Q&A – In Conversation

I started mucking around with stocks in the dotcom boom days in late 1999 – exactly the wrong time to be doing it! What a baptism of fire that was – I got lucky with a few but lost some ridiculous amounts of money on some very poor choices (thankfully I know a lot better now!).

I made every single possible mistake, although I made maybe one decent decision – I did at least diversify my portfolio and bought lots of funds in a spread of things like US stocks, Japanese stocks, tech funds (right at the top of the boom), bond funds, health funds, and some cash – that this was my saving grace, if I had not done this I would probably have lost near 75% of my money; in the event I probably lost about 35% in the low to 2003 – obviously still horrific.

I made one more good decision – rather than giving up (there really is no better way to make money than by investing in equities over time and compounding the returns) as many of my mates did, I realised that a major factor in my abysmal performance was that I was over confident and didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was doing.

I then started to read about people like Warren Buffet, Jim Slater, Ken Fisher, Peter Lynch, Ben Graham etc and got a grip; I followed David Linton avidly for his charting prowess and learnt so much from him and other technical analysts.

I subscribe to Investors Chronicle which I love and I see Shares Magazine which is a quality read; I subscribe to ShareScope which is excellent and I recently upgraded to SharePad as well – because I can access it using my tablet. I am a big fan of Robbie Burns, the Naked Trader – I like the way he mixes fundamentals with charts; he is a genius at ‘cutting out the noise’ and the psychology of investing – something I have put more emphasis on in recent years and I have written a lot about how our brains affect our investing performance.

I ‘retired’ 8 years ago at the ripe old age of 44 and spent time refining my approach and reading aplenty, but as a fairly inactive investor I had a lot of time on my hands and got bored – so about 3 years ago I started doing my Website www.wheeliedealer.weebly.com and I am pretty active on Twitter as @WheelieDealer.

 

I’m an ‘investor’ rather than a ‘trader’ although of course my ‘name’ is rather misleading! (hey, it had a nice ring to it and I am a huge fan of Mike Brewer and Ed China).

I buy stocks which I think will rise over time, holding them from a few months to many years; I still hold the Framlington Health Unit Trust I bought back in 1999 – it has been excellent and I like health as a theme going forwards. I am remarkably patient – my default stance is ‘do nothing’ (panicking into being a ‘forced seller‘is a huge mistake).

Whatever I buy must fit within my portfolio and ‘make sense’ in that context; I hold about 40 Stocks in my ‘Trading ISA’ – the ‘WD40’ and I have an ‘income portfolio’ with 12 Stocks in it. I buy across the size spectrum from FTSE100 right down to AIM shares although I tend to stick above £50m market cap

I like to have a mix of sectors although I have got myself rather over exposed to retail stocks – although, apart from French Connection (FCCN) which is a pain, I am very happy with the ones I hold.

I aim for a 10% return on my portfolio and a good balance of risk and time/effort; I adopted this approach when the demands of a full time job forced me into this fairly inactive style – but I think it is a huge positive because a big error many newbies make is to overtrade, merely making their broker rich with dealing commissions!

However, I then leverage up this return using spreadbets so my overall returns are probably nearer 15%; I do a ‘mirrored’ portfolio using spreadbets which is much more efficient in terms of capital.

I use hedging via index shorts to try to limit downside when markets get in a mood – however, this has got much harder as many indexes like the FTSE100 and DAX are more like FOREX trades these days. FOREX is insanely risky and I would never go near it – don’t start me on Bitcoin!

My focus is on the business itself – I want to buy a company that is likely to grow in coming years; for my income portfolio I focus on a sustainable dividend and I want to see some steady growth. Again, any new stock must make sense in my overall Portfolio, I don’t want to get ‘out of balance’ and increase risk.

I size my positions according to my judgment of their likely volatility; my largest positions are FTSE100 stocks and AIM stocks might only get 2% of my total exposure (including spreadbet longs). If a stock does well I will ‘push the position’ by buying, but if something gets too big and looks over-valued, I top-chop to reduce my risk.

Risk management is key for me; it is where investors/traders make their biggest errors but it is rarely written about in a practical way.

Valuation is another bee in my bonnet – it’s amazing how few people seem to understand basic stuff like Forward P/E, PEG, Dividend Yield, Discount/Premium to NAV, etc. – this is an area that gives me an ‘edge’ – because most people totally ignore it.

I am addicted to charts – I want to buy stocks in uptrends or perhaps after a 50/200 day Moving Average Golden Cross or on a Breakout of a Resistance Level  – again most people take little notice of such things, giving me an edge.

I avoid certain sectors like mining, biotech, and anything loss making – ‘long shots’ rarely work out and they are best traded short term not held as ‘investments’; it is probably unwise to use leverage on such high risk plays.

Many people plump for pension straightaway, but I am a huge fan of ISAs (especially now that you can shove in £20k every year) – I have never had a pension so I was able to max my ISA when I was working which enabled me to retire early. If I had put my dosh into a pension, I would have got the tax relief upfront (you pay tax when your money is taken out) but I would not have been able to retire until 11 years after I actually did; heck, I would still be 3 years from retirement and extremely depressed I would imagine !

ISAs are more ‘visible’ and people are much more on the ball with regards to what they have invested in them; governments are less likely to mess with ISA rules whereas you are at their mercy with regard to pensions – goal posts can easily get moved as the WASPI women have found out to their cost.

If I was starting over, I would max my ISA each year and if I had anything left over, shove it in a pension.

With regard to ‘best’, I contend that sometimes it is not just about raw returns on an asset but also its risk and function within an overall portfolio. Back in 1999 when I started investing I put about 20% of my money into a Prudential ‘with profits’ bond; these things got a very bad press because they were often part of an endowment mortgage, linked to paying off of the home loan, but in my case it was a standalone product and it has been an excellent buy.

It plays a critical role in my portfolio because it is very much low risk, yet still returns around 4% p.a., compounded – this is way better than cash and is stable and easy to cash in when there is trouble.

Having something like this as a ‘core’ to your Portfolio, means you can take higher risks on things like stocks and leverage, retaining an element of ‘safety’ from the bond; it is still a big chunk of my portfolio and I have taken quite a bit of money out of it over the years as well.

Slightly more exciting was Anglesey Mining (AYM) which I bought at 4p and sold out at 60p; I bought other chunks at around 20p – not quite so exciting, but it was a big winner for me.

A downside of this was that I then got over confident with small miners thinking I could do no wrong and proceeded to lose plenty on other stocks of a similar ilk

More recently I have done really well on Trifast (TRI), around 500% up, Boohoo.com (BOO), 400% and Tristel TSTL 250%.

I don’t worry too much about the individual investments that make up my portfolio – what matters is how it performs year in/year out (enabling me to live my relaxing lifestyle!).

A thing that unites my big winners is that they often started out badly but at some point I managed to average down at a good price, boosting my returns hugely; e.g. on BOO I first bought at around 60p but the shares tanked after a profit warning so I bought a load more at around 25p and some a bit higher, around 40p – they are now 233p.

When you invest in quality stocks (rather than AIM’s speculative dreams) it seems that when they have a hiccup, things get sorted out and they become a recovery play; it is highly risky to average down and never something to do without proper consideration, but once the company is trading well again it is a very valuable technique.

The duffer side is a no-brainer – in 2000 or so I put an absurd amount of money into Just Group (’Butt Ugly Martians’ cartoons) and made every mistake known to man; when it went bang I blew about £14k which taught me an important lesson about putting far too much money into high risk, speculative stocks – and to ignore the nonsense on bulletin boards!

That’s difficult to answer because there are so many factors to consider.

Firstly decide whether you’ll invest in funds or individual stocks and however you go about it, it is vital to diversify and spread risk.

Sticking to stocks it is critical to learn about how to value a company – the boring stuff like P/E Ratios and NAVs etc; so many people pay lip service to this but it is something that can definitely you give an edge.

The other critical thing to stress is how important it is to realise that this is a game where the tortoises tend to do very well but the hares have mixed results!

Setting sensible and realistic annual returns (around 10% is reasonable) and controlling risk is the way to go. So many new investors go badly wrong because they target crazy returns; aiming to get rich quick, in reality they just rack up loads of losses.

The key to the game is compounding good returns over the years, if you are young when you start then you have a huge advantage. Oh, and patience pays……

 

Cheers, WD.

 

‘I’ve only had an account with an online stockbroker for two years and I could kick myself that I didn’t take the plunge sooner.

I found that I enjoyed learning about different types of investments – there is masses of information and support to be found – and my ‘eureka’ moment came when I was playing around with a compound interest calculator; I had no idea that earning interest on interest could make such a dramatic difference.

On the basis that you can only start from where you are, I vowed that from that day, however small the amount, I would be disciplined in putting something away for the girls each month.’

‘To be honest, I want to keep things relatively simple, and and keep costs to a minimum.

When the girls reach eighteen I would like to be able to provide them with a sum of money that could be put towards tuition fees should they want to go to university, or alternatively could help them start a business or get on the property ladder.

I understand the benefit of a diverse portfolio – avoiding the ‘all the eggs in one basket’ scenario – but with relatively modest monthly investments I don’t want to be making decisions to invest in individual shares, for example.

Also, with Brexit looming and the uncertainty it brings, as well as fears that individual markets could be set to fall because share prices are high, I would like to spread my risk as widely as possible in terms of sectors, countries and ensure that I have a mixture of shares, funds and bonds.

Consequently, I have set up a regular investment to go into one of Vanguard’s Life Strategy funds – my broker charges me just £1.50 a month commission and I get a ready made portfolio put together by investment experts at a cost of just 0.22% p.a.

In my SIPP, I am a little more hands on, and I am building a portfolio of actively managed funds – which are getting cheaper, and passive index trackers called ETFs’

Vanguard’s funds are designed to offer different levels of risk – the higher the risk, the higher the potential gain, and the higher the possible loss.

Because it will be fourteen years before the twins reach eighteen, I currently invest in the Life Strategy 60 fund which means that 60% of my money will be invested in equites – shares – which could be considered risky, but I believe that if markets have a bad year, I will still have time to make up for it.

As the girls get older I will choose a less risky fund, to ensure there is less risk of losing their money.

I recently bought a retail bond issued by a company called Dolphin Square in my SIPP and learned a very important lesson; bonds deliver a regular, guaranteed, amount of income in exchange for you lending money, typically to a company – hence they are called ‘fixed income’ products.

I read about a property company that was borrowing money to build houses and was offering 8.5% interest, which sounded quite tempting; however, I read on Retail Bond Expert about the dangers of what it called ‘mini-bonds’ and despite the fact that the bond I bought pays less – 4.25% p.a. – it is listed on the Order Book for Retail Bonds (ORB) so I am much more likely to get my money back

Each of the girls have Junior ISA (JISA) accounts that would allow us to save up to £4,128 per year free of tax; although we are not saving at that level, I like to give ‘Spreadsheet’ Phil (Chancellor Philip Hammond) as little as possible.

It was only when I started to become interested in investments that I looked into how my company pension was performing and what my likely level of income could be; when I realised it was less than I had hoped I decided to open a SIPP account and started to build my own portfolio.

I intend to keep an eye on the performance of my company scheme and if I start to do better, I may switch all of my pot into my SIPP.

‘Because I’ve never chased big returns by making risky investments, there have been few ‘bests’ or ‘worsts’; I’m all about building a pot over a long period of time.

What I like about retail bonds is the fact that even if the price falls, I can still get my money back at the end of the loan.

I think that in the future we are all going to have to take much more personal interest and in, and responsibility for, our financial affairs – whether that is tuition fees, property purchase or retirement planning.

In the US I know that many more people are DIY investors because there is not the level of state support we have here.

The level of Chloe’s debt, and the rate at which interest is being applied came as quite a shock to me, and made me wish that I had started earlier.

However, I have made a start , and have actually started to enjoy learning more about investments; there is plenty of information to be found on sites like DIY Investor, and groups on social media sites come together to exchange ideas and trading suggestions.

I would say take a deep breath and plough in – take as much advantage as you can of two of the keys to a successful investment strategy – time in the market and compound interest.

Research the main investment types that are available and weigh up the potential returns that you could achieve; most investments are relatively straightforward, and those that aren’t are not for me.

When I look at the financial stresses and strains Chloe faces it makes me very worried and concerned for her future; if there is one thing I wish I’d known then is the difference it can make to start investing early for children – even small sums invested over a long period of time can make a big difference.

My advice is to give DIY investing a try – its nowhere near as scary as I’d expected and it can actually be rather fun’

If I’m honest, I haven’t been an investor for very long. I’ve always, ever since I was a child, been a saver, and I have, until recent years, benefited from reasonably good interest rates. But this changed when there was an economic downturn and the UK entered a period of low interest rates.

This was all good for my mortgage payment, but when I saw my savings were suffering, I realised something had to be done.

But it was only really when I had my first child in 2009, I decided that saving for his future was going to take a lot more than just putting money into an average bank account, and I really had to start looking deeper into investing.

I think of myself as a sensible investor. I like to play it safe, as I don’t like the idea of losing all my money because greed overcame sense.

However, my children are age eight and four, and I am a bit more ambitious with their money as I know they have a good few years ahead of them to make the money work for them and there is room for mistakes (not too many though, I hope).

For me, investing has to be easy and ethical; these are the two things that matter to me when making an investment.

I say easy because I don’t think it should be difficult and like many financial products, things are often made to look more difficult than they actually are.

It should also be easy if it is to be accessible to mums – not because I think mums are incapable of dealing with complex financial matters, but because they have so little time and trying to run a household along with a complicated investment portfolio doesn’t go hand in hand.

As for ethical, I say this because I like to see that my money is being invested in companies that are doing something good for the future – as a mum, the desire to be ethical is obvious.

Both. I am a great believer in not putting all your eggs in one basket. The government allows you to invest a whopping £20,000 into an ISA, tax free, all of which can be put into an investment ISA if you like – you’d be mad not to take up that opportunity.

And don’t forget, there are also junior ISAs, so you can put your children’s money into that – currently, you can invest £4,128 this tax year into a junior ISA.

But saving for old age is important too – this also comes with tax advantages and if you’re working, you’re employer pays into it too – so essentially, you would be saying no to free money by not taking up a pension scheme.

People naively believe the state will provide – but ask yourself if around £148.00 a week will be enough to live on before you decide not to bother with a private pension. SIPPs (self-invested personal pensions) are a great way to save for retirement – so if you haven’t already, look into these.

The worst investment I made, in fact it was my very first, was Lastminute.com. I got caught up in the dot.com bubble.

The company’s share price dropped rapidly in less than a month of trading – I really didn’t make any money. It wasn’t a lot, but at the time it did feel like a lot. I was very naive; my brother told me it would make me rich. I tend not to listen to him anymore when it comes to money. My best investment has been gold. It’s a commodity that often hits record highs. My Mum started me off with this one, and let’s faces it, mums are always right!

As a financial journalist, I really can’t give out ‘advice’ as such, but let’s say my tips are: check the fees – many investment portfolios come with charges, but some are higher than others, so make sure you know what these are and shop around, as high fees can eat into your investment.

As a DIY investor it’s also important to only invest in something you understand. Also, don’t be fooled into ‘get rich quick’ schemes – they could leave you in a lot of trouble.

Finally, don’t go investing if you want to access your money in a year or three years time.

Investing is worthwhile if you can invest for a minimum of five years, but ideally 10 years.

This is great if you have young children – put their money into investments now and it could be worth a fair bit when they are age 18.

 

 

I began investing around six years ago, though I had very little money to do so.  The first significant step on my journey began when I was left some money in a will.  At that time I was a regular reader of The Motley Fool’s UK message boards, specifically the ‘high-yield portfolio’ section.  I’m quite pleased to say that my first significant investments were in dividend paying, blue chip UK equities like Royal Dutch Shell and Vodafone.  I liked the idea of owning a portfolio that paid out decent and growing dividends.

Sadly I fell victim to one of the behavioural traits common to novice investors: Boredom; by design, a high yield portfolio should be held for the long-term, and yet here I was in this exciting new world sat around not doing anything.

‘you can get rich slowly or get poor quickly’

I then made my second mistake: Getting sucked into the promise of riches in small-cap oil exploration companies; fortunately I grew out of this quite quickly, and even made a little money on Tethys Petroleum around Christmas-time (I managed to buy my wife some lovely earrings with the proceeds).

It’s hard to say what happened between then and now.  I carried on reading about successful investors and books about investing, and over time began to formulate an investing methodology, which I am continuing to adapt and refine today.

I began investing a far larger sum of money in August 2015, and to date it has been a remarkable success (up 55% as of October 2017).  On my website I list my holdings, and publish quarterly updates on the performance of the portfolio.

 

In terms of time frame, I would easily class myself as a long-term investor.  Warren Buffett is noted for saying ‘our favourite holding period is forever’, which is something I can definitely identify with.

Because of this, I try to ensure I do as much due diligence as possible before making an investment.  I think it also helps that I have a demanding day job, which restricts my ability to meddle with my portfolio and become my own worst enemy!

‘above all, never stop learning’

I will usually make, at most, half a dozen trades in a year, and do not use stop losses.  In the two years I have been investing, I have held positions that have fallen by 30%+ and have since recovered.

Because of the time I take in conducting my initial investigation, I will usually only sell if the circumstances of the business have changed for the worse and I believe the long-term prospects of the company have declined.

 

 

 

I feel as though the more you learn, the more you are able to simplify your investing methodology.  I also feel it becomes easier to quickly identify opportunities that match your investing style.  I have no problem immediately dismissing 90%+ of businesses if they don’t fit with how I invest, because I don’t think it’s necessary to have an opinion on every company you see.

I will usually identify opportunities by running a screen across different markets.  There are fundamental requirements I set on this screen.  I look for companies with little to no debt, whose current assets cover current liabilities (preferably with cash holdings).  I also look for companies with consistently decent returns on invested capital, which serves as a measure of quality.

In terms of valuation, I am learning to be less restrictive in terms of the metrics of a company.  In an ideal world, I would want to invest in a quality business trading at a reasonable valuation.  However, quality seldom comes cheap.  That being said, I’m not sure I’d ever feel comfortable paying 90-times earnings for a company, simply because of the expectation required of it.  If growth so much as stutters, a business can be punished quite severely.

Once a potential investment has been identified, I like to spend a few hours reading up on the business itself.  I will usually read at least the last five years’ annual reports to get a measure of the progress of the company, as well as ten years of financial data (if it’s available).  Last, but not least, I like to undertake a discounted cash flow exercise to model a range of potential growth outcomes going into the future.  This helps me get a handle on the price of a business relative to the cash it generates.

 

 

 

Working in the public sector I pay into a pretty decent pension; however with pension deficits being what they are I am not taking this for granted.

I therefore use ISA’s to invest, with a view to growing capital.  The way I see it, I have a good 30+ years before I retire, so my investing time frame allows me to be a little more adventurous.

 

 

 

In terms of pure return, toiletries and fragrances manufacturer Creightons PLC is currently my best performing holding, currently up around 400%.  I firmly believe the company has a bright future ahead of it as well.

‘You have to think about the opportunity cost of waiting for a business to recover’

Regarding worst investment, I would have to say Gattaca PLC.  From the minute I bought it, it just went down and down, and unfortunately I held for far longer than I should have.  I ended up selling with a 53% loss.  I was still in the mind-set that if I held long enough, the price would recover and I would end up with a satisfactory return.  However simple mathematics tells you that the price would have to double just to get back to break-even.

Oddly, I’d probably say this was also one of my best investments in terms of education.  I learnt two main things from this.  Firstly, a company in a steady price decline is unlikely to improve in the short to medium term.  Secondly, it’s not necessary to make your money back on the same investment.  Sell up, and put that money to better use.  You have to think about the opportunity cost of waiting for a business to recover.

 

 

 

I can only speak in terms of my limited experience, but the first thing I would say is to expect to make mistakes and lose money in the beginning.  Far better to do this when you have less money available to lose.  Common investing mistakes are well publicised, but some you just have to live through to come out the other side.

I currently invest purely in equities and ETFs, so can’t speak on the subject of funds.  I would suggest that if you have the time and the interest, investing in individual stocks can be very rewarding both financially and intellectually.  Obviously the returns are nice, but more than anything I have enjoyed the academic challenge of individual stock selection.  If this isn’t for you, I’d stick to putting your money into funds.  Just watch those fees, as they can eat up returns.

For someone interested in building their own portfolio, I think it’s essential to work out what type of investor you are and what type of investments you are drawn to and understand.  Never invest in anything you don’t understand, and never buy something just because someone else recommended it.  Read a lot, educate yourself and give yourself the time to begin to develop a framework.  Understand that this is not a ‘get rich quick’ kind of thing.  I wrote on Twitter recently that ‘you can get rich slowly or get poor quickly’.  If you go in with the mind-set that you need to make loads of money quickly, you’ll likely do the exact opposite.

Above all, never stop learning.

 

 

 

‘I’ve only had an account with an online stockbroker for around five years, but I have had a wide range of investments in my name for the last twenty years.

However, in the past I have done little other than decide whether to subscribe to rights issues, or sell my holding.

When I opened an account (with Selftrade) I was pleasantly surprised at how simple they made the whole process and it made me wish that I had done so much sooner.

It was only then that I realised that the investment ‘bonds’ I had been sold in branch were not like the bonds that we started to buy and I liked the fact that I could see the value of my investments all in one place; I certainly didn’t obsess about it, but I enjoyed the fact that I could access my account at any time to see how it was performing.’

 

 

‘Growing up, my father was a gambler and it made me realise the true value of money; I feel that I’ve worked too hard for it to fritter it away, so I would never invest in anything that comes with a high risk of losing my money.

Having said that, I do recognise that every investment comes with some risk, I just try to spread it around.

Because of my time of life, I am not looking at a long term investment strategy, I am looking to earn a better return on my money than I can get with the banks and, touch wood, so far that has worked well.

I do not want to be constantly buying and selling stocks and shares, or having to worry about prices rapidly rising and falling; I usually sit down with my son every few months and if there is any spare cash we find an investment that we can buy and hold.’

 

‘Because I am looking for income I tend to look for, what I now know are called, ‘fixed income’ investments – mainly retail bonds when they are available.

I currently own six different retail bonds, and as well as paying me more than 6% p.a. they are all worth more than I paid for them.’

I have also learned the benefit of keeping fees and charges as low as possible, so I have also bought some very simple trackers – called exchange traded funds – which allow me to own a little piece of every company in the FTSE 100.’

 

 

‘I have been lucky in that I have a pension in my own right having worked in education, and I also get a widow’s pension which means that my day to day living expenses are covered.

Times were different then, but we paid our mortgage off quite quickly and although I enjoy travelling and have a good social life, I have always lived within my means.

Although I had been persuaded to save into Cash ISAs in the past, I’d not really considered transferring the shares that we owned into an ISA, even though I’d been paying tax on my investments for many years.

Selftrade made it really simple for me to do so and I was so grateful to Sarah there who was very kind and patient with me and always went the extra mile.’

 

‘Because I’ve never chased big returns by making risky investments, there have been few ‘bests’ or ‘worsts’; what I like about retail bonds is the fact that even if the price falls, I can still get my money back at the end of the loan.

Five years ago, I could not have written that answer because no one had ever explained to me in layman’s terms that a bond is just an IOU and that I can get paid guaranteed interest for lending to a company or a government; I don’t think the City wanted people like me to understand that.

The individual shares that I still hold are as a result of privatisations, although many companies have changed names or ownership; even though they are probably still worth much more than when we bought them, I can see that many have lost a lot of value since I transferred them into Selftrade, so perhaps they would be my ‘worst’ investments – I should have sold them and invested where I could get guaranteed returns.’

‘The hardest thing for me was getting started; I used to bundle up the dozens of letters and statements that I’d receive and then when I saw him, my son would agree that I was not getting very good returns, and then we’d agree to do something about it.

We used to joke about making a start when we got ‘a round tuit’; however, once we did, it was surprisingly simple.

We researched the main investment types that were available and weighed up the potential returns that I could achieve whilst agreeing that I am by nature very cautious about losing money; we found that most investments were relatively straightforward, and those that weren’t are not for me.

Because of my caution, maybe even fear, of losing money, I would never invest in anything that I am offered by telephone callers that I don’t know, but sadly some friends of mine lost money they could ill afford on a property development in Spain.

When I look at the financial stresses and strains faced by my grandchildren it makes me very worried and concerned for their future – student loans, low wages and unaffordable housing; if there is one thing I wish I’d known then is the difference it can make to start investing early for children – even small sums invested over a long period of time can make a big difference.

My advice would be to find someone you can talk to and then give DIY investing a try – its nowhere near as scary as I’d expected and it can actually be rather fun’

 

In various ways, off and on for quite some time; when ISAs were first introduced I mixed and matched with Cash and Unit Trust ISAs and as my disposable income increased in recent years expanded into individual shares and funds.

I’ve definitely moved into cautious territory. I’ve recently given up my job in the Oil Industry to become a self employed baker so with my drop in income I can’t afford to be quite so buccaneer with my savings! My investments are now spread across various funds, with a fairly even mix veering to the conservative end. I’ve also moved some of my money out of the market into peer to peer lending to give me a balanced risk approach.

Don’t lose money! Given my change in situation I can’t afford to be too cavalier, baking does not bring in as much as The Oil Industry so my investments now are pretty much it, they have to make themselves pay without much chance of topping them up in case of losses.

Always been both, I have been lucky in that all the companies I have worked for over the years have contributed to pensions for me, I was a little late in adding my own contributions but have been catching up in recent years – especially as my last company had a salary sacrifice scheme which maximised the value of my contributions by taking it before tax or NI had been taken. I’ve also made a point of not combining the various schemes in order to spread the risk between the various investment companies and avoid putting all my eggs in one basket! Re ISAs, be it cash or investment ISAs they have been the cornerstone of my non-pension saving.

My best investment was not an investment as such but moving companies to one with a final salary pension scheme for a good few years! So as well as my other investments I now have an index linked pension waiting for me when I’m ready!

As to worst investment that’s a difficult one; there’s been a few shares that have badly underperformed against their peers and which I was convinced would spring back so bought more thus increasing my loss – I’ve tried to erase their names from my memory but it has given me a good maxim – don’t go chasing your losses!

Firstly, make sure you can afford it. Squirrel away some cash (check out current accounts for some of the best savings rates, bizarrely) then do your homework. If you’re investing in funds, check the league tables and the fee schedules, if you’re investing in individual companies know what you’re looking for and how to read a balance sheet!

I’ve invested in the markets for 14 years, I first got interested listening to a good friend telling me about all the money he was making in shares that doubled in value in a week (the dotcom bubble).

I almost lost interest shortly after when most of his halved in value week after week until they were worth nothing.

To begin with I was an ‘uneducated’ investor, there are long lists of mistakes that most new investors make, and I made them all.

Things like buying penny shares, you think that if a 5p share goes to £5 you’ll be rich, trouble is the ones you buy never do.

In my opinion buying the ‘next great idea’ is not a good idea, buying small mining companies, you might as well go to Africa and throw your money down the mine shaft at least that way you get a holiday out of doing the money.

Doubling down, if it was good value at £1 now it’s halved in a week to 50p it must be twice as good value.

As it then goes to 25p in short order you think ‘er no’.

The list of mistakes I made is endless and when I read Robbie Burns’ superb Naked Trader book about investing that, among much else, lists the common mistakes………………………….

I’d made them all and some. I’m now a very calm, calculating investor with neither pride nor shame.

However I still make plenty of mistakes.

I only invest in things that I understand, so no indices or FX.

I like small cap shares that make real profits that don’t have large debt and trade on sensible earnings multiples.

I use level 2 to try and work out where the price is going in the very short term to get a good entry point and I use charts to see what has happened in the past and to take a view on what might happen.

I am happy to be either long or short and depending on my ‘current’ view of the market adjust the ratio of long to short.

Both, in the past more ISA than pension, however the recent budget now makes SIPPs a much better proposition for someone like me.

The pension reform was a good start as was the increase in the ISA allowance.

Since 2008 it’s been all about staving off an almighty financial collapse.

This has been done by in effect taking money from prudent savers and giving it to feckless borrowers………………………

This has got to change, the population is aging in front of our eyes, people have to be given a reasonable chance to make provision for their own old age.

The tax raid that Gordon Brown inflicted on pensions (the abolition of basic rate tax relief on dividends) should be reversed, the ‘life time’ cap should be revised upwards, the ISA allowance should be increased at a rate above inflation each year from now on.

Oh, and don’t even think about taxing large ISA pots if you ever want to be re-elected again. If people have been clever enough to turn the relatively small amounts they have been allowed in invest in ISAs into million pound pots…………………………. Good for them.

Jarvis was my worst ever. The price collapsed and I doubled up not once, not twice, not thrice but yes, four times.

Cost me £8000.

The best has been sticking at it through thick and thin, spending thousands of hours trading, investing, learning and slowly getting better at it.

Not sure I’m qualified to give advice to be honest.

I think the most important lesson I’ve learnt is to make money slowly.

Take small positions that you can afford to lose if all goes wrong, that takes all the stress and emotion away, only enter trades with a good risk reward ratio, cut losses very quickly and move on when you call it wrong, and don’t snatch profits too soon when you call it right.

Finally, markets are a mind game.

Never forget, you’re not a punter, you’re in business running your own investment fund.

Twenty plus years(15 years as an online share trader)

Mostly long term buy and hold on decently yielding stocks (most of my investments are via my SIPP), I would say that I have become a
more cautious investor, but I am still prepared to take reasonable risks.

In the last few years I have looked to get a far better balance to my portfolio, so not just straight equities, but also Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) and Exchange Traded Commodities (ETC) and
bonds.

In particular, I have looked to invest in new issues of retail bonds, with yields between 5 and 6% typically and found it easy to do so (at nil commission) via my broker, Selftrade.

I tend to pick up information on retail bonds via Selftrade, the LSE website and also Retail Bond Expert (www.retailbondexpert.com)

Similarly, ETFs/ETCs are simple to trade online and provide greater diversity and balance in my portfolio.

Over the years I have purchased various ETFs/ETCs including tracking of a basket of Australian stocks, index trackers of the FTSE250 (which I still do via a monthly regular investment), DJIA and Nikkei.

I have also invested in ETCs for Gold, a combination of Gold/Silver/Platinum, Copper and even Water Companies.

Good yield, sound investment with (hopefully) a potential of decent capital uplift.

I will generally not look outside the FTSE 350 for equities with my SIPP, but do occasionally invest in AIM listed stocks in my ISA.

Within my SIPP, my employer pays in a set amount each month and I have eight regular investments that, after 4 or 5 years, are now a significant value and pay a good dividend.

Both, as the ISA will allow instant access in case of that ‘rainy day’ and recent changes in ISA rules (allowing bonds with less than 5 years to maturity, allowing AIM listed stocks and an increase in the annual subscription to £15000) make it a better vehicle to invest in.

As with most investments, I think it is important to have a spread of products/risk etc. 

Equities have generally figured in my highs and lows: Marconi, RBS (all FTSE100 that had a massive fall from grace) as well as a couple of stupid AIM plays.

I console myself with the bad decisions hoping that I have learnt my lesson and will make a better decision in the future (which I believe I generally do).

Some of my better investments include ITV and the original Orange listing.

Have a balanced portfolio which includes a combination of equities, bonds and ETFs/ETCs and be very clear on your goals (i.e. retire at 55, save for school fees etc.), concentrate on keeping your costs to a minimum and don’t be too greedy!