Sunday 7th May - How to Start your portfolio

Being a Sunday the markets are closed, but you can still plan your future.

In todays Sunday Times, Money section, they publish a short column every week on how to invest £10,000.

This week it's aimed at anyone in their 40's who are new to investing, maybe you realise that earning 1% or less on your hard earned money is a waste of time.

This week Mark Taylor of Selftrade suggest a portfolio based on three ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds - like unit trusts but a whole lot cheaper)

He suggests a world tracker HSBC MSCI for £5,000, the S&P UK Dividend Aristocrats ETF (tracks top yielding UK companies that have increased their dividends consistently over many years) for £3,000 and finally dor the remaining £2,000 you should by an All Commodities ETF that tracks prices of wheat and corn, oil and gas and so on.

In the last year these ETFs are up 32.2%, 26.1% and 12.1% respecyively.

And why use ETFs? It's because their charges are very low, less than 1% in each case. Many people just don't realise how a fee of sy 1% can east into your returns over long period, an £100,000 portfolo could be down by £20,000 over a long period of time if charges are over 1%.

Also when buying ETFs you should pick a share platform that charges the least, in this case T D Direct Investing (https://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/) would be a good choice, totally free except for purchasing the funds, and no stamp duty - ETF's do not attract any stamp duty. Nice!