Want to dabble in stock market. Any tips?

[megonthemoon]

DH has just started a new job with a higher salary so we want to take a bit of that extra each month and start actively investing in stock market ourselves - picking shares for medium-long term gain rather than short wins and gradually build up a portfolio.

I'm pretty literate financially due to my job (e.g. can happily read and understand and analyse company accounts) and we won't put aside any more than we can completely afford to lose, but I do need a few tips on the hows and whats of doing this.

So I'm looking for tips really on:

1. best online brokers
2. best sources of info on companies or general investments (e.g. investment magazines, partic good websites, newspapers, books)
3. how much should i be looking at holding as minimum in any one company to make it worthwhile with trading charges etc?
4. any other top tips?

Thanks!

btw... as far as I can, there are not that many 'ladies' trading\discussing on the sites mentioned... III\LSE.

I know of some, and of course now I'm wondering if you are one of them. Darn it, getting curioser by the minute. Stay anonymous... makes it more exciting!

My personal feeling is that the mining gains that were had recently will mostly move into producers/near producers/ BFS in place. With some interest from the large gains made concentrating on the exceptional world class resources.
Hence RRR, AMC and ANR

The oilies i have are all at different stages and differen plays, RRL were completly covered by texas when i bought them, DPL have the most likely chance of success in 2011, SLE are different again..morgan stanly paid more than i did, etc etc

RRR is taking a battering right now, but i bought at 2p and know it very well. Andrew Bell is the most communicative chair i have known and we occasionally disagree about things but i must admit i defer to his greater experience (lol) The latest movings following the colombia delay don't worry me in the slightest, RGM however are going to take a lot longer than originally thought, i might move out for now.

RRL are doing great and they have a lot more to do this year. You saw the recent video i take it ? Lots of news to come. I got into them at 6p and have taken my stake out now but im happy to let the rest ride and see how it goes.

My overall strategy is to find a stock i like that is not yet on the general radar. Pass on the ones that are being pumped, tipped and just keep looking. Believe it or not the ones anyone would invest in..small downside massive upside pop up more often than you think.

I wont be investing in banks myself...might well be good but i know my sectors and ill stick to them ;o)

I cant say i had noticed as so many of the 'names' could have anything behind them !

We bought BP shares last year, when the Gulf crisis was seeming awful. We sold just before Xmas, having made a profit I could live with (only a few hundred pounds, but still easy enough profit).

I am on the look out for other companies getting terrible press in the mass media. I really don't understand all the other buy-sell strategies, but my gut feeling is that when the traders are behaving like lemmings, I should do the opposite of whatever it is they're doing.

Well, there are lots out there ragged. What have you looked at so far ?

Morning hearty investors .

awubble, what do you think of the Portfolio Builder on III ? We don;'t have big money to invest any more, mine is already tied up in the stocks mentioned.

With PB, you can trade a couple of times a month for £1.50 ish (I think) I'm now looking to invest for my children, and as you know... from little acorns etc.

Give me your opinion, I'd be very grateful.

I dipped my toe into RRL about 6p, Im approx. 160% up; bought more at 15p ish - about 5% up. I am very excited about RRL. This could see us well my the summer.

DPL, yes... Im invested here too. I've taken my eye of this ball for a while, just too busy. Again, high risk but offering big rewards should they be successful.

You seem more knowledgable than I, Awubble. I shall take joy in reading your posts

One thing I have learnt, that is not to have too many stocks open at one time... if you do not have the time to keep up with developments. More so if you are only in for a quick punt; if you have done thorough research and believe in the company long term (2 yrs + say) then fine... you can rest easy; GKP is my long term punt, we have a lot invested here; The others... I like to hold for upto 1 year - but equally happy to pull out should I see another stock ready to rise.

I haven't used the iii products myself so i couldn't really say, it looks alright. Although if the accounts are run on the equipment they run their website on then i would think twice. They can be horrendously slow sometimes.

Im with lloyds myself and like it a lot. Its not the cheapest or the prettiest but it's never failed me and i get the option to send my trades to a dealer if the market is too small or it's moving too quickly. The extra cost per trade has been more than covered by that alone.

Everyone has their own strategy for what,how,where,when etc. Mine is to run my investments like a small fund, i get nervous if im all in with less than 8 holdings, there are times i wish i'd had it all in one place but at the end of the day the aim is to firstly not lose and secondly win.
1 Major upset in any of them would be manageable.

I wouldn't say i was more knowledgable than anyone, a lot of what i do is gut feeling. Fill myself with info and make a decision as opposed to some investors/traders who have everything meticulously worked out.

Do you do any technical analysis ? Im starting to find it more useful that i thought it would be, im no expert with it i generally nick other peoples analysis, but just the fact so many people use it makes it a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy....maybe..sometimes.

Good luck wity GKP, i don;t know them that well. Is the political situation any better ?

The next month should be a fun time with DPL, there is a good chance we will have the seismic analysis and JV announcement for block 7 any time from the end of Feb. If the terms are good it should see a re-rating. Now i've said that though we probably won't hear a squeak ....

Grief what a day!!!!!!!!!!!! all my stocks were slaughtered! Hope rest of week\next week picks up. Just wish I was cash rich to 'top' up. OH well. - not that I am confused, but the face aligns with mine right now, more Dame Edna I think after todays woeful trading.

Perhaps have a look at investing in iShares (which will track the FTSE 100, for example) until you gain the confidence to research and choose individual stocks.

Hargreaves Lansdown are an excellent broker, their user interface is very clear and user-friendly.

I would say we are in for a very bumpy ride in the short term as Sovereign risk moves from Europe (although that's still there) to the MENA region, so I'm not sure smallcap oil companies are the way to go: unless your appetite for risk is ravenous.

GKP made a film about their interests in Kurdestan. Whilst the film was beautifully shot, it didn't make me want to invest. Besides isn't it alarming when the Finance Director SELLS 240,000 shares?

Even ignoring geopolitcal instability, small-cap oil stocks are generally a binary play: you either make a lot of money or your shares become almost worthless. And even if the company manages to discover oil and find a way of extracting it, selling it and transporting it, the host country quite often find a way of curtailing the enterprise (see Shell in Sakhalin, Regal in Ukraine, BP in Russia, etc).

Hargreaves have a dummy account facility, which is a good way of learning how to trade.

In the coming days, I'm looking forward to Prudential and Lloyds results.

Good luck!

lol. It has been pretty dismal hasn't it. Still it is useful to see what kind of floor some stocks will trade at all other things being equal.

Here's to hoping it doesn't spread much more though. Should we send Michael Winner in if it gets worse ?

Calm down dears it's only a democracy ! (not worth the people they are built on (top of)

Not a bad end to a dire week really, i think on balance lse's fuck up gave a bit of time for thought which was probably a good thing in the end.

After all that i know a bit more about my holdings and real support levels than i did.

How did you end up Wolfie ?

Oh frigging iShares. I tried to understand how to invest in them, I really did. The online advice seemed to be that you go talk to your local branch of Barclays in order to buy them.

We live in the back of nowhere and the local Barclays said flatly they didn't do that kind of thing, try online.

So I still haven't a clue what the actual procedure is to buy or sell iShares.

What do you mean by ishares exactly ? Are you looking to invest in funds ?

I think I was reading something on MotleyFool about how iShares were a better alternative than ISAs, and something about them made me think we should look into it, but see... it's not simple, is it? I still don't know what they are exactly or what one does to buy them.

So best not to, eh?
(Am still Ragged, just thought this was better TalkName for me)

Your right, probably best not until you have looked into them a bit more.

However, after a (very) quick google, ishares enable trading in various markets via ETF's (exchange traded funds). Nothing special, and if you want to trade in them then all you need is a trading account. An ISA shares account with Barclays (or i imagine lloyds or TD Waterhouse or iii etc) should be all you need and then buy one of these ETF's from that account.

You should look into them a lot before investing/trading.

If you haven't done anything like this before you would probably be better off looking into mutual funds or a good bond.

I'd recommend checking out www.childmillionaire.com

Buy high quality dividend paying shares in companies that raise their dividend year after year [Scottish and Southern Vodafone]. Reinvest the dividends automatically and drip in the monthly amounts you want to contribute to take advantage of pound cost averaging. TD Waterhouse has a cheap synthetic drip for dividend reinvestment.

Once you have positions just keep buying month after month, year after year and ignore the market.

Good luck

Ragged

Maybe I can help as there seems to be some confused terminology here.

iShares is a provider of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which are basically funds that trade like shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and are comprised of holdings in whatever index the ETF tracks. So the iShares FTSE 100 tracker holds shares in all FTSE 100 companies which comprise the FTSE 100 index.

An ISA is not an investment in an of itself, rather it is simply a tax-free wrapper or umbrella within which you can hold different assets (investments). There are two types of ISAs - a cash version usually supplied by a bank. In this version is basically the same as a savings account at the bank except you don't pay tax on the pitiful interest. The second type of ISA is a shares ISA which you setup through a brokerage (TD Waterhouse, Barclay's brokerage etc). As I mentioned, the shares ISA is not and investment, it is simply the wrapper or vehicle. Once you have set up the ISA account [which you can do online - check out www.tdwaterhouse.co.uk/] you then add money to your ISA up to your ISA limit of £10,200 this year. You are then purchase different investments using the ISA brokerage account (it is really very easy) with the money you have put into the account. Investments you can purchase include shares in individual companies, various unit trusts and ETFs such as those provided by iShares. So if you set up the ISA shares account, load in £10,200 (assuming you haven't contributed part of your annual allowance into a cash ISA) you could then buy £10,200 worth of iShares FTSE 100 ETF units with a few clicks of the mouse and for a commission of about £25. That's it. Dividends from the companies in the ETF holding will automatically be deposited into your ISA account and if the FTSE goes up you will make a capital gain (if it goes down you will make a loss if you sell). You can do the same thing with shares in individual companies including your bank [Barclays ticker is BARC].

Next tax year you can add your annual ISA allowance (£10,680) to your ISA brokerage account in a lump sum or via monthly deposits and continue to buy iShare ETF units or shares in different companies.

I hope this helps to clarify. Check out www.childmillionaire.com for lots more on this.

Good luck

90% of your returns will come from having the right spread of investments (asset allocation). Buy as cheaply as possible. Try ETFs.