Hey Elizabeth, this is a good question but a slightly tricky one to answer.

When you invest into shares, the suggested investment timeframe is 7-10 years+ because of the potential for a serious long term market downturn (like what we saw in 2008 in the Global Financial Crisis). But nothing this doesn’t mean that you HAVE to leave the money invested for that long, just that you should be PREPARED to leave it for that long if the market conditions mean you need to wait this long to get a good return. This means that if your timeframe is 5 years, shares under the generally accepted wisdom wouldn’t be the right move. But for me personally, I’d be comfortable with the risk of the sharemarket to target a better return on my cash – but I’d only invest money I could leave for longer if I needed to.

Hope it helps.

Ben

Hi Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, no-one here can tell you what a good investment will be over the next 5 years. It’s simply not predictable like that – the market itself and our investment options have no guarantee of paying off over a 5 year timeframe, even though that’s a reasonable length of time.

What I would say is have a look through the most popular options among Pearler’s investor and get some ideas to research from there: https://pearler.com/explore/invest/au-shares

An article here on researching investments if you’re interested: https://pearler.com/explore/learn/blog/how-do...

Also, for people with a timeframe of 5 years or less, the share market might not be the right place to be. It can be a volatile beast, so a high interest savings account can often be a more prudent place for shorter term goals. Shares are more in line with longer term goals, and when people have the ability to ride through the ups and downs rather than a defined end-point to pull the money out.

Hope that’s useful, and all the best.

Dave

Totally Agree with Ben and Dave here its Hard to predict, The best approach is to start and re-assess at the 5th year and whether you still wish to continue. As a lot can change within the 5 years too.