Stocks & Trading

[JoshBRFC+]

Always wanted to, just don’t know enough or not Invested the time to research what I’m putting my money into. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

23 hours ago, JoshBRFC said:

Always wanted to, just don’t know enough or not Invested the time to research what I’m putting my money into. 

I'd recommend looking into ETFs (exchange traded funds) - it's a (fairly) safe and pretty easy way to get into investing. I know they're a lot more popular in the US than they are in the UK (and you can't buy US ETFs on most UK based stock trading apps) - but there are still ETFs in the UK you can buy and trade. Brexit, though, may make it possible for UK investors to finally buy into US ETFs - but regulations in the UK have not changed yet with that regard.

When you buy a "share' of an ETF you're giving your money to a fund that's invested into various companies that are on a certain index (I'm sure there's one for buying the top 100 or top 50 companies on the FTSE), or if you buy a "energy" ETF - that ETF is likely going to be spreading all the money investors have thrown into it into a variety of companies in the energy sector.

It's a decent way of diversifying your investments without actually putting much thought into what specific companies you'll be investing into. The manager of the ETF has to worry about the nitty-gritty of investment details.

This site is useful for finding ETFs that you're allowed to trade in the UK: https://www.justetf.com/uk/find-etf.html - and has a shitload of explanations into ETFs generally, to help you look into it.

But something to be wary of is "leveraged ETFs" - these are usually meant for short-term investments for pretty sophisticated investors; they're a bit... weird & can be pretty risky to hold onto in the long term (when they go up, they go up ridiculously... when they go down, they also go down ridiculously - and they're typically much slower at recouping losses after you've experienced losses with them).

But ETFs are how I got started in investing and I think a pretty decent way for people to get started with making investments - so I'd recommend taking a look at them if you're interested.

[JoshBRFC+]

4 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I'd recommend looking into ETFs (exchange traded funds) - it's a (fairly) safe and pretty easy way to get into investing. I know they're a lot more popular in the US than they are in the UK (and you can't buy US ETFs on most UK based stock trading apps) - but there are still ETFs in the UK you can buy and trade. Brexit, though, may make it possible for UK investors to finally buy into US ETFs - but regulations in the UK have not changed yet with that regard.

When you buy a "share' of an ETF you're giving your money to a fund that's invested into various companies that are on a certain index (I'm sure there's one for buying the top 100 or top 50 companies on the FTSE), or if you buy a "energy" ETF - that ETF is likely going to be spreading all the money investors have thrown into it into a variety of companies in the energy sector.

It's a decent way of diversifying your investments without actually putting much thought into what specific companies you'll be investing into. The manager of the ETF has to worry about the nitty-gritty of investment details.

This site is useful for finding ETFs that you're allowed to trade in the UK: https://www.justetf.com/uk/find-etf.html - and has a shitload of explanations into ETFs generally, to help you look into it.

But something to be wary of is "leveraged ETFs" - these are usually meant for short-term investments for pretty sophisticated investors; they're a bit... weird & can be pretty risky to hold onto in the long term (when they go up, they go up ridiculously... when they go down, they also go down ridiculously - and they're typically much slower at recouping losses after you've experienced losses with them).

But ETFs are how I got started in investing and I think a pretty decent way for people to get started with making investments - so I'd recommend taking a look at them if you're interested.

Have I ever told you I love you? Top 5 favourite posters on here since It all began 10-15 years ago.
 

I’ll give this a proper read when I’m not waking up for overtime and excited for my first beer in 12 hours before an England game. Then give a serious reply ha thanks mate. 

[MUFC]

3 hours ago, JoshBRFC said:

Have I ever told you I love you? Top 5 favourite posters on here since It all began 10-15 years ago.
 

I’ll give this a proper read when I’m not waking up for overtime and excited for my first beer in 12 hours before an England game. Then give a serious reply ha thanks mate. 

We need more of this.

[JoshBRFC+]

Just been reading into what you’ve mentioned, cheers @Dr. Gonzo . Got that site favourited too. What you’re saying definitely sounds like the safest option for a novice like me. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

My current long term portfolio is currently a 2 share split, in 2 very different areas. 

PAA (Plains all American pipeline). Oil has been a big mover recently, as you'd expect. And an insider I know who works in American oil recommended this share in particular. Even to the point where he recommended LONG term deep out of the money options, but if I pull that trigger I'll wait another year or 18 months. I currently hold about 2k worth, at a cost average of $10.90. I'm expecting it to move over the next 3-5 years. In a big way. 

PLTR. Yes, It's a meme stonk. Palantards from WSB are all diamond handsing Palantir at a cost average of about $40. Unlike them, my cost average is $13. A price I consider more than fair given the market average price of big data shares, the continuous growth, the long term upsides and the potential to become a $200+ share over the course of the next 10 years. My skin in the game is $5000

I have a short term portfolio too, using DFVs strategy as best as I can. Basically looking at shares based on the following criteria. 
1. Find a share that is underpriced for a reason the market KNOWS. Basically, you're not trying to trick any analysts here. You're accepting that there is a reason the share is cheap.

2. Could those circumstances likely change over a short to mid term period. (3-18 months) IE. A new CEO. An expected political change. A change in company direction, avoiding a bankruptcy or getting a huge debt rolled over ect. The current share I am jacked to the tits on is gaming/metaverse company who has spent 2 years spending spending spending, doing takeovers, majority holdings and mergers, and is only just now actually developing products for example. I've jumped in as the worm has turned, and expect to see a huge upswing as news develops around their products and releases. 

3. Cluster buying. This is huge. This is a phat indicator. If a share you're looking at has had a huge amount of insider buying, it's because the board expect the price to rise in the short to mid term. In fact, just keeping an eye on which companies are cluster buying is a very interesting strategy. I'd like to track the share price of the next 10 cluster buys just out of interest til the end of the year, see what happens. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

DDWS insider watch list.

OXY. (petroleum) 
NEXI (Neximmune pharma)
MACK (Merrimack pharma)
ORIC (Oric pharma)
AMWD (woodmark) 

These are 5 companies who's boards have gobbled up large holdings in shares over the last week. Very interested to see based purely on that criteria alone, with no DD, how much an even spread portfolio (we'll say 1k per stock) would perform this year. 

[Toinho]

23 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

My current long term portfolio is currently a 2 share split, in 2 very different areas. 

PAA (Plains all American pipeline). Oil has been a big mover recently, as you'd expect. And an insider I know who works in American oil recommended this share in particular. Even to the point where he recommended LONG term deep out of the money options, but if I pull that trigger I'll wait another year or 18 months. I currently hold about 2k worth, at a cost average of $10.90. I'm expecting it to move over the next 3-5 years. In a big way. 

PLTR. Yes, It's a meme stonk. Palantards from WSB are all diamond handsing Palantir at a cost average of about $40. Unlike them, my cost average is $13. A price I consider more than fair given the market average price of big data shares, the continuous growth, the long term upsides and the potential to become a $200+ share over the course of the next 10 years. My skin in the game is $5000

I have a short term portfolio too, using DFVs strategy as best as I can. Basically looking at shares based on the following criteria. 
1. Find a share that is underpriced for a reason the market KNOWS. Basically, you're not trying to trick any analysts here. You're accepting that there is a reason the share is cheap.

2. Could those circumstances likely change over a short to mid term period. (3-18 months) IE. A new CEO. An expected political change. A change in company direction, avoiding a bankruptcy or getting a huge debt rolled over ect. The current share I am jacked to the tits on is gaming/metaverse company who has spent 2 years spending spending spending, doing takeovers, majority holdings and mergers, and is only just now actually developing products for example. I've jumped in as the worm has turned, and expect to see a huge upswing as news develops around their products and releases. 

3. Cluster buying. This is huge. This is a phat indicator. If a share you're looking at has had a huge amount of insider buying, it's because the board expect the price to rise in the short to mid term. In fact, just keeping an eye on which companies are cluster buying is a very interesting strategy. I'd like to track the share price of the next 10 cluster buys just out of interest til the end of the year, see what happens. 

Do you have a stock broker or what do you use to purchase/trade shares? I’m a complete novice but am looking into getting started. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

12 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Do you have a stock broker or what do you use to purchase/trade shares? I’m a complete novice but am looking into getting started. 

Nabtrade. I do my own trading. You still have to pay fees (cunts). I think all the big 4 banks have their own trading platforms. 

Here's my best advice. 

Buy 4-8 shares in different sectors and countries. Like, grab 2-3 NASDAQ and or S&P shares and the rest in ASX.
Buy shares you believe in. Buy shares you think the market believes in (which is just as important)
Don't trade options. Unless you gain some bonkers insider knowledge, for the love of god don't trade options. 
Don't realize your losses, to do this, you should only have as much money in your portfolio as you can afford to lose. 
Buy the dip, but continue to buy shares you believe in. If I'd had more loose change on my I'd happily have gobbled up some Tesla at $800 a month ago. Because in the not too distant future 30-40% of cars on the road less than 10 years old will be Teslas. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 06/04/2022 at 15:28, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Don't trade options. Unless you gain some bonkers insider knowledge, for the love of god don't trade options. 

Buy the dip, but continue to buy shares you believe in. If I'd had more loose change on my I'd happily have gobbled up some Tesla at $800 a month ago. Because in the not too distant future 30-40% of cars on the road less than 10 years old will be Teslas. 

These are, by far, the biggest tips I have to anyone who wants to get into buying stocks.

Trading options is something only the most experienced investors should really do - and I'm not talking about ordinary retail investors, I'm talking about the professional traders. And even then, so many professional traders have gone from being hugely successful to flat fucking broke because of options trading. Some people see options trading as a way of making money really quickly... but it's much more likely to result in investors losing an absolute fuckton of money.

And also, yes - it's always a good idea to buy the dip (when there is a dip at a moment you've got cash to throw into the markets)... but cost averaging is just smart and having an amount you commit to investing every month, or every two months, or whenever/whatever you can afford to regularly commit to investments is just a good idea for a lot of reasons. Mostly, it makes long term investments more sound as you sort of remove the risks of "getting the timing right" from your investments.

The best example I can think of with this is if you invested in the travel industry right before COVID in one massive lump sum... you probably saw a huge hit to your investments. If you invested in the travel industry before COVID with smaller incremental sums over time, the pandemic gave you many months of buying into that industry as it fucking tanked. So say you were investing 500 a month, you'd find yourself buying more units once the market crashed... and buying fewer units once the market recovered. But your cost average likely means you probably had a pretty decent recovery from the COVID crash in the months that came after. Whereas the guy who invested right before COVID has probably been watching the stocks and been slowly counting creeping back up to what it was before the pandemic. Getting the timing right is fucking hard, it's almost impossible because the markets don't always act rationally and some things that will impact the market just can't be predicted.

Cost averaging works best with an eye to long term investments, but the safest investments are long term investments and that's why cost averaging... while not a completely foolproof strategy... is an effective strategy and getting good returns over time.

I also think it's helpful emotionally. Seeing the market tank and your portfolio is just bleeding red scares the absolute shit out of a lot of people, whereas for me personally now when the market tanks I think "fuck yes, the shares I want to buy are on sale" because the money I put in each month can buy more shares at a lower price.

It's obviously something you have to consider in a case-by-case basis. When I bought GME shares, I knew I was just gambling on a meme stock - I put in a lump sum (a stupid amount, I must say) and I held them for definitely the shortest time I've ever held onto any shares. I was never going to worry about the cost average of those shares and once they hit a price that was, and still is imo, stupidly high I sold the fucking things without looking back.

Meanwhile a lot of crayon eaters on /r/WSB bought in at the price I sold at because of the memes and "FOMO" and are still holding on for dear life while trying to average the cost to try to make some money.

[Dr. Gonzo]

@Toinhoif you're getting into investing, just remember to never view the stock market as a way to "get rich quick" because a lot of people I've known that get into it with that kind of attitude always tend to lose money and end up hating the stock market. But if you think of the stock market as a way to "get richer over time" and use some fairly conservative investment strategies (like @Devil-Dick Willie's given you)... it does pay off.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

@Toinhoif you're getting into investing, just remember to never view the stock market as a way to "get rich quick" because a lot of people I've known that get into it with that kind of attitude always tend to lose money and end up hating the stock market. But if you think of the stock market as a way to "get richer over time" and use some fairly conservative investment strategies (like @Devil-Dick Willie's given you)... it does pay off.

Counter point. 

Buy  DEEP out of the money, short term options on 5 biotech companys with a drug in clinical trials. $2000 each. 

You'll either change your life or it's 1 less holiday you'll go on next year. 

[Toinho]

19 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Counter point. 

Buy  DEEP out of the money, short term options on 5 biotech companys with a drug in clinical trials. $2000 each. 

You'll either change your life or it's 1 less holiday you'll go on next year. 

No holidays here for many years so it’s more likely no new clothes for the girls for a while  

[Devil-Dick Willie]

10k is a lot of clothes! 

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Counter point. 

Buy  DEEP out of the money, short term options on 5 biotech companys with a drug in clinical trials. $2000 each. 

You'll either change your life or it's 1 less holiday you'll go on next year. 

Options are too risky for my liking, it’s too easy to end up owing the brokerage more money than you put in. You’ve got to go into them with an exit strategy in mind, with a good scenario and a bad scenario in mind.

You can certainly change your life with options, both in good and bad ways… but I think it’s too complex for anyone just getting into investing.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

17 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Options are too risky for my liking, it’s too easy to end up owing the brokerage more money than you put in. You’ve got to go into them with an exit strategy in mind, with a good scenario and a bad scenario in mind.

You can certainly change your life with options, both in good and bad ways… but I think it’s too complex for anyone just getting into investing.

I think credit spreads, iron condors and selling covered calls are all excellent strategies. I don't genuinely think gambling on risky, volatile stocks with huge sums is a very good idea. 

[Toinho]

8 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

10k is a lot of clothes! 

10k is a lot of “spare cash” when you own your home (well in 25 years… lol) and have kids haha 

I am taking your advice on board though. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

The American markets are being slaughtered, as major stonks plummet due to long term effects of short term fix monetary policies starting to pile up. People have less money as inflation massacres the working and middle class, sanctions on Russia are taking their toll as ad revenue for tech stocks plummets for the quarter. 

One big opportunity (outside of just shorting the shit out of everything you see for 10%) is Google IMO. Alphabet inc. They just released a slightly underperforming quarterly report, and have been massacred both before and since. A 3000 stock 2 months ago, a 2800 stock a month ago, is now trading for 2200 post market close. I'd give it a few days to see where it settles and i'll be buying 2 shares. They're doing a 20:1 split in july, I think the price will rise in anticipation of the split as the date gets closer (end of may, or mid june perhaps) then post split, the price will drive up as investors who'd previously been priced out of buying a share valued between 2.5k and 3k grab it up for $110-$150 per share. I could easily see it going to, and above 200 before the years end, even if in the current bear market. And long term, nature abhors a vacuum. Google will climb.

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

21 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

The American markets are being slaughtered, as major stonks plummet due to long term effects of short term fix monetary policies starting to pile up. People have less money as inflation massacres the working and middle class, sanctions on Russia are taking their toll as ad revenue for tech stocks plummets for the quarter. 

One big opportunity (outside of just shorting the shit out of everything you see for 10%) is Google IMO. Alphabet inc. They just released a slightly underperforming quarterly report, and have been massacred both before and since. A 3000 stock 2 months ago, a 2800 stock a month ago, is now trading for 2200 post market close. I'd give it a few days to see where it settles and i'll be buying 2 shares. They're doing a 20:1 split in july, I think the price will rise in anticipation of the split as the date gets closer (end of may, or mid june perhaps) then post split, the price will drive up as investors who'd previously been priced out of buying a share valued between 2.5k and 3k grab it up for $110-$150 per share. I could easily see it going to, and above 200 before the years end, even if in the current bear market. And long term, nature abhors a vacuum. Google will climb.

 

I've been buying GOOGL over the last week and I'm adding to my position in it this week (already bought another share earlier today) - I think there's a very good argument Alphabet's undervalued, even before the price started plummeting last week and the split is coming up.

AAPL taught me buying before a stock split is very nice, so I'm keen to buy as much as I can afford before the split.

[MUFC]

Which site do you lot buy and sell your stocks and shares? Would you recommend it as a good place for a beginner? 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, MUFC said:

Which site do you lot buy and sell your stocks and shares? Would you recommend it as a good place for a beginner? 

I use Fidelity, but I'm not in the UK anymore. It's a decent place for a beginner - it's not the most user friendly, but it's a hell of a lot more user-friendly than some of the UK equivalents (like IBKR).

For a beginner, you should just look for stuff that has the lowest possible commission fees - because paying commissions is shit. You shouldn't worry about options or margins trading - that's a dangerous game and shouldn't be even thought about by beginners.

[Stan]

2 hours ago, MUFC said:

Which site do you lot buy and sell your stocks and shares? Would you recommend it as a good place for a beginner? 

I started out on Wealthify a couple of years ago. Very easy to use and they have very simple-to-use guides for any level of trading/stocks expertise. 

[MUFC]

@Dr. Gonzo - So are commissions different depending on the stock?

@Stan - Are you still using Weathify are have you found a better site/app?

[Stan]

10 minutes ago, MUFC said:

@Stan - Are you still using Weathify are have you found a better site/app?

Yep, and have found a few others to use as well. Pretty much all of them taking a hit since the mess that happened in Oct/Nov, but they'll recover in time hopefully...

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 hours ago, MUFC said:

@Dr. Gonzo - So are commissions different depending on the stock?

@Stan - Are you still using Weathify are have you found a better site/app?

They can be, yeah. I think it depends on the stock (or if it’s an ETF), or if you’re doing shit like options trading (don’t do options trading, though) the commissions are typically higher.