Share Chap

The risk of not having an exit plan is that you become a hostage to some destructive cognitive and emotional pressures. These unseen and sometimes instinctive influences can be a drag on your portfolio and may even make your best investments turn sour.Ben Hobson (Stockopedia)
Some years ago, I spent some time with one of the leading companies in a notoriously cyclical industry. This particular company had managed to consistently deliver market-beating returns, performing particularly well during a major downturn. I asked them what their secret was to beating the competition?
Their answer? We understand risk like none other in this industry*.
The secret to big gains in any business is a mixture of luck (often right place right time) and the ability to take a bigger risk to deliver a bigger return. This company spent an inordinate amount of time analysing all of the risks of a project. Once they had done this, their greater understanding enabled them to enter projects that the competit…

The investor’s chief problem- and indeed his worst enemy- is likely to be himself  Benjamin Graham
I have always enjoyed sport and particularly football. I blame my father’s adulation for Liverpool FC. There will be some of you reading this who will already be saying, “Oh dear. A sports fan. I cannot relate to him. I will stop reading!” However please bear with me for a little time. There is something everyone can learn* from being an armchair sports fan that will make you a better investor.

Allow me to explain. Before I got into share investing, I developed a keen interest in running my own Fantasy Football team, an online game run by the English FA Premier League. This is an incredibly popular game that is offered free and has grown to well over 5 million players by the 2019-20 league season. It is replicated by many newspapers too, where the prizes are usually more lucrative.
The game is fairly simple. The tactics are less so. You have a budget of £100 million and you use that to …

This is an extra post beyond my usual weekly Saturday postings in the light of the number of you who have looked at this since I started publicising this blog. 
Thanks to all of you who have sent encouraging comments to me. If you'd like to be notified every time that there is a new post, pop your email into the bar on the right hand side and you will told every time there is a new post. This is just a feed- I will have no idea who has signed up to this!
A few of you have asked me to provide an update on my track record. As I write, I will use examples from the history of what I've invested in with some great examples and some disasters. The aim of each is to provide an opportunity to learn from these- how I learned and how I've tried to avoid replication of the disasters.
However I thought you might find it helpful for me to share my current ISA portfolio (where I do the majority of my UK share trading). I do have other accounts, but this is my focused one. I've included…

A very good question indeed. There is no shortage of books, investment magazines, websites, Facebook pages, blogs. Why add another one to your burgeoning list? 
One thing that I’ve noticed with all of the above is that they tend to be written by people “in the know”. People who have either traded professionally or have come up with some system for making money that often involves selling extra things to people. They are followed because they are generally successful or well regarded. Their audience tends to be ordinary people who just want to learn how to make money through investing
I am one of those ordinary people. I’ve learned a lot from reading and listening to these gurus over the past eight years. I’ve been moderately successful and crucially have learned a lot along the way. All I want to do is teach people how, with some basic knowledge and some patience, they should be able to make some money in the stock market.
If you decide to carry on reading this blog (and if you do you ar…

About 20 years after Blogs started being a thing, I have decided to start one. The purpose is simple. To help and educate interested people about how to enjoy a decent return on their money from the UK Stock Market. In reading this blog, do be aware that is simply for education and I am not regulated. In reading from this point you are deemed to have accepted the terms of this disclaimer.

I started doing it in 2012 and it’s become a real interest of mine. There have been ups and downs, albeit thankfully the ups have been in greater supply than the downs. I have read and learnt a lot over that time, but crucially have been doing it since the very start. It’s had a positive effect on my own personal investments.

I was persuaded to write this blog as I’ve met quite a few people who are interested in doing what I’ve done, but are either too busy to invest the time or are daunted by what needs to be learnt. As a result I am writing to demystify and educate. I believe that with some tools a…