Mrs Headmelter and myself have used our cash ISA allowance for this year and have managed to save a few extra pounds and were thinking of taking out a couple of equity ISA's before April.
I know very little about shares and would appreciate some points of view related to these 2 points.

Due to recent stock market volatility is it a good time to invest?

what managed funds will provide a safe modest return?


I'm pretty risk averse and would like the ability to liquidate quickly if necessary.

All opinions greatly appreciated in the interests of doing my own research.

Nobody any ideas then?

shameless bump.

In this age of lawyers, it's not a good idea to give advice on financial matters. My stockbroker (Hargreaves Lansdown) is very clear that they won't give advice.

I've been investing in stocks & shares since 1999. I've got burnt buying individual shares. I did well drip feeding £250 a month into stocks during the 2003-2006 rally. I divided it into European, Asian and US unit trusts and a FTSE tracker. The US was a bit of a dog, but the others did well. I was growing rich slowly, but I am looking into more active trading strategies to get rich more quickly.

Hargreaves Lansdown and other fund supermarkets give you a huge choice of funds and more importantly they have low initial charges. Incidentally, I think they will allow you to put a cash lump sum into your stocks ISA - as long as you invest it eventually it's OK to do that (but check first - I'm not sure of the timescale you have to invest by!). You can buy and sell as you please then. Lots of people like drip-feeding money into stocks rather than buying with a lump sum in one go.

I'm waiting for the FTSE to fall to below 5300 before buying again. Time will tell whether this is a good or a terrible time to invest in equities (or anything else for that matter!)

Two questions:

If you might need to liquidate your funds quickly, why are you considering stocks and shares? I invest in a stocks and shares ISA and take a minimum time-frame of 5 years and drip-feed in the money in order to reduce the risks involved. This has given me a good return over this time period but with many sharp falls along the way. If you can take a longer term view then the exact timing of your investment may become less important. If your view is short term then your cash ISA is a wise move.

Secondly, why a managed fund? Have you considered a simple tracker fund where the costs are often much lower? Many managed funds actually under-perform these simple tracker funds over time, not least because the computer programme running the fund doesn't want to drive a Porsche.

Have a look at this (and apologies if I'm pointing out stuff you already know):
http://www.fool.co.uk/isas/information/wha...ex-tracker.aspx

Time and consistency are the two friends of the risk-averse investor. Short-term speculative moves are best left to those with exceptional knowledge and/or luck or should only be done with money you can afford to lose.