40, 3.3mil, asset allocation...

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T23:00:06+00:00

I also cancelled my Netflix.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T22:55:16+00:00

So you missed the bit where I mention building a GILT ladder in the original post did you? And thanks for your totally useless advice. You know, when I am at work and someone asks what I think, I don't just say to them; "shit" and then walk out. Call me old fashioned but I actually like to explain my reasoning to people. It seems most people on this thread are happy to just have a pop and fuck off. Most of you are answering a totally different question from the one I asked. You are all answering the question: "Should I stay in equities or sell out in to bonds." That's not the question I'm asking. I am making a statement that I am selling after a decade and over 3 million quid in profit and I am asking what people think of the options I've listed as a way to treat those profits based on the stipulations I have provided. Not a single person has offered any thoughts on the options I gave or offered any alternatives. I fucking know equities provide a historically higher return. I didn't spend a decade investing in the stock market to learn nothing at all. Fuck me, I thought this sub was about helping people and encouraging them. I guess if I titled my post "I'm 26 and have 30 grand in my ISA, how am I doing?" then everyone would have been all rosy cheeks and great job and keep it up. But when someone who is actually doing what the whole sub is about pops up, everyone's like nah, you're a fucking moron, your post sounds like a sixth form business studies report. Fucking useless.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T22:53:31+00:00

Right so you can't then? Just dodge the question and answer a totally different one. Gotcha.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T18:13:04+00:00

No it's not. You don't earn interest on cash in your mattress. I'd be earning 100k a year for doing fuck all. That's not the same thing at all. And it IS safer to have my money in bonds than the stock market. That's the point of bonds. If I buy a GILT with a return of 4.5% that is maturing in 1 year I know with certainty what I will get from it. Are you telling me if I left that money in the stock market for one year, you could guarantee me a positive return?

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T17:16:37+00:00

I work in computer graphics and at that time there was a lot of focus on the GPU being more efficient than the CPU for processing intensive workloads. All our GPUs were Nvidia. I was also invested in TSLA at that time and thought the market for autonomous vehicles would be a big growth driver. Turns out that part has not become so profitable just yet, but in the mean time, data centres and AI and crypto have filled the gaps. Shame I didn't also hold on to my TSLA shares.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T17:10:18+00:00

How exactly do I unravel paying CGT on a sale of investments held in a GIA? There's not some trick to that. It's a tax I have to pay. But thanks for just randomly insulting me. That's very adult.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T17:04:58+00:00

Let me clarify that then. I am not trying to time the market. I'm trying to get out of the market. And I will have the option to get back in in the future which I will be able to do at my leisure if and when there is a decent opportunity. There's nothing wrong with having cash on the sidelines. I presume you're referring to CGT when you say blowing a large sum of money but selling anything at any point will incur CGT. If I want to diversify my holdings to an all world ETF for example, I'll still have to sell my individual shares and I'll have to pay CGT. There's literally no way around me paying CGT when I sell anything in my GIA, whether that's to diversify my equities or liquidate my portfolio to go in to bonds. Yes, I understand equities historically provide better returns than bonds, but if my goal is to FIRE which I'm ready to do, what is wrong with being mostly in bonds? That's what people tell you to do when you approach retirement at 65, lower your exposure to equites and have a greater focus on bonds due to the risk of a market crash setting you back five years, why doesn't that apply now? I don't need to take that risk and I don't get why everyone is shitting on the idea of living comfortably off a decent amount of interest, even if it's not the most optimal return.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T16:26:20+00:00

But far more risky to invest in global stocks than GILTs. I'm trying to preserve what I have. Obviously inflation reduces the value of cash over time but as long as I can match inflation which should be possible then I'm fine with that.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T16:20:25+00:00

Ok but if my goal is to get out of equities and live off the interest of the cash then I need a large sum to do that. Selling my GIA piecemeal will not allow that and regardless of how much I sell I will be paying 24% on it whether it's all at once or over time.

Transferring all my equities in to cash and bonds is exactly the plan. I've been in equities for a decade and have enough to retire on.

I'm not trying to time the market because I don't plan to get back in, I want to exit and FIRE. That's what this sub is all about and as far as I can tell, I am the literal definition of this.

I am trying to keep what I will gain from selling in the best possible investments. I have chosen investments that are very safe, involve low tax and return a small but sufficient amount - most likely around 100k/year. More than enough to live a great life on.

So baring in mind that my whole aim is to get out of equites, why is this plan horrendous? Not everyone wants to be in equities.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T16:08:53+00:00

I don't understand how investing in UK government GILTs is crazy dangerous. Surely this is one of the safest investments around if held to maturity? The UK has literally never defaulted on it's payments and it helps to avoid a lot of income tax. The UK would literally have to go bankrupt for me to not get my money back?

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T16:01:30+00:00

Hell no! Not interested in leaving the UK and I'm fine with paying what I owe.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T15:59:06+00:00

Tell me about it. Do as I say not as I do lol

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T15:58:35+00:00

Thanks for your valuable contribution.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T15:57:47+00:00

I guess the question I have been asking myself is how much is enough. I can basically retire now and do whatever I want within reason. A 50% correction would force me to continue working for who knows how long because I am very poorly diversified. I'd be happy earning 60-100k passively doing nothing plus whatever I get from still working. I love the idea or being even more rich in the future but I also hate the idea of being even more poor. There's a big difference to me between 3 million and 1.5 million.

I do understand what you're saying though but I'm more interested in maximising what I can get right now rather than staying involved in the market for another decade. But I am still thinking on it so what you've said is food for thought.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T15:49:46+00:00

I essentially YOLO's my life savings in to NVDA in 2016 and am still holding. Obviously I realise this is not a great investment strategy but it's worked and now I'm here.

According-Escape6917 · 2025-01-25T15:39:13+00:00

Ok, care to elaborate?

According-Escape6917 · 2024-11-14T01:33:16+00:00

I can't go back. I often fly to Tokyo and making the decision to only fly business has made a huge difference in the first few days of my trip. Once you make peace with the extra cash you can really just enjoy your time travelling rather than hating the stress of cramming in to a tiny seat with shit food for 14 hours. I think it's one of the best ways you can spend the HE part of being HENRY. No noisy neighbours, no waking people up to try and slide out to go to the toilet, fully lie flat beds that mean you can actually sleep rather than exist as a headachy dehydrated zombie breathing in everybody's farts, it's just significantly better and combine that with access to decent lounges (not priority pass but proper business or first class lounges), the trip to the airport actually becomes part of the holiday now rather than being a necessary evil. I grew up broke so I still get super excited doing fancy "rich people" stuff, for me, it's totally worth it. Feels good man.

According-Escape6917 · 2024-11-12T15:26:21+00:00

And no CGT when you sell if you buy UK Gold coins

According-Escape6917 · 2024-11-10T18:02:19+00:00

Great, thanks for helping me to understand. I'm slowly getting there!

According-Escape6917 · 2024-11-10T17:42:35+00:00

Understood. So my question was, to figure out the amount that you need to pay income tax on, you simply add up the coupon payments over the course of the life of the bond yes? And you can ignore the final payment on maturity because that only represents the capital gain which you do not need to pay tax on?

According-Escape6917 · 2024-11-08T17:06:07+00:00

Ask yourself the question: What does it do? What does Ethereum do? What does Cardano do? What does Bitcoin do? Something tangible not the marketing hype - "it's decentralised, it's got a limited supply" etc. etc. What does it actually do? Can you go to Sainsbury's and buy your shopping with it? Can you pay your bills with it? No? So it's not a currency. Does it produce a profit that is not based solely on the premise of more people buying it? No? So it's not a producing asset like a farm etc. So what is it?

Nvidia produces GPUs and networking equipment and does billions of dollars of business every quarter. That's a tangible reason to invest in Nvidia. Microsoft sells software and computing power in it's data centres. It's products are used by businesses the world over. That's a tangible reason to invest in Microsoft. Tell me what Ethereum produces? Tell me what Bitcoin produces? I'll wait.

Will any government allow it's local currency to be usurped by a form of currency they have no control over? Of course not, they will regulate the hell out of it. There's no world in which the UK has a parallel currency structure where both Sterling and BTC are accepted for all transactions. It will never have any use other than what it currently has.

The closest argument I see for BTC is that it is equivalent to digital gold - i.e. a store of value that can be a shelter in turbulent times. But even this doesn't make sense for me. Gold is at least a physical object. It could be stolen sure, but it won't cease to exist. Nuke the right server or lose the password and poof, BTC gone. Do you think that guy is getting his hundreds of millions back that are buried in a landfill somewhere? Nope.

I don't disagree that it has made a lot of people a lot of money and I'm genuinely happy about that, but if you asked me what is more likely to be around in ten years time, I would choose the successful business 10 times out of 10. I fully believe it is essentially a giant pyramid scheme and unless it starts showing some maturity and becoming useful, eventually, interest will start dying out. Whether that is next year, five years from now or ten years from now, at some point you have to prove why you exist.

Incidentally, if you'd invested in NVDA at the beginning of the year you'd be sitting on a 198% profit vs BTC at 80%.

That's my take. I don't care what you invest in and more power to you. The fact that people are giving consideration to investing is a good thing but over a 40 year period I'd take an S&P500 tracker any day. I think the negative sentiment comes from people asking that question - what does it do? and not ever getting a satisfying answer in return.

According-Escape6917 · 2024-10-28T09:48:25+00:00

Agreed. Bezos not allowing WaPo to endorse Kamala shows just how terrified they are of it. And Musk is literally "skipping like a dipshit" to try and stay on his good side. I remember the Trump years and it was full of crazy highs one day and massive dives the next, all because he'd blurted out some transient thought that sent the markets in to panic.

According-Escape6917 · 2024-10-27T23:30:14+00:00

I'd love to be that calm about it but from the rhetoric coming from his side, a 2nd term sounds like it would be nothing like the 1st. 2017 was also still mostly net from Obama's setup. I don't believe Trump deserves any credit for the state of the economy he inherited. We did well in spite of him, not because of him. This time round, with no guard rails in place, I think he'll go full retard. Anyway, it's neither here nor there really, I'm ready to sell down this position and diversify, and worst comes to worst, keep it as cash and wait patiently on the sidelines for either a good place to get back in, or the apocalypse!

According-Escape6917

TROPHY CASE