Should you keep your emergency 'cash pot' inside a Flexible ISA?

In the UK, we can put up to £20K into a tax-free ISAs each year and any capital gains are completely tax free.

Emergency cash pot

Many people (and particularly the self-employed) will have an emergency 'cash pot' which they can withdraw cash from should an emergency arise, such as if being unable to work due to accident or health, loss of job, unforeseen expenses, etc. 

If you need to withdraw funds (e.g. due to temporary loss of income) it is best to withdraw from your emergency cash pot which typically holds at least 3-6 months of income rather than sell your high-gain stocks/ETFs and be out of the market.

Unless you are retired and are drawing a good pension, you may need an emergency pot that is large enough to support you for at least 6 months or so, especially if you don't have any other 'cash' resources.

This pot should not be invested in volatile assets because it needs to be available at all times - if you invested it in the S&P500 and the stock market went down 50% just when you needed the cash, you would only have half the emergency funds you thought you had!

When the s*it hits the fan...

Should you pick a currency-hedged ETF if you don't live in the USA?

Some ETFs are 'hedged'. This usually means they are currency-hedged.

Currency-hedged ETFs are designed to protect investors from currency risk. They are a simple, cheap and effective way for small investors to access currency management techniques that were once the preserve of major financial institutions.  

Currency risk affects you negatively when your home currency strengthens against a foreign currency – reducing the value of your assets held in that foreign currency. That means UK based investors are exposed to currency risk on all non-hedged ETFs that trade in overseas securities.  

Currency-hedged ETFs are useful because they remove the uncertainty of exchange rate fluctuations. They sterilise your portfolio against the effect of currency so that your overseas investment doesn’t gain when the pound falls or lose when the pound rises.  

Let us look at the US Dollar versus the GB Pound.

This Android phone tip may save you $THOUSANDS one day!

So picture this - you have an android phone (e.g. android 14 or 15) and you are happily using it in your favourite pub or eating house. You are checking your emails, reading Reddit, playing a game, talking to someone or reading a text message - just the usual stuff.

So, of course, at this precise moment your phone is unlocked simply because you are using it.

You have taken the precaution set up a SIM card PIN however, so that even if someone steals your locked phone and puts your SIM card into their own unlocked phone, they will not be able to steal from you by using your phone number to receive SMS password reset messages or call premium rate numbers. You think you are pretty safe...

But now, all of a sudden, someone snatches your phone out of your hand and since they now have your unlocked phone, they can easily access your SMS messages and emails. This means they can now reset your bank PINs and email passwords which then locks you out of your own accounts and gives them full access instead of you! Google will helpfully fill in any of your passwords! Two factor authentication is not a problem because the second factor is your phone!

Best long-term ETFs for UK investors (and retire with £3 million)!

If you just want to invest in the stock market, say with £100 each and every month (called 'dollar cost averaging') automatically taken from your bank account a few days after your pay day, what ETFs should you buy?

US investors, including the famous Warren Buffet, say to just invest in the S&P 500 but UK investors may also want to diversify outside US stocks because we are affected by foreign exchange rates as well as a 15% dividend withholding tax applied to US dividends.

However, US stocks have performed much better than UK or even EU stocks, even allowing for exchange rates and foreign taxes, so we have a difficult decision.

Generate autounattend.xml files for Windows 10/11

You may be familiar with https://www.windowsafg.com/ which helps you to generate unattend.xml file to automate Windows installations. Easy2Boot also includes a utility XMLtoE2B which can be used with WAFG.

There is also a site at https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ which you may find useful.

These can be useful if you are installing Windows using Ventoy or Easy2Boot.

My eBook sale was 'hacked'! (only 3 days left!)

My eBook sale has only 3 days left.

You can get between 15% and 25% off with multibuys, however, some enterprising customers seem to have been able to get 30% off by combining multiple discount offers!

Store

If you found my eBooks useful, why not get another before it is too late?

My shop front is here,

P.S. If you like the idea of earning income from a side hustle, why not get my 'How to make $1000 a month from the internet' eBook!  - recently updated to v1.10. If you think you can write and sell eBooks or have a product or business idea, this eBook should save you a lot of time and prevent you from losing money! My own real and truthful sales figures are included + useful hints and tips on how to get started, etc, Surely that is worth a few $ ;=(

Here is an example of how to set up a simple website to sell Digital Products by Hostinger, but read my eBook for hundreds of tips and Gotcha's first!

Are Dividend ETFs performing better than other ETFs?

The last 6 months have been rather weak for Tech ETFs such as IITU and even Global tracker ETFs like the benchmark SWDA.

I see that dividend ETFs show better performance as well as paying dividends.

It expected that we will continue to see volatility during October/November 2024, so it may be better to switch some funds into dividend and value ETFs during this period.

The table below shows some of the best ETFs available in the UK and for comparison IITU and SWDA. Some Dividend ETFs are accumulating funds and some pay dividends.

A 6-month chart is shown below:

Should I Buy Commodities ETFs?

Everyone needs commodities such as coffee, sugar, natural gas, etc. Their value will depend on their availability and future demand.

Wisdom Tree have many ETFs which allow you to 'gamble' on the futures price of some commodities such as Coffee (COFF) which has shown 100% gain in this last year.

Do you want to get free shares worth up to £100?

 Do you want to get free shares worth up to £100 (£8-£100 randomly allocated)?

Join Trading 212, invest with my link and we will both get free shares.

https://www.trading212.com/invite/17tLB1ol6b

Trading 212 will pay 5.1% (UK) interest on cash in your T212 accounts, no monthly charge and no share buy/sell transaction charge (apart from Stamp Duty on UK company shares and Foreign Exchange charge of typ. 0.15% on non-GBP conversions). You can also get a debit card with your account to give you a debit card account paying 5.1% on your T212 balance (check spending/ATM withdrawal limitations).

Stock market tip September 2024 (after Fed reserve rate cut 0.5%)

The USA federal reserve cut the rate by 0.5%. I am taking a cautious approach to large (magnificent 7) US stocks however and especially Tech stocks.

This means I am reducing my USA Tech exposure (XLKQ and IITU). I see finance companies (esp. credit card/lending) doing well in next 6 months and also Energy companies seem quite cheap just now. I am DCAing into world index instead of USA tech.

I have updated my ETF tip blog article with this note:

Update 21/9/2024 - Fed 0.5% rate cut happened which gave approx 1% rise to S&P. Smaller companies should now begin to do better as they will pay less interest on borrowings and can expand. The S&P600/small cap is a good bet now - e.g. ISP6 (2 divs/yr) or USSC (acc - heavier in financials which is good) or invest in both as their top 10 don't overlap. Also Financials (WFEG or XLFQ or UIFS) and Energy (IESU) seem good.

My core ETF XDEQ holding has not performed very well this last 6 months compared to the benchmark SWDA (XDEQ 1yr performance was better than SWDA), however, XDEQ has top holdings in Visa, Mastercard, Nordisk, Costco and ASML, so I expect XDEQ to outperform SWDA in this next 6 months.

N.B. This is not investment advice and I am just a random guy on the internet! Please do your own research before investing.

P.S. On 20 August I tipped gold (SGLN) as perhaps a good hedge, it is currently up 2% (probably more good luck than judgement though!).

P.P.S. I sold SGLN in early October as I don't see it going up much more compared to finance/energy/world quality/small market.

eBook SALE IS NOW ON (15%-25% off this week!)

Store

Even though my eBooks have an average review rating of over 4.5 Stars and only cost $5 (+10% less if you buy more than one), I have now reduced the price by 15% for a week (finish 30 September) so you can get 25% off if you buy two or more!

If you found my eBooks useful, why not get another?

My shop front is here,

P.S. If you like the idea of earning income from a side hustle, why not get my 'How to make $1000 a month from the internet' eBook!  - recently updated to v1.10. If you think you can write and sell eBooks or have a product or business idea, this eBook should save you a lot of time and prevent you from losing money! My own real and truthful sales figures are included + useful hints and tips on how to get started, etc, Surely that is worth a few $ ;=(

Here is an example of how to set up a simple website to sell Digital Products by Hostinger, but read my eBook for hundreds of tips and Gotcha's first!

Add DOS benchmarks to your Easy2Boot USB drive

DOS and DOS-based programs will only work if you legacy/BIOS boot to E2B.

Here are a few tools with instructions.

Phils Computer Lab DOS benchmark tools - download the zip file and extract the contents to a new folder named \DOSBENCH on the large NTFS Partition 1 of your E2B USB drive.  Then legacy boot to the E2B DOS menu and select the  'FreeDIS (from a floppy image)' option. This boots to FreeDOS - select the first 'with NTFS support' option. Now type  CD \DOSBENCH to change to the DOSBENCH folder and type DOSBENCH to run the menu.

The menu also allows you to play DOOM and a Quake demo!

Phils 386 Benchmark Pack

How to prepare your investment portfolio for these volatile times

Stock prices can go up and down a lot within a month. The value of your investment portfolio  will also go up and down too. When it goes up you will feel happy but when it drops by 10% or more, you may begin to question whether now is the time to sell!

SWDA Global Index Tracker ETF (5th August 2024 was a bad day- but the market recovered).

Amazon Prime bargains

This week you can pick up tremendous Amazon bargains!

Air Fryer

I bought an air fryer last year and I can honestly say they are great! Cheap to run, saves using lots of oil (e.g. the expensive Extra Virgin olive oil that I exclusively use), and healthier. I use mine everyday for chips, veg and meat. I now eat fresh meals every day and feel much healthier too. My electricity usage has reduced this year as I hardly ever use my main electric oven now. The air fryer has probably paid for itself already.

The unusual Schallen air fryer (#ad) is not only very cheap (just £30) but it is very easy to clean because the 'basket' is just a large Pyrex glass bowl.

Or you could up-scale to a large 5 litre Cosori (#ad) with Wi-Fi for about £70.

Is it time to buy Gold?

This year, Physical Gold has outperformed many global equity ETFs including my favourites SWDA and XDEQ. The gold ETF SGLN has shown a gain of 27.5% in one year. Over last 1, 3, 5 and 10 years it has kept pace with all world ETFs. Unlike bonds, gold can also dive when the market dives however.

This Q4 is expected to be volatile and the recent correction has scared some people but the market has now recovered. Investors are scared that a bigger correction may be coming before the end of 2024 and 2025 is also looking unsettled. 2025 is predicted to not be as good as the past two years have been. So some people are now turning to gold as a safer haven for their cash.

The graph below compares my favourite Physical Gold ETF (SGLN) to some other popular ETFs. Volatile Tech ETFs like tech ETFs XLKQ (40% gain this last year) or IITU have outperformed gold. China has a lot of secret gold (reputedly far more than they have declared) and if they need/want to sell some, they could devalue the dollar which would affect USA share prices. This would cause gold to increase in price as countries would want to increase their gold holdings to stabilise their own currency. Russia also hold a lot of gold and may need to sell some to support their Ukraine war.

Fix Ventoy UEFI Secure Boot not working on new PCs and Laptops

 

Secure Boot to grub/Ventoy/agFM/Linux, etc.

Secure Boot is supported by many Linux distributions and is an important security feature for ensuring that your boot loader and kernel have not been tampered with. Linux distributions use a Microsoft signed ‘shim’ executable that is then able to verify the subsequent boot stages - that have been signed with the distribution key. The Microsoft-signed shim is signed using the “Microsoft 3rd Party UEFI Certificate”, and this certificate is stored in the BIOS database. 

Starting in 2022 for Secured-core PCs it is a Microsoft requirement for the 3rd Party Certificate to be disabled by default. This means that for any of these platforms shipped with Windows preinstalled an extra step is needed to allow Linux or grub2 or Ventoy or E2B to boot with secure boot enabled. 

To enable secure boot to work with a non-Microsoft bootloader such as used with Linux or grub2 or Ventoy, etc. you will need to enable the “Allow Microsoft 3rd Party UEFI CA” option in the BIOS setup. 

Use the following steps (example Lenovo): 

No more Ventoy Secure Boot Issues - just use an IODD drive!

If you need a Multiboot solution that works with Secure Boot without any problems (no BIOS issues, no MOK Manager changes to the BIOS for Ventoy, etc.), then get an IODD Virtual drive.

The latest one is USB C and is a 2.5" HDD/SSD enclosure. So you can just buy it and fit you own 2.5" SSD which are pretty cheap these days.

These devices allow you to also select fixed size VHDs as a virtual drive (as well as .ISO files and .IMA floppy image files). This means you can have 100's of virtual drives in one device. Each VHD can contain an MBR or GPT drive, each with multiple partitions (e.g. contents of a Rufus USB drive, WinPE, Windows installer, full OS's, Ventoy drive, E2B drive, etc.).

ST400 IODD (#ad link)

Simple hack to make sure Amazon deliver to you personally (no more 'drop and dash')!

In the UK, certain items are age restricted. If you include one of these items in your order, then the delivery driver must ask you for age verification. This means they must knock on your door or ring your doorbell, wait for someone to open it and then verify the age of the person that receives the parcel.

Of course, someone over 18 must be in to receive the delivery or they will need to redeliver it.

So, in the UK, simply include a knife in your order (the Amazon page will warn you that age confirmation is required - see above). Cheap knives on Amazon are often only £1-£2, so just add a useful cheap knife to your order and make sure someone over 18 will be in on the delivery day!

You can always sell any surplus knives or give them as gifts to your friends and neighbours!

Steve's stock market top UK ETFs and tips (Q3 2024)

This article will be updated regularly. Visit every week for updates. Bookmark it now!

Charts/Info correct at 11 July 2024 (Justetf.com comparisons).

Updates

Blog page updated 15/7/24

Update 26/7/24 - Current Tech stocks correction, but 2024 Q4 S&P500 expected to do well in Q4. Wait for stocks to start rise again (may start today 26/7) and then BUY. May want to sell some in Q1 2025 if USA market volatile and buy more quality or world emerging market and small cap?

Update 5/8/2024 - Markets down 2-10% !! Mainly affected by USA - Fed failing to reduce interest rates and higher unemployment. Mostly however, companies are doing OK and the US market should recover after September. Probably too late to sell now, but get cash ready to invest in late Aug/Sept as soon as stocks start to plateau. UK\EU may be good as a hedge. Could consider selling some stock and buying CSH2 (money market 5.4%) but may miss recovery! I am not selling as expect bounce up when Fed finally cuts interest rate in Sept.

Update 13/8/2024 - Markets recovering to previous 3 months level. Market expecting Fed interest rate cut in Sept and better USA employment figures. If stocks dip today/tomorrow, maybe I will buy more.

Update 14/8/2024 - Best performing ETFs YearToDate, UICM 19% (US Comms), PQVG 21% (S&P QVM), IWFM 20% (World momentum), XDEM 20% (world momentum), IITU 22% (US Tech), XLKQ 25% (US Tech).

Update 16/8/2024 - Market recovered.  Hot Tip: Buy TSLA now using ETF ICDU (Amazon 34%, Tesla 13%, Home Depot 8%).  These companies may benefit from AI and also TSLA from sale of it's non-Chinese car software to all other global car companies that currently use Chinese OTA update software. Timeframe: 1 yr. BT group, Amazon, Alphabet and MSFT looking like strong buy (most except BT already in XLKQ ETF).

2024/8/27 - I bought FLXX sold some EMIM iShares Edge MSCI EM Value and all Japan.

Update 13/9/2024 - Market dipped but now recovering again! ICDU tipped last month is up almost 6% in one month.  new tips are energy and finance sectors - e.g. IESU and IUFS for Mastercard\Visa. These are expected to do well within a 6 month time frame. For steady UK dividend stock try IUKD (5.8% in 3 months, 17% in 1 yr) which has beaten SWDA\XDEQ in last 1,3,6,12 months! Gold SGLN at all-time high, not a good time to buy - hold. I bought XLKQ 2024/9/4, XDEQ, SGLN and EQQQ 2024/9/10, IESU and IUFS 2024/9/13.

Update 21/9/2024 - Fed 0.5% rate cut happened which gave approx 1% rise to S&P. Smaller companies should now begin to do better as they will pay less interest on borrowings and can expand. The S&P600/small cap is a good bet now - e.g. ISP6 (2 divs/yr) or USSC (acc - heavier in financials which is good) or both as their top 10 don't overlap. Also Financials (WFEG or XLFQ or UIFS) and Energy (IESU - long term) seem good value.

How to make at least £20K ($20K) for free!

This article mainly applies to UK residents but the general principle applies to most countries.

WARNING: If you have a non-state Pension, you may be being ripped off!

Reading this article can save you a lot of money! Someone may have robbed you of at least 20K and you don't even know it!