I opened this account back in 2018 however I used it for 5 minutes, then left.
Since all this craze about GME etc and seeing how low the savings account rates are Iām looking to start investing so I can hope to get a better return that would I do right now putting into a fixed rate savings account.
As the title suggest Iām very much a novice and Iām happy to step back and take some time to learn all the fundamentals etc (Like what is a market cap and its relevance towards a share price?)
Does anyone have any advise on books/videos/websites/podcasts etc that they could recommend so I can gain some further knowledge on the fundamentals?
I am by no means an expert or a financial advisor, so this is just how I do it;
Invest what you are comfortable with every month into a low-cost index fund.
Itās about time in the market, NOT timing the market.
Ideally, you want to have an investment horizon of 10 yrs, and the longer the better.
Resist the urge to tinker.
For books there is an entire thread dedicated to it here
Itās great that this has peaked your interest into investing, nowā¦ pretend you never heard to GME or WSB for a while, trust me.
I think investing is probably one of the single most important things any person can do to improve their long term financial health and build financial wealth for their family. Everyone should be investing even a little.
But investing for the long term is the best way to approach things imo as a beginer trying to hit mene stocks and hype stocks I believe is a disaster waiting to happen.
Just IMHOā¦ but I would suggest taking the time to learn the ropes. I think subscribing to something like āSimply Wall Stā could really benefit you. It uses infographics to simply break down many of the fundamental metrics used to value stocks. It helps to quickly get a grasp on things like P/E, P/B, EPS etc. The things that help you to evaluate if and why you want to invest in a stock. I would subscribe to a few investing podcasts to familiarise yourself with different ideas, approaches and the terminology. Slowly try to get a feel for what you want your investing style to be - simply put āvalueā or āgrowthā. Or how much of a mix of the two. Only you will be able to determine this based on your appetite towards risk. Start slowly until you know what youāre doing. Itās hard to time the market, so read about DCA and how this can help a novice. Be very wary of stock tips on here! Research everything yourself. IMHO, look to build a portfolio thatās highly diversified across multiple sectors with no one holding more than 5% of the total value. So if you inevitably make mistakes or are unlucky with timing, it will hopefully make it less painful. Good luck!
Trust me I have no intention to go for the all these hyped up āmeme stocksā.
It was more the mention in the news for me about the investment side in general which peaked my interest back into investing as I currently have money sat in a Savings account which is effectively useless with current rates!
Iām sure to going to have a look at what you provided and then go from there!
Iāve been managing my stocks and shares savings since May 2019, didnt have one before.
Had never heard of FT until I did, and thanks to FT my minimal investment power is still of worth. A year later Iām still here.
I started with a very minimal amount (nothing i wasnt willing to lose). Firstly I got to grips with the app itself. Knowing how to navigate and what the app can do is very useful. I put some money down on shares that were priced low (no doubt thanks to pandemic).
I saw the numbers move and made some sales for short term profit. Reinvested. Deposited more.
While the percentages were jumping around in the background I spent time reading various resources. Freetrade forum, simplywall.st, even WSB (take everything you read on there as a probable troll). This was all in a GIA.
As your confidence and knowledge grows so will your investment strategy. If you dont already know about ISAs and what they can offer then this is a logical point of research also. In doing so you may realise some more fundamental changes are beneficial too, such as changing bank or using a cash ISA instead of standard savings account.
This is not financial advice, simply a personal experience that may help guide your journey.
Iāve now fallen into a similar line as many. Majority of portfolio in ETFs/bonds and smaller amount in company stocks which are more for fun (for me). At present itās a 75 / 25 split as I learn alot through active trading and the money involved I am prepared to loose (so far in green though )
I joined Freetrade a few months ago, I was in the green for about a week and have been in the red since! Iāve been carefully researching who to invest in and I know the market has taken a bit of a dip recently. Just wondering if anyone has any success stories with Freetrade they could share? I just see lots of new people in the same boat as me and it would be good to know that if I hold out for a few years with my shares things might turn around!
The past couple of months have been particularly choppy with more uncertainty cast by covid amongst other things, and December seems to typically be a slower month naturally.
Youāll find a lot of the saying ātime in the market beats timing the marketā - stick it out, invest what you can sensibly afford regularly and youāll likely see improvement (itās not guaranteed, but more likely over time).
I started investing with Freetrade in May 2020, have invested at regular intervals what has been affordable over that period (approx 4.5k) and currently up about 1k. Thereās been plenty of up and down through that time and itās not alway plain sailing!
It depends on what those shares are. This is not a āsure fire winā situation.
If you invest in duds - doesnāt matter how long you hold them: it wonāt do you much good.
You improve your chances considerably by investing in an ETF that tracks a major index - that way you do at least as well as the index. For ideas look up and read the articles in the Learn section of the Freetrade website.
@Schkempo thank you for this, itās really helpful and gives me hope that things will improve! Iāve got a good portfolio I think, just havenāt seen any upwards movement so far. I also need to learn to cope with the dips better and not panic!
How do I move my stocks from Gia to my isa account in hind site I should have started an isa account straight away but being a newby just not sure about what I was doing
I canāt recommend any books on the stock market but I can recommend the book (comic) that made me feel differently about the economy and got me into buying shares.
Economix by Michael Goodwin. Itās a really easy and quick read and the praise speaks for itselfā¦
I did the same and am in the process of selling anything reasonably well in profit, transferring the funds to my ISA and re-purchasing them (or not) in my ISA.
I am leaving anything at huge loss % in my GIA in the hope that it turns. I donāt pay tax on a loss and doubt those stocks will grow enough to ever reach my capital gains tax threshold of Ā£12,300. If they do go green, Iāll sell and transfer the funds.
If I sell my shares in my GIA and then rebuy in the ISA, would I need to do a tax return? Given Iām relatively new to all this and my investment is relatively low, Iām hoping I wouldnāt?
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