Anyone here buy shares?

[Scratch It]

That's because your a thick "twat".

Hypocritical twat!

[woohoo]

Is it wrong to buy shares because you like the acronym thingy? (I'm sure it's got a proper name)

I just bought shares in BLT. Nom.

I've been playing with a few grand in shares since the post office thingy. It's kinda fun watching them go up and down. It's fair to say that the funds I've bought are generally doing better than the shares.

I bought shares in a couple of companies really to learn about the process. I bought shares in a company with assets and well known brands, but its just tanked. I'm a couple grand ahead because I bought shares in a software company that deals with verification and security. I'm hoping they are going to be the apple or Microsoft of the security world.

[Antman]

It's not really hard to research it all thanks to the internet.

Though you should know why you have put it in a tracker.......

I believe I do.

[SimonMac]

I transferred all my permie pensions into a H&L SIPP, averaging a yield of 4.7% at the moment so I am happy with that, if you are looking at a quick win be very careful (yesterdays tumble cost me a few thousand in one day), think long term and in general no matter what you pick you should be ok as long as you do a little research.

[Dallas]

yield of 4% .... really, I was having a moan at my 15%

[SimonMac]

yield of 4% .... really, I was having a moan at my 15%

How sustainable is that 15% though?

[pjclarke]

Do I invest in shares? Yes. I have a SIPP and a Stocks and shares ISA, both with Selftrade. My approach is to contribute regularly to both and then when the cash gets up to around £1,000 look around and buy (or add to) a share that meets my criteria. These are a high yield, low debt, diversity, large market cap and a few other things (research the PYAD approach described by Stephen Bland aka TMFPYAD on The Motley Fool if you're really interested). I then hang on to them, re-invest dividends and almost never sell. A rare exception being Tesco when they cut the dividend just now, I sold and re-invested into SSE, a nice safe utility yielding around 6%. Both ISA and SIPP are a 5-figure sum higher than they would be than if I'd put the money into a cash ISA or savings acccount, but probably lower than London property or gold.

£1k is the minimum for an individual share, any less and it has to perform extraordinarily well to pay back the transaction costs. But investing just £1k in a single company does not give you any protection via diversification, if the share turns out to be another Polly Peck. So unless it is the first of many regular £1K investments, or it is purely for fun ('money you can afford to lose' - don't think I've ever had any of that), do something else with it.

There is indeed loadsa good stuff out there, TMF plus many good books, Intelligent Investor, The Naked Trader are good reads. Sorry for the earnest advice in General, normal abuse will soon be resumed.

[ZARDOZ]

I invest in shares now and then but tend to stick to blue chips. I've made a few bob when the economy has dipped.
I Never buy in a boom market, I wait for maximum pessimism and set up stop losses.

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” -Warren Buffett

[d000hg]

I'm hoping they are going to be the Microsoft of the security world.

I bet they're not hoping to be compared to Microsoft at all in terms of security!

[scooterscot]

I hope none of you muppets bought apple shares last night!