Steve's blog about RMPrepUSB, Easy2Boot, USB booting, Investing and sometimes other stuff too!
Visit www.rmprepusb.com for over 140 Tutorials on USB booting or www.easy2boot.xyz for a unique USB multiboot solution.
Many people would like to invest for 5 years or more but do not want to actively trade - they just want to invest a lump sum (and maybe add to it every month or 3 months).
Many years ago I decided to entrust an inheritance to Fisher Investments. They have an annual charge of approx. 1.5%/yr and there is also an initial on-boarding fee for life planning, etc. Fisher very much believe that, provided you have other means of support (e.g. adequate pension and you own your own house), 100% equity investment is best (no bonds or cash). Their fund is basically the same as the SWDA MSCI Core Global ETF but with a few tweaks depending on the current economic climate. For instance, because of Trump's election, they increased their portfolio weighting of European stocks.
As you can see from the charts below, Fisher's fund (Purisima Global Total Return B - shaded blue line) has basically followed the SWDA ETF.
HelloStocks provide a free list of potentially good investment holdings here.
I cannot vouch for their accuracy or integrity, but it does seem to provide lists of companies suitable for investment depending upon different criteria.
P.S. I have added some extra companies to my 'nuclear' blog article here - see the 'Other possible candidates' section. Some of these have shown +400% and +600% gain in the last year! I have made an 'SMR Pie' in Trading 212 and invested in most of these for the long term as I foresee a desperate need for large amounts of electricity to supply AI and data farms as well as EVs in the next 10 years. In 2027, some SMRs should finally be working and demonstrating their cost effectiveness and efficiency. More SMRs will follow. There will be a need for Uranium and the special fuels that are needed, so no matter which SMR designs win the race, the companies supplying and making the fuel will rocket in value as demand will exceed supply - at least that's my theory!
What a week! After the Fed 0.25% rate cut announcement on Wednesday which everyone was expecting, US shares started to gain (Fed indicated two possible further 25 bps cuts before end of year). Nvidia announced a $5billion investment in Intel and the USD/GBP rate fell 1.5% from 1.36 to 1.34 which also increased the value of US stocks for UK investors.
It is projected that the cost of living in the U.S. is projected to continue its upward trend in 2026 and 2027, with the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) expected to reach approximately 333.85 and 341.87 points, respectively, according to Trading Economics. In the UK, it is expected to peak in early 2026 and then very slowly decline.
During these times, credit lenders such as banks, buy-now-pay-later companies like Klarna, credit card companies, discount stores (BME, etc.) can all do well.
A previous favourite of mine had been the pawn shop business H&T Group plc (HAT). I look at buying shares in this company during recessions and when the gold price was high because many people would pawn their gold jewelry and as the value of gold went up, the value of their stock would go up too.
My portfolios went down by 1-2% over the last few days despite the S&P 500 being at an all-time high. The dip was due to the weakening $USD. However, today (Thursday 18th Sept.) it seems to be gaining strength and both T212 portfolios have bounced back up again.
The Fx change however, did mean that I could buy more with my £GBP on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The world needs green electricity - especially electricity that does not depend on the weather (i.e. neither wind nor solar). Unlike the USA, who are drilling for oil and gas with no regard for global warming, the UK have adopted a Net Zero policy.
In November 2024, the UK and 30 other countries signed a global pledge to triple their nuclear capacity by 2050.
Around 17th February 2025, Tech shares began to fall. Some people were afraid that the over-priced tech. bubble was finally popping. Others were reacting to the Trump effect and USA instability.
Some investors feared the worst and sold up and converted their portfolios to cash or bonds - especially those with portfolios in tax free wrappers such as ISAs or SIPPs.
Russia has sent drones over NATO (Poland) territory. This has caused some concern amongst the West.
Oana Lungescu, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank and a former NATO spokesperson, said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte "has said that NATO needs a five-fold increase in air and missile defense capabilities, so that’s an urgent priority. It’s also important that all NATO countries clarify their national legislation about downing aircraft entering their airspace."
Defense stocks and shares had increased in price over the last 8 months due to the Ukraine/Russian war, but this latest incident has shown that more spending on defense (from drones) is immediately required.
Here is a status report of my two Trading 212 accounts which have performed very well this week (it probably won't last :-( ).
My £20K ISA account was opened on April 7 2025 with a £20K lump sum.
My £70K GIA Invest account was opened with £1K in Feb 2024, by June 2025 I had deposited £40K, July 2025 £60K and by Sept. 2025 £70K
Note: I have other SIPP, ISA and GIA accounts which I tend not to touch and only look at occasionally. These comprise of safer, longer term ETFs such as HMWS, XLKQ, IUCM, IITU, EQGB and Artemis Global Income Fund. I use my Trading 212 accounts for more active trading as they have a great app. and web site and very useful search/research features plus alerts, etc. They make investing fun!
I have been investing for over 20 years and have made many mistakes along the way!
My philosophy for these two Trading 212 accounts is to have some fun but never make a large loss by taking big risks. If I buy risky/volatile stocks, it will only be in small amounts that would not seriously harm my whole portfolio. That is why I have 40-50 holdings in each account. Using a wide diversity of stock types is thus spreading the risk. That is why I do not invest large amounts in such trendy, highly tipped companies like FuboTV, HIVE, Crowdstrike, Vertiv, Fortinet, etc. Large losses can seriously affect portfolio performances.
Just use THIS LINK to sign up and get Trading 212 free shares once you have put some money into your account. I will also get some free shares too :-)
I list below some shares and ETFs that have been appearing a lot in many YouTube investor videos.
Most have shown amazing gains so far, but of course they could descend into the depths of Hades at any moment, so beware! Many are purely sentiment driven.
The ones listed below are all ones I hold and most (but not all) are showing me a nice gain so far.
Please do your own research on them and if you decide to buy any, please buy at a good price and remember to take profits before they collapse.
The market at the moment seems to be high, so maybe wait a while?
I will list each one with the 3 month and 1 year performance percentages in parentheses.
Two of my friends here in the UK who were overweight and pre-diabetic have started to take weight loss drugs.
They were not on an NHS prescription however and it had to be paid for out of their own pocket. Each were paying over £200 a month but the results have proved remarkable. Both women have lost weight and look so much healthier, happier and more attractive! Clearly, these drugs advertise themselves!
This, of course, means that the potential for the success of these drugs is enormous, for both women and men.
Couple this with the fact that as soon as you stop taking the drug, you start eating for two and the weight piles on again, and so we have a drug habit as expensive as tobacco but it is all profit with no tax!
Clive Thompson is a retired professional investor who has a YouTube channel that gives investing information and tips.
He says he has learnt of large transactions which are about to take place in a week or so by a large ETF company that is disposing of a large amount of stocks and buying other gold and silver stocks instead.
Anyone in the UK who has not already opened a Stocks and Shares ISA must be crazy! Lol :-)
Trading 212 offer a free account (no charges except a very small Foreign Exchange rate charge if you buy non-GBP shares). You can buy fractional shares (so you can buy shares even if you only have £5 a month to invest) and because the ISA is flexible, you can take out all your money from the ISA (tax free) at any time and as long as you put it back in before the end of the tax year (April 5th 2026), anything you put back in is still tax free. You don't need to tell the tax man about your ISA or any profit you make inside your ISA - it is all tax free!
Manolete Partners are an insolvency litigation financing company who were listed on the AIM market in 2008 and has risen 38% in the last month and 16% in the last week. Manolete work for, and alongside, HMRC, the Insolvency Service, the British Business Bank and the many hundreds of outstanding private sector insolvency practitioners and insolvency and restructuring lawyers.
The recent share price increase is presumably due to recent cases which they have on-boarded and funded. Their 2024 net profit was 3%.
I have been investing in Stocks and Shares for over 20 years, starting with ISAs and then with General (taxable) Investment Accounts (GIAs) and then I also started a SIPP.
Over those 20 years, I have made all the mistakes possible:
Broadcom (AVGO) often appears in the top 10 tech stocks lists but yet seems to be mainly ignored by most retail investors. It has shown a massive gain of over 100% in just 1 year.
This morning (pre-market UK) it seems to be rocketing up 10% so far today, so I have bought in...
Last week I bought a few 'risky' shares/ETFs inside my ISA. Yesterday the whole market was down, but when the UK market opened this morning, it was looking better.
First, I have bought £1000 of the NASDAQ 100 x3 long QQQ3 this morning as I notice that EQGB, XLKQ and IITU are all up this morning (probably due to Alphabet/Google).
Then I checked on my recent smaller mining holdings which are also up today:
In the UK, the cheapest Stocks and Shares providers are Trading 212 and Invest Engine, however they do not provide all types of accounts (e.g. SIPPs, LISAs) and do not allow purchase of mutual funds (e.g. my current favourite fund - Artemis Global Income Fund).
Some brokerage providers do not offer Flexible ISAs and have quite high trading charges.
A new online tool (under development) is here. It is not yet entirely accurate, but you can view the source data here and check each brokers T&Cs. For instance I have an Interactive Investor account and the charges are shown incorrectly by this online tool, they are actually:
One of the YouTube channels I follow is that of the Geordie Pig Investor. He used to be very strongly into UK Dividend paying companies, but has since seen the light and has started to strengthen his portfolio with USA and global accumulating ETFs.
In normal times, I would buy mainly World ETFs and US Tech ETFs, but I think the USA is heading for a money-printing phase next year and weakening dollar. The Trump effect has made me cautious.
So I have been looking for a good UK company like RR to invest in and Geordie Pig's pick of Ashtead Technology seems like a bargain to me, especially as it has just gone ex-dividend this month and so its low price should rise again before the next 6-monthly dividend payout in early Jan 2026. His video is below. The shares should be moving out of the AIM market on October 6th and although this will be priced in, it may see greater upwards movement when it hits the London market.
I have held a small amount of crypto via Coinbase for many years.
I originally started a Coinbase account because some of my users wanted to make a donation in crypto in gratitude for my free RMPrepUSB and Easy2Boot software.
Donations were usually quite small, but over a period of a few years, it probably added up to about £100. I experimented with this as it grew in value and bought £600 Ethereum with it as it grew in value. A few years ago, I then converted it all back into Bitcoin and this week I decided to cash it all in for about £1200. I am just not convinced Bitcoin or crypto is going anywhere - after all it has had plenty of opportunity. Stablecoins are another offshoot, but the infrastructure costs of maintaining a global blockchain and transaction costs don't seem to live up to the promises. If they did, then the finance companies would be adopting crypto like crazy.
Cashing in my Bitcoin means I have crystallised a taxable capital gain of approx. £600. The Coinbase fee for the conversion to cash and withdrawal was over £20. So much for crypto transactions being cheap (1.66%)!
What to buy with £1200?
This leaves me with the problem of what to buy with the 'free' money.
The USA market is looking very volatile at the moment. It is not clear whether USA $ index ETFs are a good investment right now, compared to the UK or Europe (or even other areas such as Japan, etc.).
US stocks have fallen for five days running as traders nervously await a speech from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.
I use my GIA accounts for safer, less volatile, longer term investing. In these GIA accounts I hold HMWS, EQGB, XLKQ and IUCM (the first MSCI all world containing approx. 60% US companies and the last three almost 100% US companies). So long-term, I am very Tech biased and thus USA biased.
However, in my £20K ISA account on Trading 212, I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies as I like to short-term and mid-term trade within this account because any gains within my ISA will not trigger any CGT when sold.
This morning's T212 ISA mix is quite a mess at the moment (IRR 13%) as I am top-slicing many of the larger holdings in order to hold cash, ready to buy on the forthcoming dip.
The promise of AI seems to have been oversold as far as I can see. The chip producers and AI software companies seem to have over promised. AI will benefit certain service sectors and finance sectors however, especially anyone who uses a large number of real live humans for support services, etc.
Another complication is the weak $Dollar rate vs the UK £GBP or EU €Euro. I am avoiding any risk by opting for currency hedged ETFs (e.g. EQGB instead of EQQQ).
The 3-month chart below shows how the $Dollar rate has affected gains on index funds for UK investors:
I bought HIVE recently and it is showing encouraging signs.
Maybe one to consider?
--- oOo ---
P.S. 10/10/2025 - over the past few months I traded HIVE about 4 times (max £1000) and made about £600. If I had just held, I would have made more (x2) but I like to take profits when available!
You will see many YouTube videos which continually tell you how important it is to buy the index ETF which has the lowest TER rate.
The TER is the hidden rate that you are charged. It is the cost of owning the ETF. Differences between different providers are usually very small. For instance the benchmark World ETF SWDA has a TER of 0.20% but the identical ETF HMWS has a TER of 0.15%.
Over 3 years, the gain of these two ETFs were:
SWDA 37.28% (TER 0.20%)
HMWS 37.83% (TER 0.15%)
So £10,000 invested for 3 years would give us approx. £78 more if we chose HMWS instead of SWDA.
However, we often have another choice to make when deciding which index ETF to buy and that is whether to buy a currency hedged or unhedged ETF.
Ventoy 1.1.07 is now available from the Ventoy website. Download here.
If you have added the Ventoy image files to your E2B drive, you can update them by clicking on the Make_Latest_Ventoy_Partition_Image.cmd script which is located on the 2nd partition of the E2B drive in the \e2b\Update agFM folder.
Note that the integrated and modified Ventoy For Easy2Boot is still version 1.0.97 of Ventoy.
