I am Just a novice at all this and wandering what methods do people use when buying stock.Do people use TRENd is you friend strategy.Or if share is undervalued against its competitors or do people trade purly on technical analysis.I know there is no one best method or we would all be millionares.I just want to know what method best suites individuals

No one can ever say that people on this bb. do not do a great job in helping everyone who needs it.

Well done all.

And Thanks.

melnibones post is great advice as it is impossible to lose much money

SouthernMick Thank you. I will have look at Magic Numbers sometime. At the moment I am trying to learn to count like Accountants. I think my grandson is doing it already. Should go far.

But I agree with many it is a miserable market at the moment. I feel as if it is building up pressure, but which way it will burst is anybody's guess.

No problems Fred.

Def. get the book from your local library!

An interesting excercise to then undertake is to run through the ratios with a share you hold & passionately believe in and then re-evaluate lol! Can be very revealing!

I don't agree though that it is a miserable market. When decent (& I mean decent) shares are falling for no reason, well then, isn't that a decent buying opportunity?

Food for thought perhaps?

Mickey.

Agree, stockpicking is what counts. My significant holdings of stocks are:
CASH - up today (still below my buy though :-( )
CS. - up today
LLOY - down
MRW - down
SGC - up
TFC - bought today and up on my buy price (just)
WLW - up today.

5 up, 2 down. Not perfect but better than trackers!

Mickey

Interesting volume in GFRD today - mainly in 250K lumps very close to the mid price. Is someone building a stake or offloading one. Are ROK coming sniffing again? any thoughts

F1 - apologies for the delay in replying as I have been away for a long w/end (a nice change for once lol!!)

I have now taken a small stake in GFRD (finally you say!) and will see what happens before upping this. Some more positive RNS's today. I've found that there is nothing like holding a share for a while to understand it properly (whatever the lengths of research you do, so will see!)

For what it's worth I do not think that the ROK acquisition last week is likely to stop their acquisitiveness. Whether this means GFRD, who knows (probably now edging 30/70 against it happening)?! Either way the Dickie acquisition is a small one and unlikely to preclude further acquisitions this yr., so don't rule it out.

ROK certainly seem on the upward curve at the moment on low volumes, and there is no doubt in my opinion that the results (& forward order book) next month will be fantastic.

Seymour - interested to see that you hold two of my cash cows - SGC & LLOY. I love both of these and have been receiving the Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) for several years - nice!

The thing with these two that I particularly like is that if the share price drops then when the DRIP is calculated I get loads more shares, and if it rises, well, then my capital also rises. Very nice!! (especially as neither will go to the wall!)

Mickey.

I think there are two aspects to fundamental analysis.

1. Interpreting the data as described by Fundy
2. Interpreting how the market will interpret the data. (Lots of interpreting I'm afraid.)

For example, I bought SCS Upholstery (SUY) prior to a fantastic set of results and yet the market has virtually completely ignored the shares.

Maybe the market will one day wake up to them or they know something I don't. Either way my money could have been in something which was gonna make me money.

I suspect the majority of people on here haven't got trenchloads of money and are trying to build a decent sized pot with a number of (relatively) quick winners. Only by watching price action will they achieve that.

Fundamental analysis is only half the picture IMHO.