Shares

[bobbyhibs1983]

(please move in wrong forum)

Has anyone had many ,if any ,dealings with buying and selling and i guess experince with shares dealings and what have you?

I ve been looking to invest and stuff and was looking for other posters experinces and there good ,the bad and ugly side?

I guess i understand the basics, you buy one share for lets say £1 you pay a broker(or bank) a fee and bang you have bought a share.I assume seeling is the reverse of this process.

I also get that it can go up and down and you may make and maybe lose money but i guess it's one of these things that either intrest you or it doesn't.

So any feedback i guess to what maybe to look out for or any past experinces most welcomed and thank you in advance.

[Hibbylad86]

I like to invest in shares but I would stress that unless you do you a lot of homework on the shares you want to buy then you coudl stand to loose more money than you make.

I use TD direct investing (Formerly TD waterhouse) as a broker (There are hundreds of others available!!). They charge you 8.95 per buying trade and 12.50 per selling trade. You can purchase any share you like that is listed on the many exachnges in London and all over the world (e.g. New York, Frankfurt Hong Kong etc). Broker keeps all your share certificates and the like and you see a digital record of what you hold when you log into your account. The days of paper share holding are fading fast. As long as you trade once a quarter you will avoid an inactivity fee with most brokers - mine charges £10 plus VAT if I dont trade.

What to invest in is the million dollar question. All I would say is that you want to balance your portfolio between the shares you buy e.g. Telecoms, Oil, Banks, Insurers etc. Generally these will be your big blue chip FTSE 100 companies in which you invest and generally know what your going to get 2-3% uplift a year on average and a healthy dividend payment. You can then also look at FTSE 250 or AIM shares which are generally less known or smaller companies and the price is generally lower to purchase these. They may not pay a dividend but if you have done your research and invest when the stock is low you could make a small profit (depending on your initial investment).

Always have a diverse amount of investments - Shares, GILTS (Government stocks) and cash. I also invest in funds but I wont bore you any more with that.

Good luck!! Remember the key to inesting or selling in shares is take emotion or sentiment out of your decision. As Gordon Gekko once said ' Greed is good' :wink:

[VickMackie]

I used to use Hargreaveslansdown. Had the best rates for what I wanted, occasional activity. Excellent online service and even when phoning them they were amazing

I'd still use them if I could save money and not blow it all.

A little tip, if you are investing small amounts then factor in the buy/sell.

If you buy 100 pound worth of shares them its likely to cost you 18-20 pound to do the buy and sell. Therefore you need the price to increase by 20% just to get your money back.

The more you invest the less of an issue the transactions fee becomes.

[Hibbylad86]

VM I use Hargreaves Lansdown for all my research. Best online offering around and some sound advice from past experience. I just can't be bothered moving over all my shares from TD.

Best way to invest in regular investment through a maxi ISA. only £1.25 per transaction to buy and no captial gains when selling because of ISA sheltering. Easy way to build up a good amount in stock but does take a while

[bobbyhibs1983]

ok thanx so far for your advice and thank you for your detailed post hibbylad86.

and thanx to you also Vick Mackie, thats my problem i guess my situation is, I d only be investing say £50-£100 at a time and well the fees you state seem to be high but i ll continue to look around and look at the sites you and hibbylad86 have said.

[Hibbylad86]

ok thanx so far for your advice and thank you for your detailed post hibbylad86.

and thanx to you also Vick Mackie, thats my problem i guess my situation is, I d only be investing say £50-£100 at a time and well the fees you state seem to be high but i ll continue to look around and look at the sites you and hibbylad86 have said.

No worries mate

have a look at this link http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/choose-an-account/trading-isa/regular-investing/

Regular investing is ideal for the amounts your talking and the fees are next to nothing on a monthly basis. As I have sid previously this is a link to the company I use. All the other main stream brokers include regular investing as part of their service offering.

[VickMackie]

ok thanx so far for your advice and thank you for your detailed post hibbylad86.

and thanx to you also Vick Mackie, thats my problem i guess my situation is, I d only be investing say £50-£100 at a time and well the fees you state seem to be high but i ll continue to look around and look at the sites you and hibbylad86 have said.

If you're doing a regular amount you can invest in an isa as hub glad says. You won't get charged with the same anounts I and one of the other guys was referring to.

My example was for buying say 100 pound worth of rbs shares then you get hit with those fees.

The lower fee referred to by hubby is a regular investment. I don't think I had many/any fees when I had my isa with HL. Possibly a 1.5% annual management charge.

Just depends on what you're looking to do.

[Wembley67]

Build up a portfolio with stocks in emerging markets and you really will be on to a winner - makes a lot of sense to also get money in to an Investment Trust.

[bobbyhibs1983]

Ok thanx yet agian for your advice.
As you may gather im not gonna be a major investor or anything and am not gonna do anything daft(like invest in a big team from edinburgh or a new 3rd division team).

And many thanks for the websites you b have surggested very intrersting reading and i ll prob need to re and then re read them,

[HibeeBigFly]

The following websites are useful,

Shareprice.co.uk
Investegate.co.uk
Iii.co.uk
Reuters.com

I like mining firms currently and minesite is a good place for research.

It might be worth registering a fantasy portfolio to gauge how price movements work etc to begin with.

Also be very careful of what others say and what you read on message boards. Ggp is a live example of this at the moment with some people trying to have you believe it's going to jump from 1p to 10p!

A basic understanding of interpreting financial statements would be helpful also.