Share Dealing Discussion Area

sabretoothtigger

Im looking to setup a stock account too if anyone has a spare code please

gt94sss2

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Im looking to setup a stock account too if anyone has a spare code please

You need to contact someone in the Selftrade referral scheme thread (my own details are in post 295 there)

Regards
Sunil

6022tivo

The site still won't let me register..

Have send a paper application in today with the referal details written on top of it.

I am going to use it for short term buying and selling. Sometimes over a term of hours, or days with large buys..
I take it, selftrade is fine for this purpose

Gazza68

Hi,
I'm completely new to the trading game, and have read a few of the posts with interest. Essentially I want to 'dip my toes in the water' and test it out. Can I open an ISA trading account....thinking of buy some bank shares, and see what happens....? Don't think I'll be buying/selling regularly.... Any suggestions and referral names for the Selftrade money back joining programme?
Thanks
Gazza

clairbear_3

I am interested in joining selftrade if someone would be so kind as to refer me too:j

Rainyday

I'd like to sign up to Self Trade - could someone refer me please?

Thanks

formulaonefan

I would like to do share dealings online. I'm still doing my research and I would like to be well prepared before I get into this. One thing I'm fully prepared for: Share prices can go up and go down as well. This I know.

I would like to do very small share trading. For example Buy 500 or 1000 shares in 5 or 6 companies and sell them when they are up by 0.10 or 0.20 pence. So I'm looking to make only smaller profit (in hundreds) and not bigger profit. I would like to do it this way so I could earn monthly 100-300 pounds to start with. I know I could lose same amount as well. I would like to start small and see where it takes me.

For this kind of dealing, which is the website to register and trade online? I want instant buy and sell for this purpose.

Please let me know.

THENOX

Don't mean to knock you out but what you are saying doesn't make much sense: you wont to trade in small amounts (so trading commission on this amount will be like a 3% instead of 0,003% of trade value) + you want to trade a lot instead running your profits which adds costs as well + you actually speculating (and academic research proves that the benefit of speculating is zero -the cost [in this strategy big one].

If your time horizon is long enough (5y+) you are far better off with ETF index tracker which guarantees you that you will be better than 50% ov investors by just doing nothing (read: index =average) before costs and after costs actually between 67 and 70% of investors (depends on how you measure it). If markets are efficient (the price is always the right one so the only thing that moves the price is unpredictable news => then buying single stocks is like betting on future outcomes = gambling but at least market protects you as whatever you buy it will be at a fair price [sum of all knowledge hopes and fears known at the time you buy]) but if markets are not efficient (successful picking depends on skill) it is even worse: to justify not to go for a tracker and enter the zero-sum game (someone needs to loose for you to gain) minus costs; to benefit from it you need to be confident that you are in a top 30% of all investors: brightest born-to-do-it full time geeky blokes from the City sitting in their 10 floor buildings along with the group of about 70 mates on each floor from Research department aided by supercomputers in a basement working out the stochastic movements of a share price (not describing it 4 real anyway but coming 'close enough' + not on time anyway ).

Do you really want to gamble (bet) on future news of future prices (efficient market)?
Do you really think that you'll come up in the top 33% against these geeks (inefficient market) who have mates in every company and are using insider info obtained while playing golf with CEOs?

Think twice before committing any money...

This might be helpful for you as well:

https://www.ifa.com (for efficient market)
[FONT=&quot]+
The Inefficient Market Argument for Passive Investing, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Steven[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Thorley[/FONT][FONT=&quot], Circa 9/99: http://marriottschool.byu.edu/emp/SRT/passive.html (inefficient market).

Believe me: I've been at the same position than you just 3 mo ago (I'm a newbie as well) but been reading it for about 6h per (my every free) day during Easter and Summer holidays till like now (don't I have a better thingys 2 do :rolleyes:) and now I'm telling exactly this: Markets feed on ones that think they are smarter...

If you still decide to actively (or even passively) invest (maybe you have a long time horison) now it is a very good time to start as Fama + (don't remember whom) showed in one of their papers that in a volatile market like this one expected returns are higher (simply: you take more risk now so you can expect greater reward or the other way round: you need to be tempted by much greater reward to take so much risk).

To answer your question: it all depends whether you want to do it in an ISA or outside and how much you think you'll trade a month.

iii.co.uk -seems best for buy and hold strategy in an ISA as you pay no admin nor inactivity fee, trade is L10 (portfolio builder: L1,5) but you need to pay for every automated order (e.g. stop loss etc.) L1,5 -therefore more ov buy and hold broker.

Actually use this and then double check with the website for e.g. ISA fees free automated orders etc. which one is the best for your situation: http://www.moneysupermarket.com/shares/CompareSharesForm.asp .

Hope this helps and good luck whatever you'll decide...

THE NOX

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We continue to make more money when snoring than when active.
Warren Buffet, 1996 Annual Report of Berkshire Hathaway
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Aegis

You need to watch how you use statistics...

THENOX wrote: »

Don't mean to knock you out but what you are saying doesn't make much sense: you wont to trade in small amounts (so trading commission on this amount will be like a 3% instead of 0,003% of trade value) + you want to trade a lot instead running your profits which adds costs as well + you actually speculating (and academic research proves that the benefit of speculating is zero -the cost [in this strategy big one].

There's no academic proof that the benefit of speculation is going to be zero for any given case. The likelihood is that in a sample of, say, 1000, 800 lose money, 150 more or less break even and 50 earn quite a bit (including the few that really know what they're doing). On average it might balance out to about zero, but all it means is that you have to be good at picking stocks in order to do well at picking stocks. Most people don't go beyond picking a company they've heard a couple of good things about, and hence lose out.

If your time horizon is long enough (5y+) you are far better off with ETF index tracker which guarantees you that you will be better than 50% ov investors by just doing nothing (read: index =average) before costs and after costs actually between 67 and 70% of investors (depends on how you measure it).

An ETF guarantees no such thing.

If you buy an ETF index tracker you will probably do better than most of the investors in bank managed funds, but will probably do worse than most of the investors in dedicated investment house managed funds.

There are only a few sectors where it's worth going in to index trackers, in my opinion, and it just so happens that one of those sectors is the US, where most of the anti-managed quotes come from. In the UK managed (excluding bank) funds generally outperform the index pretty much every year even if you pick one good managed fund from an index almost at random. If you actually pick one of the better fund managers, then you have a much greater chance of beating an index tracker, including the effects of charging.

THENOX

High!.:-)

"You need to watch how you use statistics..." I think that I'm quite fine with my statistics cause even based on your example I can ask whether this amount of difference is significant and even when it is where it comes from (skill or just a luck of coming on top of the distribution bell curve)...

"There's no academic proof that the benefit of speculation is going to be zero for any given case." -not for any given case but that the positive results are not significant (due to random chance therefore omittable). - I've seen it as a secondary source but the reference is to primary academic paper if you want I can dig it and paste link here.

"The likelihood is that in a sample of, say, 1000, 800 lose money, 150 more or less break even and 50 earn quite a bit (including the few that really know what they're doing)." - so I can even let off statistics argument as even from your example it can be seen that this is a game where most of them loose, some will by miracle break even (miracle as after all that risk they didn't earn anything so lost: time, effort, stress, interest from bank account and a real buying power through inflation)

"Most people don't go beyond picking a company they've heard a couple of good things about, and hence lose out." - that's why someone who doesn't know whether he is in the top 30% probably isn't therefore is far better off with a tracker.

"An ETF guarantees no such thing." -why do you claim that index etf doesn't guarantee you market average (minus tracking error -that's obviously life as tracker is synthetic) as compared with particular stock from that index?

"If you buy an ETF index tracker you will probably do better than most of the investors in bank managed funds, but will probably do worse than most of the investors in dedicated investment house managed funds." - not really as this data is not adjusted for risk (standard deviation of returns) (they took much more risk drifting therefore it seems like they've beat the benchmark but it's only because the benchmark is not relevant anymore as it doesn't match for SD therefore can't be compared)

"but will probably do worse than most of the investors in dedicated investment house managed funds" -Fama said somethig like this one day: "There's no evidence managers can beat markets; if there was, then somebody would find it" (they try very hard -is it fair enough or one needs a academic paper showing that most of them don't consistently outperform on even pre-cost basis?). Aactually Fama and French model that explains 96% of market returns (toped up Shwabs model/Nobel) (market risk + value [the worse the better = more risk more reward] + company size [the tinier the better = more risk more reward]) leaves no much room for alpha: stock/manager picking or market timing (half of that 4% left is probably noise or error as well). There was a good paper called: is your alpha big enough to cover it's taxes (it's for US where tax laws are a bit mad but still paper makes brilliant points about funny size ov alpha as compared to expanses and risk ov obtaining it).

"In the UK managed (excluding bank) funds generally outperform the index pretty much every year even if you pick one good managed fund from an index" -are that two vehicles really adjusted for the amount of risk (standard deviation of returns?).

"almost at random." -so do I need to be lucky to pick this good managed fund or I need to have a skill to pick a manager IN ADVANCE? On what basis I am to be so lucky to score one from the top 33% if past performance (day to day, month to month, year to your, 5y to 5y) correlation is about 0.006? (why watchdogs require disclaimer: 'past performance is not a predictor of future one' under every graph: -cause it's plain and brutal truth!)

"If you actually pick one of the better fund managers, then you have a much greater chance of beating an index tracker, including the effects of charging." -if I am after more risk (set amount lets say: SD 20) I will just calculate standard deviation of results for active one and just choose different index tracker with that standard deviation (probably it will be more of a small, microcap or value [distressed companies with funny btm values or messed up dividends however you measure it] and I can be quite safe to say that adjusted for standard deviation (risk) my hardcore index tracker will produce higher returns over time by the fees and trading costs alone not to mention being properly risk/opportunity exposed...

BTW: would you be able to tell me how do I quote fragments of smbs posts (like you did) as I'm a newbie on this forum? It is quite confusing to do it like I had to do it in this reply and it looks like a plagiarism as well...

THX,

THE NOX

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Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behaviour.
Warren Buffet, 1996 Annual Report of Berkshire Hathaway

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