Best Place to learn about shares

gibbyni

I looking to start buying some shares, nothing majour just a few hundred pounds, just to see if im any good at it. Can anyone recomend good sites etc to get info and insperation from. I have registered for the motley fool Share Builder (£1.50 to buy shares), i have also been looking at the Champion Shares service on there site, is it any good?

Any advice or direction would be a help

thanks

Chris

influence

I went to wikipedia to learn about terms like P/E, PEG, Yield etc.

I also read my news via Google & Yahoo and get some info about some trend from the stocks that i hold.

One site called digital look ( I think) where they have better presentation of data and most bank share dealling facility use them.

Frankly speaking, I don't really go through too much details when I get my stock. I go with the basic fundamentals in their accountings and their annual reports on their operations. If I feel comfortable and convinced about the risk I am taking, I will buy it and keep them for a long time even at moment like now during a sharp drop in stock.

I recommend a book called accounts demystified by Anthony Rice which gives the most basic information about the balance sheet for non-financial professionals.

Otherwise, just keep up with the news. That's the best source of information and your experience through first hand learning by investing.

As for your £1.50 deals, it is good for long term portfolio building so it is not so much about the real time prices but rather a long term (5,10 year) potential of the invested company.

I have also tried investing in some investment trust by Aberdeen Asset Management. They actually give very nice short weekly/monthly report about the trust i invested and I did learn something out of those reports myself.

Hope this helps.

jon3001

gibbyni wrote: »

I looking to start buying some shares, nothing majour just a few hundred pounds, just to see if im any good at it.

You have to bear in mind that most people aren't any good at it - including the professionals! If you've ever looked at investment bibles like Benjamin Grahams "Intelligent Investor" they seem to spend the first half of the book telling you that most are off buying index funds (you've probably read this on Motley Fool too) and that direct share investment is really risky (more so than people appreciate)!

Many ppl on this site (including myself) are building their long-term investments through a portfolio of funds.

I may come back to looking direct share investment at some point but it would mainly be a speculative activity rather than part of my core plan.