lol, just buy into fear. Stocks collapsing is a good sign to buy, VIX over 30 is a good sign to buy. The more fear there is, the more people who have panic sold and the less sellers are left. Once the sellers are gone, the stock is going to move up.
Optimism is never good in the stock market, it always leads to tears.
But did you beat the market? What would you be at if you had instead purchased a broad index tracking ETF? How many quarters did you beat the market, and when did you start?
I think with many stock-picking investors thereās a tendency to ignore their failures and only remember the winners. I doubt very many actually carefully track every single buy and sell they make and plot their performance (after all costs) vs a benchmark.
Best way to make investment decisions? Slowly and cautiously, first thought is capital preservation, second is capital growth.
My approach is to have a mix of trackers and collectives (investment trusts) as about 40-60% of my portfolio, and then stock pick for the rest. Being sensible on valuations is key, it can get difficult to remain objective! I have invested in companies I use a lot (Tesco as an example), companies that are well valued (Taylor Wimpey), and companies I like the sound of and are well positioned (Burford Capital is an example). These arenāt investment recommendations, purely illustrative!!
A company like Diageo is another I hold; post work drinks in London are expensive, so buying a Guinness when I own Diageo stock makes sense because they have a product I like and to a very very small extent I am offsetting my spending. Thatās how Iām trying to set up my portfolio: globally diverse, but specific to me and my spending habits. Thatās how I pick investments, and then investment monthly and assign capital after a review of their pricing. I also like good investment trusts trading below NAV!!
There are a couple of companies Iām interested in that have gone through scandal recently and have a very attractive share price as a result. Iād be interested in your thoughts on them:
1: Kraft Heinz - down 30% on the back of a story involving the boss of the company. From my perspective I donāt see why that would have such an impact, presumably the underlying fundamentals remain the same?
2: Metrobank - down a lot on the back of a serious accounting error. I can see how this would affect the underlying fundamentals but they also won some money from the RBS fund last week and I would think that will bring them a good income stream in the future.
What am I missing?
Kraft Heinz is two fold, basically they overpaid to merge Heinz with Kraft as they havenāt managed to achieve the cost efficiencies required to justify the valuation, so the price for their brands has been revalued and dropped, hence their book and share price has dropped. I think theyāll sort it out in the end as they have some very smart people at the top and the brands are still huge. Thereās also something with the SEC Iām not so clear about. I still see people using Heinz Ketchup so clearly not going to collapse are they.
Metro; double whammy of misrepresenting the riskiness of some of their loans (they need more capital to back it up, less capital to lend, less profit, and maybe a fine - but the loans arenāt actually bad at the moment), and they missed analyst targets. It was and still is firmly priced for growth, so if they miss it theyāll fall hard. But theyāre a good proposition, I like their 24hr approach, and they have a big focus on business banking which is supported by what youāve said above 
Personally, I think both will do well and continue operating and growing long term, but Iām drop feeding to pound cost average as I think they may be volatile for a while.
Iāve pulled my money from my Vanguard ISA now ready for a Freetrade ISA. Iām pondering whether to put it in my Freetrade GIA now and buy my intended investments and sell and re buy on April 6th or after in the ISA or wait until after April 6th to do anything and exploit the (potential - who knows) brexit crash.
Who on here is Mystic Meg 
Iād stick the cash in the ISA before April 6 whether you buy the shares or not, then itās using this years allowance not next
Edit: I may have misunderstood, do you have to wait till april before you can add to an ISA?
I just pick the ones with the nice logos. Is that wrong? 
Vietnam Enterprise investment trust is my favourite
Hi Dave
Yes I have to wait to add to an ISA. The money from my Vanguard ISA plus new contributions will be under the 20K limit.
I always think time in the market rather than time the market. Although itās only 1 month However there could be wild reactions to brexit. It really could sink or surge. Maybe I could invest 50% of the money now and the rest after April 6th and brexit all in the new ISA.
I always think time in the market rather than time the market
Completely agree! Yes itās more risk but you have to be in it to win it 
In the long run all the dips and wild spikes even out.
The less you diversify, the more chance you have on beating the market. I could beat the market holding a portfolio of 3 stocksā¦Square, Just Eat and Visa. However my beta would be all over the place and I would have to sit through massive 20% drawdowns every 6-9 months.
I am beating the market, but have much more volatility than the market either way.
What benchmark are you comparing yourself to in order to ābeat the marketā? Iām curious how you construct that index.
S&P 500 index, standard benchmark
Of course, but your volatility and potential for major loss is why my question was posed as āhow many quarters did you beat it, out of how manyā? That statistic would not look very good on a 10+ year time scale for someone that only invested in 3 stocks, even if those started out really well.
But anyone could get lucky. I suppose someone that invested in just FAANG early on and nothing else seems to be doing pretty well now.
Does that matter when doing personal investing? I guess all that matters is that your beating the market when you take the money out?
Novice here so genuine questionā¦
Yes, it could matter. If 2 of your 3 picks went bankrupt or otherwise their stock price plummeted and never recovered, 2/3 of your investment becomes worthless.
So you may have been frequently ahead of the market, but the longer you stay invested, the higher the risk you lose it all and have less than you started with when you need the money. (And no amount of additional waiting will help.)
Compare this with a safer play of being diversified, and while youāre only doing about as good as the market, if the market crashes when you need the money, you can just wait for it to recover before taking the money out.
Diversification is a good choice for long term investment. High risk plays with little or no diversification are for short term gains where you donāt intend to stay invested in the stock market. (Or for those with an extreme gambling level of risk tolerance.)