Share Trading: Long term savings

Makkusu

Hi all,

I'm a relatively new trader (<1 year, read a bunch of books, work in finance sector), I've been using £10k as my initial investment sum with the aim of a 20% profit per annum. Whilst I am on target to meet this, the paranoia within me says it's newbie luck!

I have a few questions if I may:
a) For those who actively trade, is a 20% return realistic? I've read books giving sensible non-greedy strategies to achieve this.

b) I trade with TD Direct & Hargreaves Lansdowne S&S ISA. Are my investments protected to a certain extent if either company goes bust?? Assuming one day I may well have a sizable figure sitting in there? Am I better off with a large bank or is the risk no different?

Long term investment aims

£2,400 per month into S&S ISA
15% return on investments (let's be prudent and assume I fall 5% short of the 20% each year)

By close of year 30 I should have around £1.2m sat in my ISA tax free...

I'm currently up at 5:30am to get ready for the 7am newsfeed/trading updates to see if there's anything worth my attention on the stockmarket. 8am the market opens. 9am I start the day job (zzzZZzzz). 1 hour lunch to catch up with news. Evenings are relatively free to research etc.

Any views on realistically achieving this? In theory it sounds simple, and I enjoy it! Unlike the day job... I hate that.

I'd be keen to hear of what returns others average on these boards? Assuming you are active every day or so.

Thanks,
Makkusu

bigadaj

You won't get a lot of support on here, most people ascribe to a buy and hold strategy.

Good luck if you've done well but it's a difficult thing to do over the long term, compounding 15% continuously over multi years timescales will make the best investment brains look like amateurs, compounding assuming inflation plus a few percent would be fine but 15-20% is unachievable.

The brokers you use should be fine, there's fscs limit of £50k but you hold the underlying assets so apart from a huge fraud even if they go bust you still hold the shares, funds etc

Out of interest what is your job in finance, does this give you an edge in any way in your opinion?

robber2

I think you would get a better response on the trading forums of https://www.Moneyam.com or https://www.advfn.com.

Good luck , thats an ambitious target youve set yourself.