1st Job Done... 150ltrs and 3 hours : )

[Chris34]

I have had similar gains to you with my shares but not the losses you've had, my biggest was 1k around 2 years ago but that was early on in my trading and it taught me a valuable lesson,

all of mine bar one is down which is Google aka Alphabet, I toyed with the idea of buying into Big Bear AI and wished I had a few weeks ago as they more than doubled but have crashed again but if I'd sold before the crash I'd have made a few thousand pounds 4 weeks.

My top trump has been Rolls Royce I started buying them when they were £0.50 a share and someone said to they didn’t think they'd be a good buy the closing price on Friday was £8.02

Yeah rolls Royce was always a bargain. The problem is if you suddenly decided to start investing and you saw it at 50p then it seems like a no brainer, but there will be those who have been investing longer who bought at say £4 and saw it drop to £2 and say it's a bargain... only to then see it then drop to £1.50 and say this is ridiculous how cheap it is... and to then keep seeing the price drop.

That's the hardest part, knowing when to bail out because the share prices don't reflect how well the business actually is, it's just a reflection of other peoples opinion, which is often a reflection on what they think other peoples opinion will be, not what the actual business is doing It's like a flock of sheep and when one sheep gets spooked and runs in the opposite direction the rest get spooked and follow...

What's worked for me is to have a plan though and stick to your plan. Mine might not work out but I've got to stick with it because it worked last year and dealing with losses is a part of it, so it's trying to take the emotion out of it and sticking to the plan and using your head. It's really hard though. I've cut my losses only to see the shares fully recover but if they didn't recover then I could have been wiped out.

I spread the risk the best I can and sell when they hit my target or if there is a change in the business that warrants a re-evaluation of the share price.

Another thing I've been working on is buying and selling regular on the same shares to achieve a better return than just holding onto them long term. Say for example Barclays, well they're currently £2.98p and have hit £3.17p in the last month. Now I bought some at £3.10p with a target of selling at £3.40p so roughly a 12% return. However the price dropped to something like £2.92, so I bought some more with a target of £3.10p, within about a week they hit that target and I made around 7% return. Since then it went to £3.17p and then dropped back to the £2.90's I think two or three times and has gone back to £3.10 about 3 times. So if I had done the same thing buying at say £2.95 and selling at £3.10 then I would have made a total of 20% return (3 x 7%) returns. Meanwhile my shares bought at £3.10 and waiting for the target of £3.40 are just sat there doing nothing, no returns, no losses just nothing and even if they do hit target the return will only be 12% which is much less than the 20% plus I would have made on buying the dips and selling on the way up.

Basically I'd pick a share that I believe is going up, but rarely does a share price go straight up, it's up and down but in an upward trend. When Trump farts (excuse the pun), I'd buy that share (on the dip) and then expect the share to recover 7% and sell it and wait for the next time Trump farts to buy again. Over time I'd expect to do better than just buying and holding out for a bigger return.

Lot's of different strategies you can use and I do enjoy it but it's stressful when they're in losing positions

 

[Iron Giant]

Yeah rolls Royce was always a bargain. The problem is if you suddenly decided to start investing and you saw it at 50p then it seems like a no brainer, but there will be those who have been investing longer who bought at say £4 and saw it drop to £2 and say it's a bargain... only to then see it then drop to £1.50 and say this is ridiculous how cheap it is... and to then keep seeing the price drop.

That's the hardest part, knowing when to bail out because the share prices don't reflect how well the business actually is, it's just a reflection of other peoples opinion, which is often a reflection on what they think other peoples opinion will be, not what the actual business is doing It's like a flock of sheep and when one sheep gets spooked and runs in the opposite direction the rest get spooked and follow...

What's worked for me is to have a plan though and stick to your plan. Mine might not work out but I've got to stick with it because it worked last year and dealing with losses is a part of it, so it's trying to take the emotion out of it and sticking to the plan and using your head. It's really hard though. I've cut my losses only to see the shares fully recover but if they didn't recover then I could have been wiped out.

I spread the risk the best I can and sell when they hit my target or if there is a change in the business that warrants a re-evaluation of the share price.

Another thing I've been working on is buying and selling regular on the same shares to achieve a better return than just holding onto them long term. Say for example Barclays, well they're currently £2.98p and have hit £3.17p in the last month. Now I bought some at £3.10p with a target of selling at £3.40p so roughly a 12% return. However the price dropped to something like £2.92, so I bought some more with a target of £3.10p, within about a week they hit that target and I made around 7% return. Since then it went to £3.17p and then dropped back to the £2.90's I think two or three times and has gone back to £3.10 about 3 times. So if I had done the same thing buying at say £2.95 and selling at £3.10 then I would have made a total of 20% return (3 x 7%) returns. Meanwhile my shares bought at £3.10 and waiting for the target of £3.40 are just sat there doing nothing, no returns, no losses just nothing and even if they do hit target the return will only be 12% which is much less than the 20% plus I would have made on buying the dips and selling on the way up.

Basically I'd pick a share that I believe is going up, but rarely does a share price go straight up, it's up and down but in an upward trend. When Trump farts (excuse the pun), I'd buy that share (on the dip) and then expect the share to recover 7% and sell it and wait for the next time Trump farts to buy again. Over time I'd expect to do better than just buying and holding out for a bigger return.

Lot's of different strategies you can use and I do enjoy it but it's stressful when they're in losing positions

You have been reading the book "The Phycology of money" have you?

That's a good strategy to have but you have to be on the ball all the time I'd have thought and be doing plenty of research to make sure you don't get caught out on the drop.


I'm one to hold them for a long time I have sold off some in the past that I decided weren't worth it and sold a good chunk of Rolls Royce to pay for a new patio and summer house.

I can't be bothered to watch them as closely as a day trader might, I feel the shares I have are all solid companies that I bought on the dip they were in a period of recovering from the covid and that dip that female prime minister who I can't remember the name of because she was only in 4 weeks, hence why I'm going for funds from now and I'll just let my money grow.

 

[mattybondi]

I know we tend not to talk about stuff but if your partner is saying something that gets you down every day have a word. Explain that while you know she means well what she is saying is getting you down so please stop.

got my own back when i "discovered" a foraging tube [termites] on the lounge ceiling. guess who is fearful of insects. now and then i say "i think iv seen another foraging tube..."..

 

[ched999uk]

got my own back when i "discovered" a foraging tube [termites] on the lounge ceiling. guess who is fearful of insects. now and then i say "i think iv seen another foraging tube..."..

Hopefully it's just banter between you, if not then are you sure that's the right relationship for you?

 

[Chris34]

You have been reading the book "The Phycology of money" have you?

That's a good strategy to have but you have to be on the ball all the time I'd have thought and be doing plenty of research to make sure you don't get caught out on the drop.

Good to hear that you've made money to buy the patio and summer house, that's what it's all about, free money

No I've not heard of that book, but then again I don't go looking for books or advice I just do my own research. It is very time consuming but when you're interested in it to the level I am you don't think of it as like work, it's more like a hobby where you're just doing it all the time when you can.

I wouldn't describe it as totally day trading, it's more one strategy running alongside more traditional long hold strategies. Like I'll split the money invested. So for Barclays I might put £1K long and wait to hit a 10% target but then I'll also hold back another £1k to invest in the dips and sell on the way back up. So total risk is £2k which I would have risked in one chunk going long anyway, so it's just using two strategies at once to achieve a greater gain.

Just Group seemed an unexplained drop that didn't make sense so I've bought some at £1.40 and I'll sell at £1.65. At Fridays close it was £1.49 so it's already gone up around 6%. On this one I'm not going for a long strategy it's just a short term buying on the dip, I could get burned but the charts for the last year are general solid upward trend so I'm expecting that trend to continue and all the business side of it looks sound, so just seems like a good trade to make. It could go wrong but I've done the right thing and just got to wait and see now.

I'm interested in the compounding effect of interest. If you take 10% gain, it's not a lot, but if you re-invest all the money and make 10% each time, well ten times in a row is a 159% return on the original amount.

I've always had an interest in the numbers side of it and also interested in reading the business side so it suits me to trade as often as possible. But there are lots of successful strategies that don't need lots of time.

It is a risk with trading but if your successful the rewards are very good and are tax free so that's what appeals to me.

 

[Iron Giant]

Good to hear that you've made money to buy the patio and summer house, that's what it's all about, free money

No I've not heard of that book, but then again I don't go looking for books or advice I just do my own research. It is very time consuming but when you're interested in it to the level I am you don't think of it as like work, it's more like a hobby where you're just doing it all the time when you can.

I wouldn't describe it as totally day trading, it's more one strategy running alongside more traditional long hold strategies. Like I'll split the money invested. So for Barclays I might put £1K long and wait to hit a 10% target but then I'll also hold back another £1k to invest in the dips and sell on the way back up. So total risk is £2k which I would have risked in one chunk going long anyway, so it's just using two strategies at once to achieve a greater gain.

Just Group seemed an unexplained drop that didn't make sense so I've bought some at £1.40 and I'll sell at £1.65. At Fridays close it was £1.49 so it's already gone up around 6%. On this one I'm not going for a long strategy it's just a short term buying on the dip, I could get burned but the charts for the last year are general solid upward trend so I'm expecting that trend to continue and all the business side of it looks sound, so just seems like a good trade to make. It could go wrong but I've done the right thing and just got to wait and see now.

I'm interested in the compounding effect of interest. If you take 10% gain, it's not a lot, but if you re-invest all the money and make 10% each time, well ten times in a row is a 159% return on the original amount.

I've always had an interest in the numbers side of it and also interested in reading the business side so it suits me to trade as often as possible. But there are lots of successful strategies that don't need lots of time.

It is a risk with trading but if your successful the rewards are very good and are tax free so that's what appeals to me.

The book I mentioned isn't advice on investment like strategy or equations as to how some of these alleged experts claim to beat the markets,

it's full of short stories shall we say, all factual about normal people and the likes of Bill Gates, I have just started reading it as I watched a YouTube video interviewing the author Morgan Housel it's a dairy of ceo interview it's effectively giving some advice but just common sense stuff, the video is definitely worth a watch and the book of course is is more in depth and worth a read if you like the video.