Standard Life vs National Grid Shares

greendoor665

One point to make with that - percentage return is meaningless unless compared to a baseline figure such as the market return.

You might look at your fund and see it returned 10% in a year and think it's great performance, but maybe the market went up 15% so actually your fund performed poorly.

Similarly if there's a market crash your fund might drop 20% and you might think it is doing terribly and sell it. However if the market dropped 40% then actually it did well.

C_Mababejive

£400 is a trifling sum for share dealing and you will be onto a loser from the get go.

Go along to the vanguard website and sign up for an ultra low cost collective investment vehicle (tracker funds)

aj23_2

C_Mababejive wrote: »

£400 is a trifling sum for share dealing and you will be onto a loser from the get go.

Go along to the vanguard website and sign up for an ultra low cost collective investment vehicle (tracker funds)

Depends on how many shares it will get you.

ColdIron

aj23 wrote: »

Depends on how many shares it will get you.

No it doesn't, it really doesn't

Why not swap your pounds for Vietnamese Dong? You'll get 30,000 Dongs for your pound so it must be better right?

bowlhead99

aj23 wrote: »

Depends on how many shares it will get you.

Not really. Whether a £400 investment gets you 10000 shares at 0.4p a share, 100 shares at £4 a share, or 1 share at £400 per share, it's very inefficient to buy small values of shares in the stock market.

To buy and eventually sell will cost you at least a tenner total for the "round trip" (more than that if you're using Hargreaves). A tenner is 2.5% of a £400 investment. So, as C_Ma says, you are onto a loser from the start as you first need the share price to go up by 2.5% before you can break even.

aj23_2

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Not really. Whether a £400 investment gets you 10000 shares at 0.4p a share, 100 shares at £4 a share, or 1 share at £400 per share, it's very inefficient to buy small values of shares in the stock market.

To buy and eventually sell will cost you at least a tenner total for the "round trip" (more than that if you're using Hargreaves). A tenner is 2.5% of a £400 investment. So, as C_Ma says, you are onto a loser from the start as you first need the share price to go up by 2.5% before you can break even.

Not everyone has a million pound to invest. If you look on a share on HL, people are buying low quantities constantly.

I don't know why people keep going on about selling. I haven't bought mine to sell. It's a long term thing. It takes time to get money back. You don't get it back after one divident payout.

I think people in this thread are getting confused between investment (long term) and income (short term).

aj23_2

ColdIron wrote: »

No it doesn't, it really doesn't

Why not swap your pounds for Vietnamese Dong? You'll get 30,000 Dongs for your pound so it must be better right?

That's not what I said. You've interpreted and taken it out of context.

ColdIron

aj23 wrote: »

That's not what I said. You've interpreted and taken it out of context.

No. I've constructed an analogy very similar to the pint and two halves one I proposed previously. The number of shares you buy matters no more and no less than the number of glasses of beer or number of banknotes you buy for your pound. You need to get your head around this. If you're not careful I'll feel compelled to invoke a food based analogy

aj23_2

ColdIron wrote: »

No. I've constructed an analogy very similar to the pint and two halves one I proposed previously. The number of shares you buy matters no more and no less than the number of glasses of beer or number of banknotes you buy for your pound. You need to get your head around this. If you're not careful I'll feel compelled to invoke a food based analogy

But I didn't buy shares to sell them within a few months. I've bought them for the long term. You don't seem to understand that. I'm willing to wait to get money back, that's the whole point of investing, it's for the long term. I already have my head around that, thank you.

ColdIron

aj23 wrote: »

But I didn't buy shares to sell them within a few months. I've bought them for the long term. You don't seem to understand that. I'm willing to wait to get money back, that's the whole point of investing, it's for the long term. I already have my head around that, thank you.

I'm rebutting your assertion that:

Depends on how many shares it will get you.

It does not