Motley Fool Share Advisor

Damage

Bazofts_Revenge wrote: »

I got these emails too. They are becoming annoying. Their latest one was saying you must get in on 'X' company it will do so well. Well I'm glad I wasn't paying for advice telling me to buy shares in what I already owned. Rather than follow tipsters read the financial press who is winning contracts, whose companys do you use and really rate, Who do you dislike, ask your self why you have these views, do you always see queues at the tills? Once you see a suitable contender check out their accounts are they growing, are the dividends growing, do the profits cover the dividend payout? I prefer to see Dividends covered by a factor of 2. If Motley fool are only giving out 2 tips a month thousands of people could be buying and pushing up the price although most of us are small fry compared to institutions.

Could you possibly recommend a good starting point for someone who wants to invest some money but hasn't got the first clue of what to do? From reading your signature section it seems that you know what to do, so I thought I'd ask you! I found this thread as I was looking up the Motley Fool Share Advisor to see if it's any good.

I would like to do what Motley Fool suggest and invest in individual companies (as suggested in their article 'Is Tracking the FTSE 100 Really the Best Idea?'), but I don't know how to start. I presume that this would involve spreading my money across a number of companies, but I don't know who would provide the service for me to do that.

At the moment, half my money is in the bank and the other half is in Premium Bonds. I haven't got an ISA yet.

One of my family members has an M&G Stocks and Shares ISA ('Sterling Class A Income Shares'), and that appears to have performed very well over the last few years, so I'm going to use my ISA limit on the same thing, which is a start.

I presume something that tracks the FTSE 100 isn't a bad idea, so I want to put some money into something like that as well, but I have no idea how to at the moment.

Thanks very much in advance if you or any other members can point me towards a reputable service which will give me access to the stock market to do the kinds of things that I have been reading about.

Glen_Clark

I have always given a fake email address to access Motley Fool so have never had an email from them

gadgetmind

Damage wrote: »

Could you possibly recommend a good starting point for someone who wants to invest some money but hasn't got the first clue of what to do?

Well, there are several threads on the subject per month hereabouts, so reading a few of those is a good start. If after that you still want some input, then you'd be better starting a new thread.

Damage

Okay, thanks, I'll do some more reading.

Since I last posted I tried to set up a Stocks and Shares ISA with M&G, but when I submitted my application it just left me sitting there for five minutes doing nothing. I refreshed the page and tried again, but it gave me an error message, so I gave up with them.

I have since found the Hargreaves Lansdown website, so did some reading about them, before opening a Stocks and Shares ISA, which went through okay. I chose one of their Master Portfolios, then chose the medium risk option. I read up on each of the five funds in the medium risk option and they seemed pretty much comparable with the M&G Stocks and Shares ISA that I gave up on previously.

I'm now reading up on how to invest in individual company shares.

badger09

Damage wrote: »

Okay, thanks, I'll do some more reading.

Since I last posted I tried to set up a Stocks and Shares ISA with M&G, but when I submitted my application it just left me sitting there for five minutes doing nothing. I refreshed the page and tried again, but it gave me an error message, so I gave up with them.

I have since found the Hargreaves Lansdown website, so did some reading about them, before opening a Stocks and Shares ISA, which went through okay. I chose one of their Master Portfolios, then chose the medium risk option. I read up on each of the five funds in the medium risk option and they seemed pretty much comparable with the M&G Stocks and Shares ISA that I gave up on previously.

I'm now reading up on how to invest in individual company shares.

I think it would have been wiser to do some more reading before jumping into Hargreaves Lansdown and one of their Master Portfolios for your S&S ISA :cool:

Damage

Would the M&G option have been better? Their website was awful and prevented me from pursuing what they had to offer, so I hope I haven't made too big a mistake with Hargreaves Lansdown!

jimjames

Damage wrote: »

Would the M&G option have been better? Their website was awful and prevented me from pursuing what they had to offer, so I hope I haven't made too big a mistake with Hargreaves Lansdown!

Using M&G would have limited you to only buying their funds.

HL will let you buy funds from across most fund managers so you have more flexibility.

An ISA is only a wrapper and can contain many different investments so if you want the M&G fund you can buy it via HL anyway.

HL may be more expensive but for new investors is a much easier website to navigate. Your first task is to understand what you want to invest in and find suitable funds. At least the HL list is probably a bit more balanced than a single bond fund from M&G.

Damage

Okay, thank you. I did notice the M&G fund on the HL site when I was looking for reviews of that fund, so that makes sense now.

I did read HL being recommended in a lot of different articles, so it seemed like a sensible choice, at least to start with. I am now looking into buying shares as I have been reading about investing in FTSE 100 companies. I did read an article a few years ago that detailed a strategy along the lines of picking the top ten performers from the previous year (or something like that) and spreading an investment across those, but I can't find that article now.

Martinslovechild

Damage wrote: »

I did read HL being recommended in a lot of different articles, so it seemed like a sensible choice, at least to start with.

It's worth taking a look at this article as it highlights the cheapest investment platforms.

Personally, I rate Hargreaves' website in terms of usage. It's well laid out and there's lots of information, but their charges are high, particularly on larger portfolios, as they charge a percentage-based fee.

Once your portfolio hits £20K+ it's worth taking a look at other providers such as SelfTrade or Interactive Investor.

Damage

Thank you for the link; I'll have a look at that in a moment.

I have learnt quite a lot in the last few weeks, but there is still a long way to go. I started with with Tim Hale's book 'Smarter Investing', then I read 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street' by Burton Malkiel, followed by 'Trading in the Zone' by Mark Douglas. I'm now a third of the way through 'The Naked Trader' by Robbie Burns.

I have a number of other books lined up as well, so I'm going to work my way through those before I decide what to do.