DIY Investing

DireEmblem

Please note, that I do not recommend this for all, but I am planning on setting up my own small stock portfolio through a low cost platform, no more than say 20 at a time, and comparing long term against a global equity fund such as VWRD.  I already top up my pension, and a Lifestrategy fund in my S&S ISA.

I want to keep this separate from my S&S ISA, and pension provider, so I have chosen Trading212.  I quite like their investment pie solution, with options to rebalance and reinvest dividends.

I will add VWRD to the portfolio, to serve as a benchmark to track performance over time.  Now onto the interesting part - what stocks to pick!
Currently on my shortlist are:

• VWRD(Benchmark)
• National Grid
• BT
• HSBC
• Mastercard*
• Visa*
• American Express*
• Hostelworld
• MoneySupermarket
• Gym Group
• Cineworld
• Takeaway
• Marks & Spencer
• Superdry
• Royal Mail
• Diageo
• Mitchells & Butlers^
• Wetherspoons^

The stocks I've marked with a * or ^, I do recognise they are quite similar, so will look to reduce the weighting of these in my portfolio.
Also, the purpose is not to be balanced, what are your thoughts?

dunstonh

 Now onto the interesting part - what stocks to pick!

None of them.   I highly doubt you have understood and analysed the balance sheet and company direction of each of those and are not in a position to make an informed decision beyond some basic information.      The selection seems to be missing some core industries that you really need in a portfolio whilst some of the selection lack desirability for the long term.

IanManc

DireEmblem said:

 what are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that you don't really know what you're doing; that you seem to be buying shares at random; that you're wasting money on stamp duty with your purchases; that if you want to muck about you should use a fantasy portfolio and not real money; that you're buying shares that are likely to be included in the world tracker you've got which are weighted according to their market capitalisation, and that you've got no good reason to buy more of them and therefore be overweight in those shares.

Well you did ask!  😉

enthusiasticsaver

I am not sure why you have picked any of them as they look completely random unless as Dunston says you have investigated the companies and are investing tactically. Looks like it will be costly to buy individual shares on separate trades. 

csgohan4

Agreed, I wouldn't pick none of them, some of them are in the hospitality sector and they are not doing very well, and may not  for some time. If your trying to time the market, good luck

AnotherJoe

DireEmblem said:

Please note, that I do not recommend this for all, but I am planning on setting up my own small stock portfolio through a low cost platform, no more than say 20 at a time, and comparing long term against a global equity fund such as VWRD.  I already top up my pension, and a Lifestrategy fund in my S&S ISA.

I want to keep this separate from my S&S ISA, and pension provider, so I have chosen Trading212.  I quite like their investment pie solution, with options to rebalance and reinvest dividends.

I will add VWRD to the portfolio, to serve as a benchmark to track performance over time.  Now onto the interesting part - what stocks to pick!
Currently on my shortlist are:

• VWRD(Benchmark)
• National Grid
• BT
• HSBC
• Mastercard*
• Visa*
• American Express*
• Hostelworld
• MoneySupermarket
• Gym Group
• Cineworld
• Takeaway
• Marks & Spencer
• Superdry
• Royal Mail
• Diageo
• Mitchells & Butlers^
• Wetherspoons^

The stocks I've marked with a * or ^, I do recognise they are quite similar, so will look to reduce the weighting of these in my portfolio.
Also, the purpose is not to be balanced, what are your thoughts?

You seem to have selected a load of old tat from the bargain basement presumably on the grounds that what goes down can go up.  But I suspect with many of those what goes down can and will go down further. Some literally to zero.  So I wouldn't buy any of those. If I was into shorting stocks, which I am not, I might short some of them.

itwasntme001

Out of the list I actually own national grid and visa.  I did own Gym Group a whilst ago but luckily sold out close to the peak.  None of the rest interest me although Mastercard and Amex are probably good long term holds but I would not be buying at today's levels.

bowlhead99

I bought some Mitchells & Butlers on 'the dip' earlier this year (too late to catch the £1 bottom, but in May after there had been some positive sounds about reopening and it was still just under £1.50). I sold some of them at about £2.30 the next month and have kept the remaining thousand or so. I've followed them on and off over the years as I maintained a token holding of a few hundred shares just to get the annual shareholder perk of a voucher book which gets you a good discount off food and drink at any of their brands for anything up to 10 people at once.  The savings we made from the vouchers over the years more than paid for the cost of the holding of shares whether or not the price went up or down from time to time. It was the main return I made from the shares.

If you were using Trading 212 to buy MAB, you wouldn't get the perks because you are not named directly on the shareholder register, and as they or Interactive Brokers are not making any money from you for the nominee/ custody service, they are not going to chase down a voucher book on your behalf.  So your only prospective returns would rely on them making profits or growing the share price aggressively. They do have a decent freehold estate of properties but have net debt of twice their market cap, plenty of writedowns and impairments to values at the last valuation point, and it is not a great time to be in the hospitality sector.

Thrugelmir

Be useful if you added your rational against each stock as to why you consider it a buy currently? As an odd shortlist to arrive at.  

noClue

  

Body is 6 characters too short.

DireEmblem

Morning, so the rough view of these stocks, is that I see these very much as less popular/unloved options, so their current SP reflects a fair valuation.  That being said, I do see potential uplift in them all over the next 12-24 month period, with the exception of probably spoons, as think that will hover under the £11 mark for a while.  I’ve not thoroughly gone through the fundamentals yet to establish if I believe these are well managed.  I generally prefer companies with a stronger balance sheet to their peers.

MasterCard/Visa are near all time highs, however both still have a lot of runway left.
Popular stocks like Tesla - the valuation has priced in a lot of goodwill to future ventures, so I can see a correction later this year.  For Apple and NVidea, both valuations are too high for me atm imo.  Apple also has a lot of runway in India/China, but its price to earnings is rather stretched right now.  For NVIdea, it’s also nearing a long term high and even though it’s run well, I can see it having to pay a premium if it buys ARM from SoftBank, so would wait until the valuation drops slightly.

All in all, it might look like I have picked a bunch of expensive uk stocks(stamp duty costs for one), but I do see US stocks being very overpriced at the moment.  A US fund I used to hold was up 70% this year before I switched that to a global tracker.

i could add some exposure to oil - BP/RDSB should also see uplift from here.