Education

Cash or Shares. Which is Better?

An interesting article in Saturday's FTMoney (18/6/2016) by Paul Lewis suggested that you might be surprised to learn that if you had invested £10,000 in a cash account in 1998, you would have done better than investing in a FTSE-100 index tracker. It's surely odd for the Financial Times to persuade their own readers that cash is better than equities because a choice of cash might mean they no longer needed to read the FT - they could just use a ...

Where Bonds are Concerned, Trust No-One

The news that the holders of Lloyds bonds (ECNs) have lost their legal battle in the Supreme Court reinforces the message that when it comes to investing in bonds, you should trust nobody - not the issuer of the bonds, your friendly stockbrokers and wealth managers who advise you, or the FCA to protect your interests. The bondholders won their case initially in the lower courts, that Lloyds should not be able to force redemption of these bonds at par. But after ...

Active Equity Funds Underperform – But What About Passive Funds?

Last Monday (21/3/2016) there was a front page story in the FTfm supplement which was headlined "86% of active equity funds underperform". The article said that a study by S&P Dow Jones Indices showed that "almost every actively managed fund in Europe investing in global, emerging and US markets has failed to beat its benchmark over the past decade....". The article went on to question the value added by stockpicking fund managers at some length Now it immediately struck me that the ...

Fundsmith Annual Meeting – Another Good Performance

Last night was the latest annual meeting for investors in the Fundsmith Equity Fund. It was another good performance by Terry Smith on the night, and of course a good performance by the Fund itself was reported. It achieved a return of 15.7% last year (year ending December 2015) which was way ahead of any global fund index you care to choose. A lot of stock picking investors did well last year, but how many also have achieved 4.7% in the ...

The Importance of Having a Stock Selection Process

There is a good editorial in this month's edition of the Sharewatch newsletter. As was emphasised by our coverage of stock picking systems in the last ShareSoc newsletter, the key is to have some system, and some discipline, when selecting stocks. This is the time of year when the media are publishing their "naps" for the new year and when many investors are looking to refresh their portfolios by getting rid of last year's duds and picking new ones. This is ...

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 ...