Magazines i'm sure there are
motleyfool on the web is also good
however at a basic level...i took the attitude that i needed to learn but i needed a start.
i got the news paper summary magazine called "The Week" last 3 pages is the financials and it has what are supposed to be the best and worst performing shares tips of the last week and a few for next week from all the worthy papers. you can read the articles about other things while the sweats die down after your first bad purchase...
i also looked up well performing funds via google just look up 2019 best performing funds for stocks and shares ISA
I set up my Lansdown ISA
i used the WATCH list section to list all the nice to have things, suggested in the paper
and a few of the funds.
and watched for a couple of months, don't be hasty
the ISA lets you invest in shares (risky) or funds (less risky)
i try to balance the two, some goes into funds that just plod upwards most of the time...funds need minimum investment of £100, so every couple of months its fund day and every 3rd month i do shares, the funds work like a pension, and in most cases a section of that fund is peoples pension contributions, its just in a different bucket from the ISA money.
most were way too expensive.. i mean if its £40 a share i'd only get one
but it let me watch them go up and down and plummet and power up again.
i stuck some money in Imperial brands (fags cigars vapes) when it looked like the US and Cuba were friends again (pre trump) they purchased big chunks of cuban cigar manufacturers. i.e it looked like something that was illegal in the states was going to be made available legally again for the first time since the 60s and imperial brands owned half the potential..the future was bright
worst investment i ever made.... trump came in and broke it... then the daft US got in a tizzy about vaping.... people abusing the devices with cannabis oil, yes you will die, vapourised rather than burned oil + lungs = death soon rather than later..but the truth never got in the way of a good story...
you don't always win, and its easy to loose, but they pay a dividend so if i hang on long enough, as in 20 years, the dividends will cover the initial investment if the shares stay at 50% of what i paid.
i mentioned hurricane energy..crazy professor, decided to dig oil out of the north sea from places that were dismissed by the big oil companies as not viable, he is going after what he calls fractured basements, with horizontal rather than vertical drillings...no oil company in their right mind bothers with them
i purchased at an average of 20P a share... its currently at 11p but once every 18 month it hits 60p and he's sitting on millions of barrels of the stuff....they are still on experimental production system... i'm hoping once it goes into full scale production the shares are worth more,
this is a very risky investment, dependent on the ideas of one guy.. it might come good been chuking in money in dribs n drabs for about 6 years i am very small scale got about 5000 shares that were originally issued back in the 2000s at 0.01 Pence now worth 11 pence and at some point will hopefully be worth 200 pence. just have to hope the investors who trust this guys geology and science don't pull out...
Dr Robert Trice.... is the man google him for full story.
watching...not being hasty, understanding that you could loose it all....and not being sentimental if the sale price looks good, flog the lot and never look back to see how good it got after you sold. come back in a few months and if its cheap again, re invest
keep a float of cash in a range of funds, they slump into negative occasionally but mostly its positive, choose funds with a global reach, avoid the impact of loony politicians in 1 area, this is the keep me sane if it all goes wrong with the shares plan.
and keep in mind the first few things you invest in will later look like a very bad idea, once you get the hang of it, i haven't quite got the hang of it yet.
codebusters has been good, UK computer game company recently had a big motor racing game...doing ok
if you can afford it Smurfitt Kappa. they make boxes and packaging...wish i'd had the cash before lockdown... household recycling up by 50% in most areas, thats a lot of packaging...
in the same way BIKES a bike manufacturer might be a good thing now but a bike shop wouldn't, but then again halfords will be suffering..but are unlikely to disappear... they should come back might be good for a punt.
most people who do this invest in 1000s or millions of shares at a time i invest in 5s, 10s 100s or 1000s... its very small scale.
only issue with very small scale is with a charge of up to £11 for a purchase regardless of size you need to keep an eye on that.
face it, when it comes down to it, its 50% luck
keep in mind a profit is a profit. if you make £10 off of 100 in a year you still beat a savings account and did better than the premium bonds (30K invested expect £25 every other month if you are lucky)
be careful and i never told you to do it.......
there is a pension crisis in this country...1) the companies don't play fair and 2) those who take the first step and open one don't look at it again until they are 65.... actively working on it pays.... pester for a login get one you can change the investments in...
change where the current cash is invested or change where the future cash will be invested...or both.
on the gold front i know a bloke who buys it in the US. gets it sent over as a sample of copper. buries it in his garden...????!!!?? illegal and dodgy, and thats the kinda guy he is.... and i have not yet found out where he lives...Andy's legit method is most definitely safer. always better to buy actual metal and not paper saying you have a share of a big lump in a warehouse in another country, but don't get hung up on what it looks like...its the metal not the shape and detail that counts unless you are getting into rare coins worth something due to what they are, not how much gold they are made from.
any UK company with the word MINT in its name is a company selling gold and silver junk at prices way over the value per oz.... The Royal mint might be ok but the rest, just pretending to be related to it.. as such their output is worth only what it is made from..they may say krugerrand but they were only made by the RAND mint in SA not some 2 bit company with a fancy name ,on Vauxhall Bridge road. i don't know what a mint looks like but google street view gives me a decent impression that a dilapidated retail shop converted to office space on a london street isn't a mint
Dave