I fancy buying some shares, haven’t got a clue how to do it, any advise on best way to buy would be much appreciated.
We are talking small trades here £500-£1000, i’m not minted.

a number of online platforms. Most will recommend the one theyre familiar with, so for me its share.com.

They have a practice account where you can do everything you would normally in a real account, but without using real money.

The share purchase bit is relatively easy. Your account is linked to your funding source (say your bank account).

As to what to buy and when, well that’s a v v boring, long, argumentative, opinionated thread of its own*. Or go to any of the home investor forums.

* so really we ought to have one on STW….

My cousin is a serial gambler. Gets up every morning reads the racing post, rings his bookie and puts his bets on for the day.

He wins some, he loses some. It doesn’t really matter to him. He’s absolutely minted. And I mean seriously wadded from a lifetime working at board level in FTSE 100 companies.

He won’t touch shares any more. As he says – remember he’s a serial gambler – its an absolute mugs game. And if you want to kiss goodbye to serious amounts of money then shares are a far, far more effective way of doing it than just walking into a bookies and sticking it on a random horse.

Hope that helps

The whole point of buying shares are that you gamble that they will increase in value. They may or they may not.

Just bear in mind that, with every single share transaction that occurs, one person has got right and one person has got it wrong.

Which one do you think you will be?

Thanks Stoner, my hearts starting to pound already.

I would say absolutely not worth it for £500-£1k. Even if you have a decent couple of years you’ll likely only make 10% (the days of >20% growth p.a. on low-risk company equities have passed).

I spend my weekdays with Bloomberg in front of me; there is a lot more downside than upside in my opinion*

*Past Performance is Not Necessarily Indicative of Future Results

Binners, i’m only spending money i’ve saved by not smoking, drinking and eating overpriced takeaway type garbage.

Coke and hookers? 😉

Doesn’t really matter how you got the cash, by all accounts, if you want to lose it, then start buying shares. Not my opinion. The opinion of someone massively more financially knowledgable than most people will ever be. He’s been FD of a number of huge multinationals, and knows from the inside how markets function. I’m just repeating his advice. He reckons he’s lost what most people would consider an absolute fortune that way.

Seriously…. you’d be better off sticking it on a horse

Nothing wrong with buying shares but unit trusts are safer for those who don’t want to spend so much time managing their investments and better for smaller amounts too. Not sure I’d be putting money in now though – it’s all a bit volatile at the moment. Still, I’m not selling up either.

At that sort of level of investment a fund would make more sense – transaction costs are going to kill you. Investing in shares is not gambling as such, but they are plenty of people who aren’t very good at it, including many financial sophiscates. On the other hand I have a few friends who live on the income they generate managing their money. To do it well you really need to work pretty hard at it, continually researching ideas, keeping up to date with holdings etc etc. If you are not going to do that – then stick it in a fund, there was some good advice on a thread recently.

Stocks seem a pretty good bet to me, e.g. even if you’d bought into Nasdaq right at the peak of the tech boom in 2007, you’d still be up now…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/qHQrpa]Nasdaq 10 yr[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Peak was 2000 and wouldn’t be looking at a profit – FTSE is well below now too.

Yeah all well and good saying that footflaps, many past performance graphs will be similar.

What if you bought at the end of ’06 and had to sell in ’09?

Peak was 2000 and wouldn’t be looking at a profit – FTSE is well below now too.

Long term it will recover, the general trend is always upwards or at least has been since the start of the markets…

What if you bought at the end of ’06 and had to sell in ’09?

Then you’d lose money, but if you know you have 3 years to invest for, the stock market isn’t very sensible as it’s a long term investment.

My pension(s) have been through many recessions / crashes and are doing way better than I could have ever got in a cash savings account….

Thanks all, i have got some particular shares in mind, probably just get £1000 worth, if they bomb no big deal, if not might have a few quid in my pocket in 10 years time.
My wife bought some Orange shares when they floated, although she can’t remember how she got them, she did pretty well out of them, hoping i might do the same, on the other hand there’s a tasty nag running at Kempton tomoz, mmmm.

have a go on etoro or similar. I aim to make $10 a day. pretty solid profit if i manage it!

He won’t touch shares any more. As he says – remember he’s a serial gambler – its an absolute mugs game. And if you want to kiss goodbye to serious amounts of money then shares are a far, far more effective way of doing it than just walking into a bookies and sticking it on a random horse.

Are you sure this isn’t his personal advice specifically aimed at you?

OP, don’t listen to the naysayers. It is perfectly possible to make money from shares, but as said, it’s also possible to lose money too, and when you start you WILL lose money, but you could regard it as money well spent if you learn from your mistakes.

If you’re starting from scratch get yourself “The Naked Trader” by Robbie Burns. It’s a good introduction to investing and also suggests further reading and resources. Meanwhile get reading the financial pages of the paper.

To answer your question use an online portal like share.com (which I personally hate) or Hargreaves Lansdown.

Once registered, you will also get access to their views on stock and fund performance – buy, hold, sell. Remember, it is only one persons view.

My advice if you really want to invest is find a stock you feel you know something / anything about, then research the heck out of it first. That for me is half of the enjoyment.

To answer a question you didn’t ask – I would not invest in the market right now. It is a complete disaster, high volatility and will be for some time. If you are looking at the long term and REALLY want to invest, consider a managed fund to invest in, something that has a balanced portfolio. Vanguard always have good equity index funds if you are looking at long term growth.

Last thing – stay away from penny shares. You may think it is a good thing, you may thing you could win big, but you won’t. Its a mugs game.

If you are not bothered about the grand research shares on the AIM market. It is volatile but you do stand a chance of some quick profits (or not). I find funds and trusts a bit boring and it is the fund managers who make the money. However do look inside funds to see who they are backing, that might support your choices of where to put money. The Robbie Burns book is a good starter. Bear in mind the art is not just in what to buy but when to sell.