TIME TO LOOK AT INCOME

Moneybox Man has turned his anxious eyes away from the Greek Economy,  and has been looking at three stocks for income, that might be conveniently purchased within an ISA. High-dividend stocks are best in an ISA because you don't have to tell the tax man about them.

The first is Invesco Leveraged High Yield. (See other posts). Moneybox Man put £6,300 into it exactly two months ago. The price has gone down slightly, but the NAV has gone up - making it a classic buying opportunity for the sharp-eyed investor, for it is now at a discount of almost 9%, whereas Moneybox Man only got in at 8.8%

A less exciting but very solid long-term income buy is Vanguard Equity Income Fund. This is a new tracker from the US Vanguard Group, and has a TER of only 0.25%. You can read about it here Normally to invest in the fund you have to put up £100,000, but using the Alliance platform you can invest any sum you like.

Thirdly, what about some cumulative irredeemable preference shares? Moneybox Man has just increased his holding in Aviva 8.75 Cum Irrd Prefs in order to boost his income. These are, of course, shares in one company, but they are very well protected.

Basically, preference shares get paid before ordinary shareholders. So if there isn't much profit, the prefs scoff it all. Secondly, these are "cumulative" - meaning that if Aviva fails to pay a dividend for a year or two, the preference shareholders have to be paid all their back dividends before anybody else gets anything.

Irredeemable means that Aviva will not redeem the shares at £1 each. There isn't actually much point in their trying, because the shares are currently valued at around £1.13p.

This means that you don't actually get 8.75% interest, but around 7.2%. The money is paid into your account twice a year.

Do you know a bank that will pay you 7.2% interest on your money, tax-free?

To buy Aviva go to the Alliance TRADING CENTRE. Then pick "Investment Trading" then "Trade Now"

The code to enter on the Alliance website is for Aviva prefs is AV.A

For Invesco Leveraged it is ILH

For the Vanguard Fund, you go to the first box on the trading screen, fund supermarket, press "trade in funds" and the code is VVUKEI 

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

"The markets are up, but its just the calm before the storm" - that was the view of the fortnightly seminar in the Tannochbrae Inn on Monday. Moneybox Man is 20% cash, and he yearns for the markets to fall so that he can get it invested. He takes little comfort in the fact that the £12,000 he put into James Anderson's Scottish Mortgage and Sue Rippingale's Scottish Oriental, exactly a month ago, is now worth £13,954. This investment, however, did win him a bottle of Scotch for best pick-of-the-year so far, very prettily presented by Miss Muddled, Middlesex.

Several seminar members, including the entire Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, gave Bewitched, Beckenham advice on how to invest the remainder of her portfolio cash once she has subscribed to ISAs for his year and next year. The answer is to open a dealing account on line at Alliance Trust, and put the money in by debit card.


When to buy? That's the question!