This is my first ever blog post. The excitement is impalpable!
A few months ago I looked at my ISA and the measly interest it was earning, and decided saving money was a waste of time. At around the same time Honda launched a new Civic Type R, and as I currently drive a 2004 EP3 Type R, I toddled down to the showroom for the launch event. The car was amazing, but at a £30,000 price tag, I was going to need to make a lot more interest than my ISA was generating.
Around the same time as all this was going on, I was on jury service in a case that involved stock market trading. Weeks of poring over bank statements and stock portfolios sparked an interest. I have always been a very risk averse investor - but where has it got me? Shed loads of premium bonds that are barely keeping up with the feeble rate of inflation on my ISA. Maybe now would be a good time to explore the world of the stock market?
I logged into my Building Society account and followed the link to investing in stocks and shares. This led me to the Stocktrade web site run by Brewin Dolphin Ltd. I registered an account in a matter of minutes, and transferred £1000 from my current account. This was it! I was ready to trade!
Unfortunately I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I browsed the web for safe shares to purchase that generated good dividends. One that popped up on several searches was HLMA:Halma. They specialise in products for health and safety and protection. They pay dividends every 6 months and at the time I bought the shares on 13th August 2015, their share price had been steadily increasing. So, this was it - my first trade. I purchased 100 shares at 767.78p per share. I was a little miffed to see that I was charged £12.50 for the transaction, plus stamp duty of £3.84, bringing the total cost to £784.12. Never mind - I was now a shareholder.
Next day I had an idea - why don't I just find some shares that are doing badly but are now doing better. I can't remember exactly how I found them, but ISG:ISG came on my radar. ISG stands for Interior Services Group. Their main work is fitting out shops and offices, and their stocks had plunged when they started making a loss during the recession. The order books were picking up, and so was their share price, so I figured now was the time to buy. These shares were considerably cheaper than Halma, at 168.8p a share, so I decided to buy 300, but first needed to raid one of my savings accounts for £400 to add to my account. There was no stamp duty this time, but still a commission, so the shares cost me £518.90.
Meanwhile I signed up to uk.advfn.com and set up a monitor for my shares. It was slightly hypnotic watching the colours flash as the FTSE index waxed and waned. I was feeling levels of excitement way exceeding anything I had done for ages. The thought of shifting my ISA and premium bonds into shares was growing rapidly.
Over the next few posts I'll write about the next shares I purchased, the (slightly mad) rationale behind some of them, and how I learned the hard way about the dangers of buying shares when you don't really have a clue what you're doing...
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