The Stock Market

Elf_2

Well, I', thinking of starting some investment in the stock market as an extra money-earning method but I wanted some advice before I start from anyone whose involved in this field. What are the basics to this? Are there any catches? Any usefull info you think a novice should now?

Thanks

jazzyjustlaw

I have just joined halifax share builder. Not sure how good it is but you can buy as little as £20.00 worth of shares at a time and you get charged £1.50 per purchase of stock. You dont have to buy on a monthly basis you can buy one offs. You can only buy certain shares but I think it gets you into it. The website teaches you things. You can only buy on four days per month and you provide sums to an account that is set up with your share builder. I have set my account up to purchase my first shares tomorrow. The reason why it is so cheap is they pool all their sharebuilder clients to purchase on those four days and it makes it cheaper. I intend just to test the water just purchasing a £100.00 worth of shares here and there. The website is https://www.halifax-online.co.uk but be careful if you end up in share dealing they charge you £11.95 per purchase of stock - good luck.

Stompa

Are there any catches? Any usefull info you think a novice should now?

Yes, the value of shares can go down as well as up!

Stompa

dunstonh

Are you looking at single shares or investment funds?

Elf_2

Thanks jazzyjustlaw
Hmmm, I was looking more at single shares as opposed to investment funds.

cheerfulcat

Hi, Elf,

If you are interested in direct share investment, you might like to have a look at the Motley Fool site, which is geared towards investment -

http://www.fool.co.uk/

This is also a good site for basics -

http://incademy.com/pages/home.htm?ginPtrCode=10002

Remember that the larger the company, the more likely it is to be ex-growth; this means that the share price *probably* won't move around that much ( except for nasty drops when the company issues a profit warning :-( and occasional rapid rises when they announce good news :-) ), and most of the return will be in the form of dividends ( which should be reinvested ) rather than share price growth. Smaller companies offer more possibilities of growth but are riskier. Companies listed on the AIM are considered slightly dodgy because the rules for listing are not as onerous as those for the main market. However, it is much cheaper to list on AIM, so there are quite a few perfectly good and honest companies moving to AIM from the main market...just something to keep in mind. I would avoid OFEX-listed shares as the companies are tiny and the shares can be quite illiquid.

HTH

Cheerfulcat

ps cannot recommend the Motley Fool highly enough, it is an excellent site

Russ_way

You can have a little pretend dable on

http://www.bullbearings.co.uk/

It's a fantasy site so........

You will be playing with a pretend £100,000 and you will be able to see how much money you loose or gain before plunging into it..........

mort58

Best tip you can have is be prepared for the unexpected.....

First venture I had on the stock market went bust and I lost everything!

Done rather better since,turned £10k into £76k in 2 years.

Broke my own cardinal rule of putting all my eggs into 1 basket with my current investment.glad I did......

Dont know if its permitted to "tip" shares on the forum but you might have a look at "Neteller"

DYOR

vicky1_2

Deleted by Board Guide: Please do not recommend individual shares.

jazzyjustlaw

vicky1 wrote:

Deleted

I wont buy those they seem well risky. Halifax give them a risk grade of 769!!!

vicky1_2

jazzy

mmmmmmmm 100% up = 30k profit at the mpment

wasn't suggesting anyone buy, but do take a look back after a year, we'll see who was right..........or even by the end of this month, at least 20p a share by October 2005.........you heard it here first