Shares

Jacster_2

Thanks for all the reponses and tips everyone - hugely appreciated.:D

Darryl - you're totally right. I couldn't agree more. I'm talking about very small sums at this stage, which I'm happy to lose if it all goes wrong. I absolutely will not dip into emergency funds, etc for this. Having been in a position of debt a few years ago, and worked hard to get out of it, my attitude to risk is quite low.

The main thing for me at the moment is fairly small sums in for the long term, which should grow over several years rather than months.

I do like the idea of a flutter;) but am thinking no more than the equivalent cost of a weekly food shop on the higher risk stuff until I find my way around a bit more... I'll use this as a learning ground to understand how to research and make good investment decisions.

I'll read over all the links and think about all your suggestions before I take my first steps.

Many thanks everyone:D

Tim_L

If you're doing food shop amounts, I'd definitely recommend spreadbetting rather than real purchases. You'll have about a £12.50 charge if you buy real shares, whereas a spreadbet is free.

'buying' a share at a pound a point in a spreadbet is pretty much exactly equivalent to buying 100 shares in that company in terms of profit or loss, but you don't have to stump up the actual price of the shares. So for a £5 a point spreadbet with a 10 point stoploss you have a known risk (~£50 depending on whether the price shoots down below the stoploss or comes down gradually through it), and the equivalent of 500 shares. If you consider that HBOS shares are around 8.50, it would cost over £4000 to buy the same number of shares, and of course you have much higher trading costs.

Clearly you can lose money spreadbetting or trading in real shares. But I guess you are aware of that.

Cityindex are (I think) offering a free £75 account credit as a starter. Cantorindex were also offering a free week long spreadbet on the Vodafone share price which I have just done and failed miserably at! Both of these let you put your feet in the water without risk - probably worth calling the customer services at the respective companies about. The £75 deal may be an affiliate deal - my link to it didn't work when I just tried it - so you may have to sign on with ADVFN or something and hope they send it as junk e-mail!

Jacster_2

Thanks Tim - I'll definitely look at spreadbetting for the 'flutter' part of what I'm hoping to do, which will be very small sums. it does sound like there are some real benefits in doing that.

The main funds will be longer term growth, and I need a lower risk for that, so will look through the other links you've all suggested.

Many thanks:D