for everyday cash then you can switch your money around literally in seconds.

Can anyone please explain to me the rationale behind buying Cadbury shares at £8.52, plus the dealing charges, when the most you are going to get out of Kraft is approx £8.45 a share???!!!??? Kraft already have 90% acceptances and have made their intentions very clear - see previous post - that they intend to compulsorily purchase the outstanding shares at the offer price. While I can see the sense in selling Cadbury shares at these levels to gain an extra 5p if you hold a large number of shares - it was not worth it in my case as my holding was so small that the dealing charges would have eaten up the extra cash - it is a no brainer to buy shares at these levels. Stop buying Cadbury shares everyone. If you have money to throw away, then please throw it in my direction!!!!!!!

This would be a really great share if it paid a decent dividend

That's a lot better. Yesterdays figure must be how LSE show the spread after close???

With a spread of over £1 the MM's are hardly tempting anyone to buy this share!!!

Compulsory Acquisition of Outstanding Cadbury Shares Level of acceptances and compulsory acquisition As at 1.00 p.m. (London time) on 12 February 2010, Kraft Foods had received valid acceptances of the Offer in respect of 1,254,238,458 Cadbury Shares (including those represented by Cadbury ADSs), representing approximately 90.76 per cent. of the existing issued share capital of Cadbury and approximately 90.76 per cent. of the voting rights of Cadbury. Consequently, Kraft Foods is today commencing the procedure under Chapter 3 of Part 28 of the 2006 Act to acquire compulsorily all of the outstanding Cadbury Shares (including any Cadbury Shares represented by Cadbury ADSs) which it does not already hold or has not already acquired, contracted to acquire or in respect of which it has not already received valid acceptances.

Re your last post on here: '22 Dec '09, Negative growth, I expect a fall to 30p in 2010 imo'. Hope you have more luck with the rest of your predictions for 2010 lol!!!