Here’s how to enjoy a millionaire’s retirement by investing in the FTSE 100

Here’s how the FTSE 100 (INDEXFTSE: UKX) could help you to a wealthy retirement if you invest and hold for decades.

The content of this article was relevant at the time of publishing. Circumstances change continuously and caution should therefore be exercised when relying upon any content contained within this article.

When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.

Read More

The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, any form of personal advice. Investments in a currency other than sterling are exposed to currency exchange risk. Currency exchange rates are constantly changing, which may affect the value of the investment in sterling terms. You could lose money in sterling even if the stock price rises in the currency of origin. Stocks listed on overseas exchanges may be subject to additional dealing and exchange rate charges, and may have other tax implications, and may not provide the same, or any, regulatory protection as in the UK.

You’re reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool’s Premium Investing Services. Become a Motley Fool member today to get instant access to our top analyst recommendations, in-depth research, investing resources, and more. Learn More.

If you read about investing in the stock market, you’ll see all sorts of seemingly meaningless magic words. FTSE 100? What’s that? And then there’s the FTSE 250, the FTSE Small Cap, the FTSE Fledgling…

But what does it all mean? Well firstly, it’s all very well being able to see how individual stocks are doing on a daily, monthly, or annual basis, etc. But that doesn’t really tell us how well things are going in the investment world in general. And so the idea of a stock market index was born, which pulls together the valuations of a specified set of companies and provides an aggregate measure of their worth.

The ‘FTSE’ bit just stands for ‘Financial Times Stock Exchange’, and that’s because the FTSE indexes are maintained by the FTSE Group, which was originally a joint venture of the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange Group. The FTSE Group is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group (which is itself a company whose shares you can buy, and is listed on the FTSE 100).

Should you invest £1,000 in easyJet right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Motley Fool Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets. And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if easyJet made the list?

See the 6 stocks

The biggest, and best?

The ‘100’ part just means it covers the 100 biggest public companies listed in London, and that’s by market capitalisation. Ooh, another buzz phrase. ‘Market capitalisation’ just means the total value of the company if you tot up all of its shares at the current market price. As examples, the FTSE 100 currently covers everything from Royal Dutch Shell, valued as I write at £218bn (and incidentally, more than 50% more valuable than the next biggest, HSBC Holdings at £142bn), to Mediclinic International valued at just under £4bn.

Because the Footsie (as it is sometimes whimsically known) is weighted in relation to the size of its constituent companies, every 1% change in the value of, for example, Shell shares will make a bigger difference than a similar 1% change in the value of Mediclinic shares.

Getting started

So how do you buy into the index and what are you getting? The usual way to go about it is to invest in what’s called a tracker fund, and a FTSE 100 tracker just tries to follow the ups and downs of the index. Some funds actually buy shares in all the companies in proportion to their valuation, buy many these days use computer-based strategies that just try to emulate the index’s performance. It can be worth checking a fund’s tracking error before buying, but most of them are reasonably accurate these days.

One beauty of such funds is that you can typically drip cash into them, with regular modest payments — it’s often possible to invest as little as £20 per month, though more is better if you’re sensible with your money. So you can get started with putting some of your savings into top quality shares with very little effort, and no need for any of your own individual company analysis.

And what you’re getting for your money is effectively a partial ownership of the UK’s biggest companies — and in many cases, some of the world’s biggest.

What do the figures mean?

Now that we know what the FTSE 100 is, what about its valuation? I’ve had people ask me many times — its level is currently around 7,600, but 7,600 what? Is that billions of pounds, or something?

It’s actually just 7,600 points, and is an arbitrary figure intended to show relative valuations — and it says nothing at all about the actual values of the companies in the index. The FTSE 100 was launched in January 1984 and was set at a base level of 1,000 points. It’s been regularly updated ever since, with a formula that’s weighted relative to the valuation of each company.

So when we look at that valuation today of 7,600 points, essentially all that is telling us is that its companies are now worth 7.6 times their overall value on that day back in 1984 — and that it’s however many percent up or down from yesterday, last week, last month, etc.

Performance

Bear in mind that it’s very much not the same 100 companies that made up the index at inception, as the index is regularly rebalanced as companies rise and fall in value. If, at rebalancing time, the biggest companies in the FTSE 250 (which contains the next 250 by size) are bigger than the smallest in the FTSE 100, we’ll see promotions and relegations.

The key question now is, how well would you have done had you invested in the FTSE 100 for the long term? We’ve seen that since inception in 1984, the value of the index has increased 7.6-fold. So every pound invested in 1984 would now be worth £7.60.

But it actually gets better than that, as you’d have been earning dividends over that 34-year period too. Typically that’s been around 3.5% per year over the long term, so you’d have had additional income of around 120% of your original cash — each pound would have turned into around £8.80. But that’s not the end, as you would have done even better if you’d invested your dividends in more shares and enjoyed more of that 7.6-fold appreciation.

UK vs the world

One thing you might have noticed is that you’re getting major exposure to worldwide companies if you invest in the FTSE 100. While there are some that are largely UK-focused, like Lloyds Banking Group, plus the utilities companies, and some construction firms, many are not. 

To me that means the FTSE 100 should be a safe haven to help protect our savings from Brexit fallout. Whatever the shape of our post-EU deal, an oil giant like Shell really won’t care. Nor will HSBC, or pharmaceuticals giants AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.

But that does raise another question. What should you do if you actually do want to invest more in the UK economy? You could do a lot worse than go for a FTSE 250 index tracker. It contains a higher proportion of UK-focused companies, and it’s actually risen around 14-fold over the same 34-year period of the FTSE 100’s history.

On the other hand, smaller companies can be more volatile, and the FTSE 250’s index yield tends to be lower. Whatever you choose, the secret is long-term regular investing.

5 Shares for the Future of Energy

Investors who don’t own energy shares need to see this now.

Because Mark Rogers — The Motley Fool UK’s Director of Investing — sees 2 key reasons why energy is set to soar.

While sanctions slam Russian supplies, nations are also racing to achieve net zero emissions, he says. Mark believes 5 companies in particular are poised for spectacular profits.

Open this new report5 Shares for the Future of Energy — and discover:

  • Britain’s Energy Fort Knox, now controlling 30% of UK energy storage
  • How to potentially get paid by the weather
  • Electric Vehicles’ secret backdoor opportunity
  • One dead simple stock for the new nuclear boom

Click the button below to find out how you can get your hands on the full report now, and as a thank you for your interest, we’ll send you one of the five picks — absolutely free!

Grab your FREE Energy recommendation now

Should you invest, the value of your investment may rise or fall and your capital is at risk. Before investing, your individual circumstances should be assessed. Consider taking independent financial advice.

Alan Oscroft owns shares of Lloyds Banking Group. The Motley Fool UK owns shares of and has recommended GlaxoSmithKline. The Motley Fool UK has recommended AstraZeneca, HSBC Holdings, and Lloyds Banking Group. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

More on Investing Articles

Close-up of British bank notes
Investing Articles

£20,000 in savings? Here’s how it could be used to target a £913 second income each month

Christopher Ruane walks through some practicalities of how an idle £20k could be the foundation for a sizeable long-term second…

Read more »

Young mixed-race couple sat on the beach looking out over the sea
Investing Articles

5 steps to building monthly passive income with a spare £10k

Christopher explains how an investor could aim to use some spare cash to start building regular passive income streams through…

Read more »

Blue NIO sports car in Oslo showroom
Investing Articles

Tesla’s struggling. Could NIO stock benefit?

NIO stock has moved up very slightly this year, while Tesla has crashed. Our writer considers whether it might be…

Read more »

Two employees sat at desk welcoming customer to a Tesla car showroom
Investing Articles

Could Tesla stock be a brilliant bargain in plain sight?

Christopher Ruane sees some things to like about Tesla, but as its vehicle revenues have gone into sharp decline, is…

Read more »

British coins and bank notes scattered on a surface
Investing Articles

3 cheap FTSE 250 stocks with big dividends to consider buying right now

The FTSE 250's loaded with so many big dividend yields it's hard to know where to start. These three have…

Read more »

Rolls-Royce's Pearl 10X engine series
Investing Articles

Up 585%, could Rolls-Royce shares still go higher?

Christopher Ruane likes the Rolls-Royce business but is not so convinced by the value its current share price offers him.…

Read more »

Silhouette of a bull standing on top of a landscape with the sun setting behind it
Investing Articles

I reckon a bull market’s coming! Here’s what I’m buying for my Stocks and Shares ISA

Hoping to capitalise on what he believes is an undervalued UK stock market, our writer’s added more of this FTSE…

Read more »

piggy bank, searching with binoculars
Investing Articles

The UK stock market looks undervalued to me. Here’s 1 growth stock to consider for a SIPP

Our writer explains why he thinks the UK stock market’s currently in bargain territory, and identifies one share potentially worthy…

Read more »