My S&S diary - investing from February 2026

InvesterJones

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82048905#Comment_82048905

Probably before then - Benjamin Graham certainly mentions it in 'The Intelligent Investor' though I think he says someone else said it. A book I certainly recommend the OP reads (or at least, gets AI to summarise…)

aroominyork

Apologies if I misunderstand the identity of AI. Maybe this is your friend Alan or Alistair and they are experienced investors.

LL_USS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82048905#Comment_82048905

I sold half of my MSFT when the share price reached $432+ (but decided not to sell the rest when it reached like 460 a month later as I had not bought replacement for it) and bought back that amount for $355 on Thursday. Agree for long term holds better just ignore - I have only bought MSFT and some other US shares whist waiting to see when I feel comfortable to get into SP500. So it is not a long hold.

LL_USS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82049017#Comment_82049017

Yes I read a summary and now have searched for it again here- I have experienced many of these myself. Still much room for learning more. A lot of what they say in the book are what we know as principles (for e.g. choose a company with low PE - but what's high and low also depends on industries) and a lot to help chose individual company shares, which I will try to avoid going foward as it needs more active investing.

—

Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor teaches that successful investing requires emotional discipline rather than high IQ. It distinguishes between investors (who seek safety of principal and adequate returns through analysis) and speculators (who bet on market trends). [1, 2, 3, 4]

Core Principles

Treat Stocks as Businesses: Buy stocks as if you are purchasing a fractional ownership in a business. Base your decisions on the company's long-term fundamentals rather than short-term price movements. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The Margin of Safety: Always buy at a price significantly below the intrinsic value of the business. This acts as a buffer for calculation errors or unforeseen market downturns

Mr. Market: Treat market fluctuations as a manic-depressive business partner who offers to buy or sell shares at varying prices daily. Use these mood swings to your advantage—buying when the price is irrationally low and selling when it is irrationally high

Emotional Control: Your primary enemy is not the market, but yourself. Avoid the "herd mentality," especially during market bubbles or crashes

Defensive vs. Enterprising Strategies

Graham separates investors into two primary categories:

The Defensive Investor: Focuses on safety and freedom from effort. Graham recommends a straightforward, split portfolio of high-grade bonds and top-tier common stocks. For modern investors, this translates directly to consistent dollar-cost averaging into low-cost index funds

The Enterprising (Aggressive) Investor: Willing to dedicate time and effort to analyze securities for better-than-average returns. This involves looking for undervalued mid-cap stocks, "special situations," or bargain issues

Rules of Thumb

Avoid IPOs: Initial Public Offerings are often heavily hyped and overpriced.

Watch the P/E Ratio: Avoid companies with high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios (typically above 25–30) as they carry significantly higher risk

Beware of Debt: Look for companies with manageable debt loads and a strong history of consistent growth

According to online investing communities on platforms like Reddit, there is a consensus that investors must thoroughly avoid the temptation of day trading and highly speculative fads, prioritizing long-term fundamental analysis instead

LL_USS

In old days we googled information. AI is just an advanced version - we can converse with it, it's interactive and if we use it with a critical mind, challenge and correct the information, the results tend to be quite good.

It does feel like it came over for a cup of tea across the dining table 😁whilst we talked

kempiejon

I sold half of my MSFT when the share price reached $430 and bought back that amount for $355 on Thursday. Agree for long term holds better just ignore - I have only bought MSFT and some other US shares whist waiting to see when I feel comfortable to get into SP500. So it is not a long hold.

I think I have enquired before as to your triggers for transactions choosing when to sell my own stumbling block. Your bought MSFT below $430 presumably, what price and why? So what is about $430 that triggers a sale?

I don't follow MSFT, had a quick glance at data agrgators and nothing jumps out, what was the attraction?Something like growth, income, momentum, value, fundamental or technical analysis?

LL_USS

@kempiejon Among the Mag7 (making a big proportion of SP500) I bought MSFT whilst waiting to go into SP500, when I believed US stocks were valued historically high whilst there were some serious underlying concerns. Yes I looked at indicators to choose a blue chip company that is steady, currently undervalued by the market but little fundamentally wrong in their business model or performance.

I sold half my MSFT shares at £432 as the profit (after fees) was over 10%. Bought again a couple of days before for even lower than when I first bought it. NVIDIA not as much a "bargain" so to speak, but still seems to be a ok buy perhaps to sell again before their earnings in August to be on the safe side, if I see it makes a fine gain by then- otherwise holding for longer. Again, I am just "playing" whilst holding my strong cash position to feel more comfortable to get into my long-term positions with indexes.

Same reason I do not buy Emerging markets at the moment at the hype of semi conductor (from Taiwanese and South Korean companies in the index). So yesterday I bought HSBC China index (when I spotted it was at all time low in a year yesterday) to hold instead of EM for now. Not long term.

Newbie_John

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82049618#Comment_82049618

Sure, but depends on your "critical mind" it can be forced to tell you what you want to hear. If I ask blindly what to invest in it will say VWRL, but then if I say iI'm worried about AI bubble it will say something else, if I say I see growth opportunities in medical world because I work there and think it's growing it will suggest something else, if I think Iran,/Russia war will end soon another option.. and so on. It really doesn't make much difference to Google.. apart from stupid sponsored ideas pushed to the top of Google search through sponsored links like "crypto" etc.

kempiejon

Google was used as an index to other repositories of information. In the actual olden days we had the financial pages in the newspapers and ordered company reports and accounts.

LL_USS

@newbie_john that's exactly the reason why i use it as a tool to gather and structure information with very clear instruction of what I am looking for BUT it's not financial advice of course - just like talking to someone that can collect info for me but it's me who decides what to do. Instead of asking "should I sell NVDA", I would ask "when is NDVA's next earnings UK time?", "what are the evidenced pros and cons of selling before earnings"…..

I've seen more and more of my colleagues and friends in academia and fintech moving from skeptical about AI tools to using them heavily, as their assistants. They can hallucinate, they can just go along telling you what you want to hear - we still need concrete principle knowledge to know where to question them and what to take from them.