Whatās your number one tip for a first time investor?
If you could recommend 1 short term / one long term stock, what would it be.
Much love, hope you and your family are safe and well.
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Iām quite new myself having only been trading for a month but when looking at buying a stock for long or short term I always check the cash flow and make sure you understand what the company does. Nothing worse than buying into something you know nothing about, a short-term stock I have just brought into is Amur Minerals, based out in Russia theyāre a mining company that focuses on exploring and developing of nickle, quite volitile at the moment though.
As for long term Iād recommend a REIT (real estate investment trust) such as custodian REIT or Trifax big box and if your looking for an American one the best is realty income pays a monthly dividend that is very reliable (downside you will pay a 15% holding tax on all non UK companies for dividends)
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Tesla if you believe in the company
Realty Income for long term dividend growth
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with how thing are now. I would recommend picking 3 industries to focus on and have a bit of diversification. things where there are strong defensive companies in the listings.
for me this would be Pepsico for beverages, Realty Income for Real Estate and when caught low enough, Unilever for soaps etc looking for a more reliable performer to replace unilever with in the UK market.
put either equal weight between them so Ā£100 each, or vary slightly like Ā£120, Ā£100, Ā£80.
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Thanks mate - how many stocks would you suggest across the board.
Iāve gone for Cineworld, Disney, Netflix atm.
How many companies I meant!
after the portofolio gets bigger perhaps add in upto 6-7 more companies. but always keep the number manageable so you can easily decide to sell when things turn south.
have too many and its hard to keep track meaning you could potentially ride a stock down before bailing.
always keep 2-3 main investments and have the rest as smaller supporting positions.
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I have around 35 stocks myself, if you go onto my YouTube channel you can see the list of my stocks. Itās not really about number, just how many quality companies you can find and believe in. Just have to find what youāre into. If you want less risk or arenāt confident in your own decisions, ETFs are a better alternative
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This is my feeling so far. Cineworld and Glencore are short term I feel. Will trim down to 5. And have 3 low risk Long term - 2 volitileā¦
my tip would be: understand what āthe marketā is and when you look at your results compare them to the market returns.
you will be doing a lot of active trading it seems but when you look at your results (overall return) compare them to say just holding VUSA (S&P 500 index) . As an active trader the goal in my mind is to outperform the index.
many traders you could ask them this question ā¦'did you outperform the market? ā and they might not even know.
Starts with S&P 500 and add additional individual stocks around it.
If you didnāt study economy or stock market very deeply in the past months (probably years), you will lose money on any time of trading, speculation, short term etc, itās 100% guaranteed.
(the majority of people that did it also lose money)
Have funā¦ cheers!
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For me, the number one tip would be to favour funds first ā whether thatās ETFs, ITs or mutual funds. I think itās important to try to accumulate a sizeable core portfolio before dabbling in individual companies.
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Quite a contrarian view hereā¦
Unless you have skills matching a chartered accountant and can dissect a company fully, and i mean fully, because missing one key thing will lead to failure, then I would just advise you to invest in ETFs.
Personally I think the whole market is just odds and statistics.
A blend of human mental sentiment and predictions moving forward. Nothing more.
I treat the markets like a casino running itās business. Stack the odds in your favor, ensure good risk management and let your winners run. Diversification is fine, but ask yourself sometimes why hold a portfolio of 30-100 stocks when an ETF can do it in one.
So on my basis, just invest in ETFs with high fund size and low fees for a long duration.
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I agree. You need time and resource to pick individual stocks. Depends on how much you can devote to it and what your long term plans are.
As another post quoted āwhy find the needle in the haystack when you can just buy the haystackā.
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I started with ETFs. Later on I added REITs (monthly dividends) and other stocks. When you really āunderstandā the market (nobody really understands the market), then you can start to think of CFDs.
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Just to give a contrary view. The whole haystack will contain large amounts of rubbish, as well as the needle.
You need not be a forensic accountant to pick good stocks. You can read what about what others are buying and why. Many successful managers buy Microsoft and have done so for decades. I am very glad to have owned it.
Compared to a S&P 500 ETF you will earn a better net of taxes dividend yield by owning stocks. Personally, I like to own both stocks and ETFs. E.g. I do not try to choose Japanese stocks, just buy some VJPN.
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What would be your benchmark number for a āsizeable core portfolioā (in your opinion)
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Hard to say, I suppose itās all relative. I have 80% of my portfolio in funds and 20% in individual stocks. I like the core-satellite approach because itās relatively forgiving. When youāre starting out, you are going to make lots of errors. Not committing too much to individual stocks allows you to learn from mistakes without getting too downhearted about your portfolio tanking etc.
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Iām going to apply this approach 2. My intention is 3 ETFs and 2 individual stocks. Thanks for opening my mind 
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