Stocks and shares

[scunny rover]

Anybody play the stock market??
What you buying and selling ??

[normal rules]

Not meta (Facebook) . Lol. Did you see they fell off a cliff. -25% overnight. 10 billion dollars wiped off their value.
Just because for the first time in its history facebook recorded a dip in users.

I have some shares in rolls Royce ( long term hold) and cine world (I know!)

But recently, I have given up on trading and instead choose to invest in funds. My current biggest one is legal and general global tech. I do it through an app called Plum. Which only has a £1 per month admin fee.

There is a huge dip in the chip industry currently, which will bounce back so companies like Intel worthy of a look.

[scunny rover]

Yeah seen Facebook
My two big long term hold rolls royce got in at 75p and petrofac (pfc) although not to good at the minute .
Just added some more to Premier  african minerals.
This time next year rodney

[scunny rover]

Aj bell for my sipp.
Trading 212 for day trading and isa

[selby]

  In any financial crisis bank shares do well.

[normal rules]

If tiktok owners Bytedance ever did an IPO, I’d probably lump on them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Not meta (Facebook) . Lol. Did you see they fell off a cliff. -25% overnight. 10 billion dollars wiped off their value.
Just because for the first time in its history facebook recorded a dip in users.

I have some shares in rolls Royce ( long term hold) and cine world (I know!)

But recently, I have given up on trading and instead choose to invest in funds. My current biggest one is legal and general global tech. I do it through an app called Plum. Which only has a £1 per month admin fee.

There is a huge dip in the chip industry currently, which will bounce back so companies like Intel worthy of a look.

Not $10bn.

$200bn!!!

In about an hour.

[scunny rover]

Airlines must pick up soon tui have been buying routes up easyjet ,iag,I've also afew hydrogen stocks afc energy which hopefully will go big ,power house energy they do plastic to hydrogen recycling  (if they ever build a factory ).

[Superspy]

Not trading in the sense of day trading or short term plays, but my overall portfolio across ISAs and SIPPs currently looks like this.

Funds
- Legal & General Global Technology Index
- Baillie Gifford American
- Rathbone Global Opportunities
- Legal & General US Index
- Fundsmith Equity

Shares
- Tesla
- Apple
- ServiceNow
- Drax
- AMD
- Games Workshop
- Kier
- AMC
- Cineworld
- Netflix
- Titan Medical Inc
- Nvidia
- Google
- Microsoft
- Amazon
- Shopify
- McAfee
- AirBNB
- Bionano Genomics
- Medipharm Labs
- Disney

Not all equally weighted, some are speculative gambles, some are safer longer term things (in the context of my risk appetite). Some are doing well, some are failing spectacularly. Such is life.

[danumdon]

Not trading in the sense of day trading or short term plays, but my overall portfolio across ISAs and SIPPs currently looks like this.

Funds
- Legal & General Global Technology Index
- Baillie Gifford American
- Rathbone Global Opportunities
- Legal & General US Index
- Fundsmith Equity

Shares
- Tesla
- Apple
- ServiceNow
- Drax
- AMD
- Games Workshop
- Kier
- AMC
- Cineworld
- Netflix
- Titan Medical Inc
- Nvidia
- Google
- Microsoft
- Amazon
- Shopify
- McAfee
- AirBNB
- Bionano Genomics
- Medipharm Labs
- Disney

Not all equally weighted, some are speculative gambles, some are safer longer term things (in the context of my risk appetite). Some are doing well, some are failing spectacularly. Such is life.

Superspy, I'm not envying your position right now but those funds are very North American and tech heavy, you must have taken a fair old bash this past month or so. I would imagine many are in the same boat. The most sensible thing would be now to sit it out and wait for the eventual uptake once all the retail sell out is complete, most will come good again but a tadge more diversification may be in order to reduce the volatility, subject to your risk level.

[scunny rover]

Rolls royce
Petrofac
Tui
Iag
Easyjet
Afc energy
Costain
Hydrogen  utopia
Power house energy
Eqtec
Velocys
Premier african minerals
Tullow oil
Harbour energy
Hut 8 mining
And dabble in a bit of crypto
Xrp,bitcoin ,cardano,ravencoin

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Not trading in the sense of day trading or short term plays, but my overall portfolio across ISAs and SIPPs currently looks like this.

Funds
- Legal & General Global Technology Index
- Baillie Gifford American
- Rathbone Global Opportunities
- Legal & General US Index
- Fundsmith Equity

Shares
- Tesla
- Apple
- ServiceNow
- Drax
- AMD
- Games Workshop
- Kier
- AMC
- Cineworld
- Netflix
- Titan Medical Inc
- Nvidia
- Google
- Microsoft
- Amazon
- Shopify
- McAfee
- AirBNB
- Bionano Genomics
- Medipharm Labs
- Disney

Not all equally weighted, some are speculative gambles, some are safer longer term things (in the context of my risk appetite). Some are doing well, some are failing spectacularly. Such is life.

Superspy, I'm not envying your position right now but those funds are very North American and tech heavy, you must have taken a fair old bash this past month or so. I would imagine many are in the same boat. The most sensible thing would be now to sit it out and wait for the eventual uptake once all the retail sell out is complete, most will come good again but a tadge more diversification may be in order to reduce the volatility, subject to your risk level.

I've always been a bit tech heavy and that part of my mix has seen a great big whack the last month as you say. Like you say, it's all long term and no doubt will bounce, indeed it had a mini bounce back earlier this week.  Still up over a few years and is why I tend to spread it in over time to get the smoothing of the price a little.

A good point on airlines but too risky for me as the liquidity of them has to be a risk.  I did have a punt on wh smith though after Omicron and returned 20% before cashing in after a few weeks. Risky though, had Omicron been worse it wouldn't have happened.  Win some you lose some.

[Superspy]

Superspy, I'm not envying your position right now but those funds are very North American and tech heavy, you must have taken a fair old bash this past month or so. I would imagine many are in the same boat. The most sensible thing would be now to sit it out and wait for the eventual uptake once all the retail sell out is complete, most will come good again but a tadge more diversification may be in order to reduce the volatility, subject to your risk level.

Yup, it's tech and US heavy intentionally. The bash has been expected, and has been over more like 3 months, but I make a point of not trying to time the market and would rather just ride things out. I'm only in my mid 30s so the volatility doesn't worry me and it goes both ways, yes I've lost about 20-22% since October, but gained significantly before that. It was never going to be all in one direction, and I'm way above the target I've set myself at this point, even having dropped that chunk, so I'm happy for now.

[normal rules]

Tech is taking a bit of a bettering currently. It was always going to be. The yanks have had one rate rise and there another two predicted this year.
Apple and Microsoft keep the ship steady ish though and I anticipate once the chip shortage is sorted, they will come good again.
The beauty of having money in funds with legal and ge real is their analysts keep on top of market change and shift holdings around  accordingly. I imagine their holdings in meta will be changing, if not not already.

[danumdon]

Totally agree, when you look at it over a longer period the ups and downs tend to smooth out in a positive manner, trying to time the market is always fraught with additional risk and smoothing in over a longer period is the way to go.

Its a shame that a lot of people who just wanted somewhere safe to deposit their savings found that their normal bank, cash isa and savings account would not work for them anymore and they dived in head first into a very accommodating market which was waiting to swallow then whole. The volatility since the coming of Covid19 will have left a fair few out of pocket, trying to tell them to look at it from a longer term perspective has not been an easy thing.

[Superspy]

Yup, I've been investing for a few years before Covid and everything I'm doing is based around the long term. Admittedly I've shifted from predominantly funds into individual shares but I'm comfortable with that for now.
I have a spreadsheet where I record a quarterly check-in across all investment and cash assets and track it against a long term target with an assumed level of growth to hit a certain amount by a certain age.
If I'm too close to (or below) the target I know I need to invest more monthly, if I'm above the target (as I am at the moment) then I can take it a bit easier and treat myself instead. It takes a lot of the consideration/guilt/pressure, call it what you want, away from day to day spending decisions if I just want to buy something nice for me or the family.

More than happy to talk through the spreadsheet and how it all works with anybody here if there is interest in how you can do something similar for yourself.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

How do you find investing in individual shares?  I find it a bit too risky and time consuming and still not found a simple easy way to do it.  I find it easier to target funds I'm more interested in.

I wouldn't mind investing in some smaller businesses but I guess from my profession I see how difficult it is to really see what's going on at enough detail and the risk would worry me.

[River Don]

P2P lending would be a way to invest in small business. You wouldn't have to invest much, it's a social good and helping someone out would be satisfying. it is something of a gamble though.

Given the inflation that's coming, a little physical gold would probably be prudent.

[Filo]

I have a stocks and shares ISA over the seven and a half years my money has been in it it has grown by 60%, although it took a hit in the early months of covid, it has recovered and some more since then

[Superspy]

**Sorry, didn't realise other's had posted while I was typing, this is in reply to BFYP**

It's certainly interesting in terms of the volatility compared with funds, for example. Myn portfolio regularly sees swings of 3 or 4% a day, which was never the case when I was exclusively in funds.

I have a really aggressive / adventurous attitude to risk compared to a lot of people, but that tends to show itself more in my state of mind when considering losses rather than in the shares I choose to invest in I think - in the sense that I have no idea whether I've made good decisions, but I don't lose sleep worrying about it. That being said, generally I steer clear of most small companies because by going with larger stuff I feel more confident in being able to choose things without it being a time drain.

What I mean is, I feel when companies get to a certain size, or position within society, I feel like I understand the business enough by either being part of their target customer base, or by observing from afar, without ever needing to look at the financials of the company in any detail, to be comfortable investing in them. I've been considering putting something in UK smaller companies lately but if I do, it will probably be a fund, as my single shares usually fall into 2 different 'types'.


- Big stuff that I feel like I understand without looking at their financials or having to research them, or larger companies I'm genuinely interested in. Examples would be Amazon, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft. I don't need to look at their balance sheets to know these companies are taking over the world and I truly believe they are solid long term companies to invest in. They're classed as risky because they're big tech equities, but I tend to equate risk with likelihood. The only scenario where I lose all of my money is if those companies simulateneously go bust. How likely is that to happen? It always seems very easy to me to change whether something sounds like a sensible judgement or an incredibly stupid one by reframing the question when it comes to investing.

- Speculative gambles. Things that could pop-off and make a lot of money (in terms of percentage growth) or could just as easily completely tank and lose everything. Examples of these would be Cineworld, Kier, BNGO, Medipharm Labs. Some of these have more thought put into them than others but with minimal research and speculation. Cineworld are a good example of this where I believe if they get their debt under control coming out of the back of Covid they could do very well. Others are completely off the cuff plays based on something I might have heard or read and am literally just in a casino at that point - "Certain parts of the world are legalising weed....weedstocks might do well....Medipharm labs, that sounds cool". Literally as flippant as that. But those picks are relatively very small parts of my portfolio.

There are a few outliers, maybe they were a top pick in a fund I saw and I just wanted to cut out the middle man (Shopify), maybe they've got an interestingly unique market position (Games Workshop) or maybe I was just experimenting with a special dividend (McAfee) but mostly they drop into those 2 areas.

Ultimately what I'm saying is most of what I do has very little financial knowledge to back it up (and therefore isn't very time consuming at all) - which to many people sounds like financial suicide. I'd certainly never recommend it to anybody as a 'strategy' but framing it in the big picture context I don't think I'm being unduly risky (by leaning towards bigger companies). Above all I go into it with my eyes wide open, and believe that I'll make more good decisions than bad ones over the years, rather than sweating the individual mistakes and losses that are bound to happen, because nobody makes good decisions 100% of the time. But if you're the kind of person who would worry about it then I'd stick to the funds and let somebody else do the leg work for you.

For some context, here are 3 real numbers from my ISA right now:

- Tesla + 435% (best performer to date)
- Titan Medical - 83% (worst performer to date)
- Total account + 61%

I have a friend who would see that Titan are down 83% and would constantly fret about it, beat himself up for the decision, and generally feel like crap as a result, in spite of the fact that the big picture overall is +61%. He hasn't got the mindset for the big picture, wants to get rich quick, and constantly second guesses himself. It's not healthy. For me...yeah the Tesla number is fun..but it might come crashing back down. If it does, it's been a fun ride...but it will have to come down a LONG way to get below where I started, and ultimately it doesn't matter balanced up against the total account.

I feel like I've just spewed a stream of consciousness at this point so hopefully that made some sense along the way. Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far.

[Superspy]

Meanwhile, the duality of family life in the Superspy household. I'm sat here typing up stupidly long posts about my attitudes towards investing. Mrs Superspy is upstairs with the kids laughing at Alexa making fart noises.

[WheatleyRover]

Who wants to live inside a virtual reality headset! not only that the virtual world graphics looked like a PC game from the 1990's.

[River Don]

I tried to buy Bitcoin years ago but I couldn't get the wallet thing to work and I gave up on it. Christ knows how much I'd have made by now.

Personally I don't think it's a serious investment and I was interested in it as a pure gamble. Investing in crypto is a mugs game isn't it?

Speaking of which, does anybody understand NFTs? How can buying the rights to a cartoon monkey be a great investment?

[Superspy]

Who wants to live inside a virtual reality headset! not only that the virtual world graphics looked like a PC game from the 1990's.

Feel like I completely missed something with this one. :D

I tried to buy Bitcoin years ago but I couldn't get the wallet thing to work and I gave up on it. Christ knows how much I'd have made by now.

Personally I don't think it's a serious investment and I was interested in it as a pure gamble. Investing in crypto is a mugs game isn't it?

I think as long as you treat it as a gamble then it's ok for a bit of fun. I have a very small percentage of my stuff in it. I know a couple of people who take it very seriously though and think it's the future. Not for me personally.

[River Don]

My problem with Bitcoin is, it's so linked to energy. It takes a huge amount of energy to generate Bitcoin.

But there is a huge question mark over energy. We're in an energy crisis right now.

I'd stay a million miles from it.

[Superspy]

Yeah I was actually talking about crypto in general, but I take your point. I haven't looked at mine since my last quarterly check-in.

[afro goal machine]

Youd be better on lumping on crypto currency its really low at the moment

[River Don]

Youd be better on lumping on crypto currency its really low at the moment

Low? it's worth a lot more than when I considered it.

What exactly gives you faith in it now?

[SydneyRover]

the problem with crypto as I see it is that you can't evaluate it

[River Don]

the problem with crypto as I see it is that you can't evaluate it

As far as i can see it is the same with NFTs.

It's the fact that it is virtual, at least gold is physical. A unique painting is phsical.