The 2020 stock market crash happened more than six months ago. But thanks to weak investor appetite, there are stacks and stacks of quality UK shares that can still be bought for next-to-nothing. Buying British equities today still represents the buying opportunity of a lifetime.
Of course, there are options for your savings other than buying UK shares. But some of the more popular options offer pathetic returns for your money, carry too much risk or involve too much cost. Take the Cash ISA as an example. Interest rates of below 1% aren’t likely to make you the sort of returns to help you get rich and retire early.
A proven way to get rich
Buying UK shares is a tried-and-tested way to generate excellent returns on your hard-earned savings. History reveals that long-term investors make an average return of 8% to 10% a year. Some share pickers have made even more spectacular returns over the past decade. They bought quality UK shares for cheap prices and watched them soar in value as the economic cycle improved.
Surveys show that more than a thousand people made millions by investing in products like Stocks and Shares ISAs following the 2008/09 market crash. I reckon buyers today can enjoy the same sort of heart-stopping returns too. No matter what your attitude to risk is, I believe that now is a brilliant time to go shopping for UK shares.
Top dividend shares for nervous investors
Investors worried about the prospect of a severe downturn can take refuge in stocks like food producers and retailers, general insurance providers, telecoms and utilities suppliers and healthcare companies, for example.
Firms like these have terrific defensive qualities with revenues and earnings that remain quite stable irrespective of economic conditions. We all need to eat, use phones, have running water and working lights, and get access to medicines, whatever the broader economy is doing, right?
This supreme earnings visibility allows them to continue paying meaty dividends to their shareholders too. This quality is extremely important as shareholder payouts fell like dominoes after the Covid-19 outbreak. Take car insurance provider Admiral Group. It offers dividend yields north of 5% for 2020 and 2021. Fellow FTSE 100 share and pharmaceuticals manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline carries a yield closer to 5.5% through to the end of next year. And National Grid’s 5.8% yield for this fiscal year marches to 6% for the following period.
Make a million with UK shares
Whatever your attitude to risk, UK shares still offer plenty of opportunity for savers to make a fortune. They certainly offer more upside than products like Cash ISAs. And with the help of The Motley Fool and its epic catalogue of exclusive reports, you can seriously improve your chances of getting rich with UK shares. You might even make a million like those ISA investors.