Why invest with Barclays?

Remember, the value of the investments can fall as well as rise. You may not get back what you invest. We're not recommending Ready-made Investments as being suitable for you based on your personal circumstances. If you're unsure about this investment’s suitability for you, you should seek independent advice.

What you'll learn:

• How Ready-made Investments work
• How they aim for different levels of risk and reward
• The importance of asset allocation and diversification.

If you’re new to investing, the volume of information can seem daunting. Learning how things work can be a challenge. It can take time to put together a portfolio that offers you diversification across different types of investments, while settling on a level of risk and reward that you’re comfortable with.

Ready-made Investments offer a quick, efficient and cost-effective way to build a diversified portfolio. Even if you’ve invested before, if you’d prefer to let our experts manage your investments, once you’ve identified the investment that corresponds to your own goals and risk appetite, Ready-made Investments could be just what you’re looking for.

Why choose us?

If a ready-made approach appeals to you, there are several products available on the market, so why choose us?

We offer a range of Ready-made Investments – some aimed at investors who are primarily seeking to earn a regular income from their investments and some aimed at those looking for capital growth.

Once you’ve decided on the risk and reward balance you’re comfortable with and you’ve chosen the appropriate Ready-made Investment, our Investment experts will manage your investment in line with the features described in its key investor information document.

Partnering with industry experts

Our Ready-made Investments make use of asset management experts BlackRock, who are leaders in ‘passive’ portfolio management. BlackRock has been appointed to carry out our asset allocations for growth investments.

Passive investments aim to match the performance of an index they’re tracking, unlike an ‘active’ approach, in which a fund manager actively aims to beat it. Passive investments usually have much lower fees.

Ready-made Investments for income give you exposure to a wide range of leading specialist fund managers, including people from around the world whose services are usually available only to institutional, rather than individual, investors. Our fund manager research team chooses some of the world’s best investment firms, which we consider to be suited to carry out the asset allocation. It’s an effective combination of our investment experience, with industry-leading management expertise.

Diversification and why it’s important

Investing in just one type of investment or ‘asset class’ is risky. If that particular asset class performs well, you’re likely to see good returns, but if it performs badly, your whole investment is at risk.

One way to protect yourself from this risk is to also invest in other types of assets that may perform well when others. Investing in a range of different types of investments can help you avoid too much exposure in any one area. It’s what’s known as diversification. Ready-made Investments aim to give you a diversified portfolio that spreads your investments across different types of assets and different geographies.

We believe a thoughtfully designed, diversified portfolio is usually the best way to achieve long-term goals. It increases the sources of potential for returns to include bonds and equities from both developed and emerging economies, while delivering the benefits of diversification to reduce the overall risk of investing.

Our approach to asset allocation

Asset allocation is about how much of your money is invested in which types of assets. The process for Ready-made Investments draws on our investment experience and incorporates a deep understanding of how global markets work. Our investment researchers take a view of how they think the markets will perform over a market cycle, typically five to 10 years. These forecasts and other investment processes are combined to form the ‘strategic asset allocation’ that’s used to build Ready-made Investments.

Once you’re invested, our experts follow the economic and political developments that can lead to shorter-term opportunities and risks. By monitoring day-to-day developments in the markets and altering the asset allocation accordingly, they can make sure it stays true to each fund’s investment aims. This process is known as our ‘tactical asset allocation’.

Expertise and insight

When you choose us, you’re choosing many years of market expertise and the ability to work with investment professionals who you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. Ready-made Investments combine modern investment management with our expertise in investment and global markets.

Things to remember

Remember that like all investments, Ready-made Investments are designed for the long-term, so you should be thinking about holding your investment for at least five years. The value of your investments can fall as well as rise – there’s always a chance of losing money and you may not get back what you put in, so never invest what you can’t afford to lose. If you're unsure about this, or any other investment’s suitability for you, you should seek independent advice. We don’t offer personal advice.

If you’d like to find out more about Ready-made Investments or explore the different risk profiles, it’s easy to get started.