New To Shares - Small Investment - Which Company?

[Amnesia180]

Hi All,

Firstly, I'm new to the forum... and new to buying shares.

I've been doing a lot of research over the weeks, and would like to start off relatively small - approximately £100 a month for the first 6 - 12 months before dipping more into savings and increasing my ability to buy in more shares.

I'm not looking to buy/sell daily, clearly I don't have the capital, but this is more of a long term thing for me, to see what happens over the next 5 years minimum.

However, I've been reading through this website, and others (such as ADVFN, Fool, II) and whilst they suggest brokers to use, they charge monthly fees as well as rather expensive per trade fees (approximately £12 - 20).

These sort of sites seem geared toward those with a portfolio of £10k++

Can you recommend any sites that are more geared toward a new, small investor, such as myself.

Also, would you recommend starting on virtual trading account such as Virtualtrader.co.uk ?

Any advice or a push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Amnesia

 

[NVP]

Questions to ask yourself

Time horizon ?
Risk appetite ?
Capital returns ?
Income returns ?

You need to understand your destination before starting the journey

N

 

[Amnesia180]

Time Horizon: I'd happily leave the money in shares for several years. Longer once I understand the system.

Risk appetite: I'm look at £100 a month for up to the first year. Risk will be medium, as I want to use this time to learn and understand. I feel if I go too safe, I won't learn but if I risk too much, I might not be as inclined to keep this going long term.

As I'm looking at longer term investment, I think income investment through dividends is the way I'd look at it, but again, this is all a learning curve. And as my investment is relatively small right now each money I don't think I'd make any noticeable gains through capital gains at this stage?

Any further advice is much appreciated.

 

[malaguti]

Hi All,

Firstly, I'm new to the forum... and new to buying shares.

I've been doing a lot of research over the weeks, and would like to start off relatively small - approximately £100 a month for the first 6 - 12 months before dipping more into savings and increasing my ability to buy in more shares.

I'm not looking to buy/sell daily, clearly I don't have the capital, but this is more of a long term thing for me, to see what happens over the next 5 years minimum.

However, I've been reading through this website, and others (such as ADVFN, Fool, II) and whilst they suggest brokers to use, they charge monthly fees as well as rather expensive per trade fees (approximately £12 - 20).

These sort of sites seem geared toward those with a portfolio of £10k++

Can you recommend any sites that are more geared toward a new, small investor, such as myself.

Also, would you recommend starting on virtual trading account such as Virtualtrader.co.uk ?

Any advice or a push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Amnesia

Hi Amnesia, I do think you'll be under a lot of pressure from what you're saying
in order to hold something for potentially years, you are definitely looking at buying shares, rather than any other form (such as spreadbetting, CFDs etc).
the trouble with buying shares is that the lowest brokerage fees are about £5-6 (iweb are probably the cheapest) that means that buying anything for £100 then the stock has to rise by at least 10-12% in order to break ever after fees. thats a lot to keep on doing time after time
not only that but iweb charge you about £200 just to open that account

from what you say, you would like to do this for 6-12 months before being more committed. instead of wasting those £100 why not learn this craft over the next 6-12 months and then save those £100 into £1200 and then you have a small but better pot to play with when you know you have a half decent strategy
I can help you with the strategy quite easily. there are some very successful ones for the longer time frames

use that time to demo, build up a pot, learn and perfect a strategy and go in with more confidence.
Just a suggestion of course. pm me and I can help where I can. brokers, strategy, good places to start etc

good luck though all the same

 

[Amnesia180]

Thank you for the reply. Can you recommend a good way to start building strategy and how to record my findings during this next 6 month demo period.

I am willing to put in the time and effort required to ensure some sort of success.

I have a bit of cash that I could afford to invest but thought the £100 way would be better. As this turns out not to be the case, I am open to other options or ideas.

Thanks again.

 

[zaysev36]

Thank you for the reply. Can you recommend a good way to start building strategy and how to record my findings during this next 6 month demo period.

I am willing to put in the time and effort required to ensure some sort of success.

I have a bit of cash that I could afford to invest but thought the £100 way would be better. As this turns out not to be the case, I am open to other options or ideas.

Thanks again.

I myself have started studying all this not so long ago, so I can absolutely understand your struggle. From a newbie standpoint, what you should begin with is reading all FAQ on this site After that, I'd recommend to start following someone's trading journal and try to figure out everything you don't understand in it. This way you will see how things work and, most importantly, how and why some things don't work out properly

 

[mark_barnes33]

Thank you for the reply. Can you recommend a good way to start building strategy and how to record my findings during this next 6 month demo period.

I am willing to put in the time and effort required to ensure some sort of success.

I have a bit of cash that I could afford to invest but thought the £100 way would be better. As this turns out not to be the case, I am open to other options or ideas.

Thanks again.

Hello Amnesia180,
You could use a spreadsheet to start a trading journal or there are some very good journal solutions for traders that allow detailed reporting .Many of these automatically imports trades from a number of platforms.