Education

Spotting the Duds

There was a good article in this weeks Investors Chronicle (31/12/2015) by ShareSoc Director Mark Lauber on how to weed out those small cap companies that will prove to be disappointing investments. Here's one quote from it: "If you don't mind throwing some babies out with the bathwater, just eliminate all resource stocks and all foreign stocks from your AIM portfolio - you'll protect yourself from a lot of losses with this simple step." He mentions one resource company he invested in that ...

Story Stocks and Purplebricks

Here is one New Year's resolution which investors might wish to adopt: avoid those "story" stocks! Paul Scott who writes a popular blog on small cap stocks for Stockopedia recently wrote "Above all, this year has taught me to stop chasing stories". He suggested it was a "virtually guaranteed way to lose money". He mentioned a few hyped up stocks that crashed back to earth in 2015 including Audioboom, Fitbug, Concha, Tungsten, Rightster and Torotrak. These are the kind of stocks that ...

Future ShareSoc Events – London and Manchester

ShareSoc has two Growth Company Seminars coming up in the next couple of weeks. On the 21st October we have Sphere Medical, Sprue Aegis, EG Solutions and Venture Life presenting in the City of London and on the 28th October we have Safestyle, Redx Pharma and Tracsis presenting in Altrincham near Manchester. These are all interesting small cap companies and this is a great opportunity to ask questions of the management of these companies and meet other investors. In the latter ...

Quindell law suit, and Camkids

Many private investors lost money on their investments in Quindell. It was one of the most highly traded stocks on the market. Now a legal action has been launched by law firm "Your Legal Friend" on the basis of misleading statements being issued by the company during 2013 and 2014. To quote from the lawyers web site, where you can register your interest (see https://www.yourlegalfriend.com/types-of-claim/public-incidents/quindell-investment-claims ): "We have been contacted by many such investors who relied on a range of positive statements issued ...

What is Personal Crest Membership?

What is Personal Crest Membership and why should I use it are questions I am often asked. This article aims to supply the answers to those questions. Personal Crest Membership is one of the three ways in which you can hold shares as a retail client of a UK based stockbroker. The three ways are in a nominee account, as a paper share certificate and as a Personal Crest Member.  Very briefly these are the disadvantages of the first two methods (more ...

ShareSoc Masterclass in Manchester

After our very successful Masterclass events in London and Peterborough, we have now scheduled a similar event in Altrincham (near Manchester) for the 11th June. Our Masterclasses are designed to offer an entertaining and educational experience for investors. They enable you to learn from proven experts on how to make money in the stock market (or avoid losing it)! Our panel will consist of ISA millionaire Leon Boros, Keith Ashworth-Lord, manager of the ConBrio Sanford DeLand UK Buffettology Fund, Stockopedia CEO Edward Page-Croft and Roger ...

April 2015 Investor Masterclass – Don’t miss it!

In the light of the popularity of ShareSoc's Investor Masterclass series, we are pleased to announce the next Masterclass, to take place from 3:30pm to 6:30pm on the 23rd April. It forms part of the two-day Mello Workshops investor education event, being held in Peterborough (only 45 minutes from London). Our Masterclasses are designed to offer an entertaining and educational experience for investors. Our panel comprises: David Stredder, Paul Scott, Ed Croft of Stockopedia and one other to be announced. You will find ...

50 Years at Berkshire Hathaway – Warren Buffett’s Annual Report

Warren Buffett is widely viewed as the most successful investor in modern times, primarily because of his consistent record in outperforming market indices. His Berkshire Hathaway investment vehicle is the largest conglomerate in the world as he holds not just stakes in publicly quoted companies but a wide range of wholly owned operating companies. He has recently published the latest edition of his annual letter to investors and as usual there are some pithy comments in there from which everyone can ...

Guide to Venture Capital Trusts and Foresight VCTs

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) have just published a guide to Venture Capital Trusts entitled "Going for Growth".  It provides a good overview of this specialist sector of the market. It can be found here: http://www.theaic.co.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/files/AICVCTConsumerguide.pdf It includes a number of examples of successful investments made by VCT managers including that made by Foresight in Procam. However, the dangers of VCT investment were highlighted recently by the events at Foresight 2 VCT who recently held their Annual General Meeting. In their ...

FCA launches campaign on investment scams

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have launched a campaign to warn people about investment scams. They get about 5,000 calls a year from investors about suspected scams and the average investor loses £20,000. The FCA have launched a new web site called Scansmart (see www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart ) which enables you to learn about the warning signs and even provides a menu on which you can check the investment you are considering. The FCA gives the key signs that the investment may be a ...

The dangers of share tips – Naibu (NBU) and Monitise (MONI)

Well respected stock picker Simon Thompson had to admit defeat with Naibu in the Investors Chronicle on Friday (19/9/2014). This Chinese maker of sportswear has, on an earnings basis, been ridiculously cheap for a long time, but some investors liked the high dividend yield. Simon picked the company for his share pick of 2014 in the Investors Chronicle - he tipped it at 58p in February with these words: "It's not often you have the chance to buy shares in a ...

Cyber threats and how to avoid them

The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco) has warned about the growing threats of cyber attacks to financial institutions. The Chairman, Greg Medcraft, has warned that there needs to be a much more concerted effort to tackle such threats. For example disruption of a stock exchange for any length of time could have serious consequences. Securities regulators who are members of Iosco are seeing increased attacks with more than half of securities exchanges being the subject of one or more. The closure ...