I thought it might be good to share something about my objectives and my investing style. I hope you find it of interest and generates some discussion as I think Moneyam needs something more at the moment.

I work full time so I’m an investor now. In general I do have time to check the markets during the day but there are days when I’m in meetings for hours on end and it’s not appropriate. This works well for me as stops me over-trading. I suspect I would make less if I sat at a computer all day trying to invest.

Please feel free to discuss you trading style and reflect on how I could improve what I do.

I have two pots. The first pot is my SIPP and I therefore consider I must invest this with extreme caution. I consider a return of 5-10% as acceptable and any more as a bonus. The second pot is my trading pot where I take more risk. I am looking for 10+% plus a year from this. I only invest in UK equities. I no longer trade CFD’s or spreadbets due to the nature of my job, although many years ago I made a living day-trading.

My performance over the last 6 years is as follows:
2010 -0.3%
2011 -34.8% (too little diversification, bad timing and not very pleasant)
2012 +70.7% (umm – too little diversification –just got the timing wrong on the previous years purchases)
2013 +36.8% (umm – still too little diversification but what do you do when you’re in the right trades??)
2014 +5.5% (diversification getting better but my biggest share-holding hurt me badly)
2015 +5.5% so far

I have a very simple trading style. My primary objective is to sell equities when Ftse is high and buy when it is low i.e. I choose my entry and exit point depending on whether Ftse is overbought or oversold. The choice of share is secondary.

I often buy stocks in a clear downtrend on chart support points when Ftse is beaten up on the premise that Ftse will turn up in a short time frame setting up a bounce for the stock. These stocks will generally also have attracted me because of fundamentals, dividends or I believe they are significantly oversold. I also like recovery stories with long circulating bid rumours. Sometimes I buy stocks after research leads me to believe the share is significantly undervalued – this can be very profitable but usually a great amount of patience is required.

So, to explain in more detail this year as Ftse moved up early in the year I started selling heavily as Ftse reached 6700. By the time it reached its peak I was 91% in cash. As it headed back down again in June I started buying again at 6700 and by the end of June as Ftse was around 6500 I was 95% invested. Clearly I haven’t called this that well this year based on the evidence but I’m comfortable about it as doing something was better than doing nothing. Ftse is down 3.8% year to date and I’m up 5.5%. I suspect most people would be pretty happy with that – I am.

Here is my portfolio. It’s quite unbalanced and deliberately so. It breaks a load of rules with regard to diversification
24.3% - Sorry but I can’t share this stock with you yet as it’s not that liquid and I’m still acquiring stock. I’ve done my research and honesty believe a doubling of share price in three years would be a really poor outcome.

14.8% RBS. Most of these I have acquired between 337 and 362 although I have a few from 307. Already sold a few from 307 last week and if I can get somewhere between 339 and 342 next week they will be gone too. Earlier in the year they were trading at 400 and there were no sellers in sight as it trudged up day after day from 380 to 400. I’m of the view that this will come back over time as the government require the banks to be strong and make profits so we don’t have another crisis. I intend to hold all of these for a while (except for the few I’m selling next week) and start off-loading around 385 and see what happens from there

8.3% RDSB. Like many PI’s I’ve got drawn in by the dividend and most of these were bought between 1845 and 2025. I have a few at 1598 from last week which I honestly thought would be far higher given the rise in oil this week. I think oil has a bit higher to run yet and I’m looking to sell the ones from 1598 soon as I’ve got a few too many. Not sure what to do about the rest but the dividend of around 6% helps.

6.3% VSVS. Provides products to the steel industry. I’m in this as I think there is/will be global move away from concrete to steel due to construction costs and environmental issues. I bought these a few months ago and I’m a few percent down at the moment which is pleasing given general state of Ftse. The share register is interesting and the price activity over the last few weeks intrigues me and I have a “feeling in my waters” we may see some rumours around this stock over the next few months.

6.1% HSP – Hargreaves Services. In some ways I wish I’d never heard of this stock and I’m 14% down on them at the moment although it was far worse. This is a case of me doing research, working out its undervalued and buying on the expectation others would realise this too. The market can remain irrational for some considerable time when it has a mind to! It got really bashed around recently on a trading update and then bounced significantly on its interims. Since it delivered what it would said it would in the trading update nothing ceases to surprise me any longer.
Surprisingly it fell last week as oil rose. Offering a 9% dividend with two-thirds of this already declared for next month. I’m hoping to scale back on this in the near future and if not I’m fairly relaxed due to the dividend

5.8% PFL. Premier Farnell. Famous for the Raspberry Pi although that’s not why I bought it. I bought about two-thirds between 170 and 180 because of the chart and I thought the euro would strengthen (which has proved to be correct but hasn’t helped). The other third I bought last week at 119 and if I can get somewhere between 133 and 138 next week I’m selling. They may go for less. I don’t really want this many and I’ve got my eye on a few other things (HMSO around 620 looks a much better place to be). 8% dividend if it can afford to maintain it which the city boys seem to doubt. I’m of the view it has sufficient cash to pay this for the moment but I guess won’t be surprised if it’s cut. We’ll know soon enough

5.8% SFR. Severfield. Steel again. I like the man in charge. I bought at 69p and it held up well until the last couple of days of the recent FTSE fall. It hit a brickwall at 70 and a huge amount of shares have changed hands there. It had just crept over when the ftse carnage started. It’s fallen to the current price on very little volume so hopefully it will bounce back on similar. Happy to hold as comfortable enough with where this is going long term

4.8% Weir. Industrial with large exposure to US shale industry. Has been bashed down and I bought in at 1725-1825. Got some more last week at 1264 so those are getting sold any day now as I’ve got enough of these and I don’t believe in averaging. Every trade should stand on its own. The dividend is just over 3%. There were takeover rumours earlier in the year when the price was around 1700 so I’m hoping they will get resurrected. I’m happy to hold the rest for a while and see what happens

4.4% SPHR. Sphere Medical. This is speculative part of my portfolio. The share that will make me rich or I’ll lose all my money on it. 10 bagger or bust! It makes blood gas analysers for an intensive care setting without drawing any blood from the patients and provides instant results. Pretty good as I understand in ICU up to 19 blood tests can be required a day from patients. I imagine its pretty good for paediatrics too where babies don’t have loads of blood to start with. The product is launched and is at an early stage in the sales curve. This was Neil Woodford’s first investment from WPCT and he continues to add to his holding. Shares are very tightly held. An upgrade to the analyser is on its way which is hoped will significantly change the sales profile. I can talk endlessly about this company if anyone is interested which is a really bad sign as I’m too attached to it.

3.5% INTU. Property. I have a small profit on this despite buying months ago and Ftse being bashed around. I guess I’m looking for a 10% rise and to collect the dividends as I go. Very safe.

3.3% TATE. I’ve got a small profit on this too. Trade hasn’t gone as well as planned and I’d like to start reducing if it goes up as little as 3%

3.1% Another nameless stock I’m afraid. Quite illiquid and I haven’t decided if I’ve finished accumulating or not. I’ll only be taking a little more if I do.

2.9% LLOY. Who wouldn’t have Lloyds in their portfolio? Some dividends and good potential for growth. Share price a bit disappointing of late but I bought this at 39p so it owes me nothing.

1.9% STAN. Bought most of these at 737 last week although the rest are dire and out of the money from 890. I’m not feeling comfortable with them. Not sure what to do which means I’ll probably let them go and then watch the stock fly

1.4% BG. Held these from 820 from before the bid and just watched. Part of the reason I need to reduce my RDSB

1.2% CSG. Cyril Sweet Group. Bought at 22p so basically flat although I had the chance to sell higher. Quite speculative.

0.6% BP The only thing I can say about this is that having bought at 484 I didn’t buy any more on the way down. The dividend eases the pain ;-) Actually I did once buy some more on the way down but I had the sense to get out for a tiny profit on them.

0.6% AV. Bought at 498p a few months ago and this is all that’s left after selling four fifths higher up, so this has been good to me

0.5% FENR. 12% down on this although it’s bounced. Not much to say – not my best trade. The dividend is good.

0.5% HSBC. Out of the money on this. Could have done better.

0.1% Cash – I’m fully invested with Ftse at 6200 as I write today. Whilst I may rotate my stocks around a bit as there are some bargains out there right now I’ll in general be staying fully invested until Ftse hits 6500. I’ll reappraise then. I may change my mind depending on the mood of the market

Reserved ..

On the basis that 5 years ago this type of post would have elicited 20 responses and there have been none things have definitely changed.

Not much life left here (nor anywhere else for that matter unless I'm missing something)

Interesting thread CC - and yes - it does look as though this site is in it's final death throes!

the fact is, that mam management really doesn't care

i tinker around on advfn occasionally, but the chart system especially is not very user-friendly ..... also, nearly all the threads are swamped with so many posts, much of it junk, that it's hard work

As you have mentioned things have changed and folks just are not trading full time or certainly not as many as say upto 5 years ago.Very few folks made some serious money from trading,some made a living but it was always made to look super sexy with the usual array of adverts with blondes in tow heading towards the Ferrari on the big mansion drive,of course its not like that but that is how it was all sold.

The internet has given the ability to offer many new services that can offer reasonable returns over what banks can offer and without the stress and screen watching that day trading requires.

Like yourself i traded full time for many years and not only did i enjoy it and made some money along the way,but just a few years back i decided that i had enough of watching screens 5 days a week and hung my trading hat up.

These days i much prefer to sleep at night and my money is working for me all the time,and i finally have a life back again.Trading was exciting years ago and also a very active community with most of the old names gone and moved onto pastures new.

MAM has certainly declined in not only reliability wise but also the active amount of traders,are the new owners going to pump a massive amount of new money into a service that is in general decline not only on this site but as a whole,the answer is of course not.

The new owners bought the package mainly for the profitable services and MAM as a few other have mentioned is not one of those services,what the long term plan is i have no idea but it certainly is way past its and wont ever gain its former glory back again.

With so many less stressful option available these days folks are diverting money into other investment area rather than the stressful trading option.

I still like using the site,but alas not many of the original folks are around these day,so although this thread may get some comments on about your portfolio etc,if you dont have the folks who trade anymore you will get even less comments than say 5 years back,if it was 10 years ago you would have had a multi page thread.

I think its called change/progress or what ever but the days of active trading are over i am afraid.

That's good comment above. The playing field is far from level to what it was say 10 years ago. Hedge funds can damage and carry on damaging a share. AIM is just over run with dodgy oilers/miners with a board full of hugely paid directors with matching egos going nowhere but downwards. Best waiting for the next bull market to get back in though most will probably be pushing up daisies when/if the next one ever comes around. Tend to stick to 3ukl and 3uks now after there's been a big move either way looking for a bounce. I agree why would a provider like MAM want to throw cash at a platform in what is a declining marketplace?

Very interesting and informative CC. Thanks for sharing. Like you I have a sipp and trading pot but tinker very little with these, just bank the divas and wait for my (generally poor) small caps to head north :-( Sadly I also lack the discipline to keep proper tabs on my returns and changing sipp providers doesn't help.
I like the simplicity of your strategy but like the herd I lack the ability/confidence to call a bottom or a top hence my lethargy. Do you do this by looking at the charts and if so what time frame do you prefer?
Agree all the comments re mam. I used to subscribe but now just dip in to check prices because I like the format and the BBs more than my broker alternatives.

Thanks guys. I guess I miss the feeling of a community and of friendship that used to be around 5 years ago. Things have certainly changed. I guess I became interested when pay as you go internet first appeared. Amazing to think we used to pay by the minute and it wasn't cheap. I remember the satellite dish Croc had in his garden - can't even remember what it was for - data feeds I think. It certainly was download data only.

I traded full time for years on dual channel ISDN and as the bulletin boards and resources grew more and more people got involved in shares. I guess it was a learning process and we were all having fun.

If I reflect on the shares people post on I realise I am in a completely different place than most. You will see I have INTU in my portfolio and I'm keen on HMSO at this price. It seems it's not popular to buy and hold a Ftse100 share but for me it works. I get a dividend, most likely I get some capital growth and FTSE100 stocks tend to range trade quite well. I don't have to worry about liquidity either.

If I think a little deeper it was the AGM for SFR today. Well Skinny posted the outcome here but nothing on ADVFN at all. It tells me all the PI's at the moment aren't interested. Maybe your'e right MB - maybe they are doing other things. Or maybe PI's don't trade shares any longer but have been encouraged to spreadbet their pots away.

I still like Moneyam because the BB hasn't been destroyed with crap but things need shaking up. I guess it's up to do that but I'm not sure AJ Bell are bothered.

CC, don't know if you saw this on the bugs thread -


dreamcatcher - 27 Aug 2015 18:22 - 151 of 192 edit this post
I have been in contact with AJ bell yesterday via email and had a response today .
I enjoy this site and am happy to carry on posting. :-))


We are currently working on a redesign both of the front end and the back end structures that run said front end. I am not at liberty to give details as yet but these issues are being addressed and major changes are underway in the background.

Kernow - I only make calls on the movement of the Ftse when it's really obvious because I don't want to not be in the market when we get the strong moves up. So, in 2011, 2012 and for most of 2013 I didn't make a single trade. I just left everything alone as I figured we were in a long term uptrend after the recession and I didn't want to miss out.

2014 and 2015 I have made some conscious decisions to scale in and out and at times sit on the sidelines. The charts are important but tbh I'm more interested in the mood of the market and how much is it overbought or oversold. right now I'm convinced that this is the buying opportunity of the year and Ftse will be well above this point by the end of the year. It's all about fear and greed, which repeats over and over.

Some of the things I see going on the last couple of weeks are beyond sense and alot of money is being made and lost here.

So, my strategy at the moment is:
1. Get out of a few positions where i've got too much stock and redistribute on some really cheap stuff. (AV. and HMSO look great to me but there are plenty out to choose from).
2. Do very little until Ftse hits 6500-6700 unless some of my trades come good unexpectedly in which case I may rotate some more.
3. At 6700 depending on how long it takes to get there think about converting 10% of portfolio to cash because there are always opportunities.
4. Can't plan further than that.
5. I may change my plan at an instant which I know some find frustrating

Thanks dreamcatcher. It's good to know there is some work going on behind the scenes.

I guess I'm more interested in AJ Bell taking a bit more of an active interest though. If they want this site to succeed, which I assume they do as then they can do some cross-selling it needs far more active users

Some of that content could come from us, but they need to make an effort to. I see they have an investors evening in Manchester. I thought about going along but it's a bit of a trek and the companies that are presenting aren't my type. I think it needs something else to entice me to go. I've thought about offering to do half an hour myself about my experiences as a trader or an investor but why should I bother? What am I getting out of it? Would people find it interesting?

And then finally I read the advert more closely and discovered it starts at 18:00 and surely that's going to exclude anyone who has to travel any distance. I used to travel regularly to Manchester to meet up with Ruth, Choccie and the crew but I think we used to meet about 7:30.

Sorry to have taken your thread of subject CC. If your thread had a counter on it, you would be surprised how many do indeed read it. I think there are far more readers than posters. Great thread by the way. :-))

You seem to have an over diversified portfolio.
I do trading full time ( for 8 years ) but recently just go long and short with FRES
( Fresnillo ), one share only. I use CFD's only

Almost every trade ( in and out ) I make a profit - last 17 trades over about 8 weeks,
I have about - 15 gains 2 losses
The 2 losses were heavy because of China, but overall am doing OK.
I keep an eye on gold and silver commodity prices and news etc
I agree that once I am holding a position it can be tedious watching a screen all day,
but if I make good money that week I feel good.

to digress but slightly ......
one of the major reasons mam has lost its way is, to a large extent, due to the banning of a couple of major contributors to the site several months ago
that they were both very stupid and to a large extent brought about their own banishment is almost without question

however, the site is unquestionably much poorer without them, and if the management would be rather less stiff-necked, it would be beneficial to all to welcome them both back

CC

A good try with the Portfolio strategy, it seems profitable for you, but it will not get you rich lets say, reason......... too cautious on avoiding risks rewards and playing it too safe for my liking.

I do lots of trading for decades now and always have been on the risk side with plenty of upside
Lately on BOX ( uptrend ) CEB ( still uptrend ), CPX ( having a rest ) and TERN ( new Breakout today ) to say the best lately.

But good luck with you way of investing

re - get the devil back

How much would you get paid for that? ........cynic ........ 30 silver coins.

you have try it too many times on this subject

talk (post ) about the subject ........ My portfolio with commentary

But much of what you trade Mentor is pretty illiquid so unless it is pennies you are after then surely much is stacked against you? Huge spreads, tiny market size and SEAQ where MMs control things to please their own agenda (pockets). Get one right and things are good, one wrong and you're hung out by the cowboys (MMs).

cp1

there is always excuses when someone is shall I say "full of jealousy"!

re - unless it is pennies

what is pennies for you £647 gain at a time or is £867 or £573 or £865 or £442 ( today ) all this gains are on BOX since 5 June 2015
Being on an UPTREND situation, there is retracement all the time, get the timing right and you are on the money.
btw all the BOX trades were from T+10 to T+20 and close them before time, like today closed at T+12, so I made large profit without paying for the stock..

I am sure I have more experience that you, or any other around here to say a bit more than I want to.
I use profits, TA and momentum on the timing of buying in and use all type of stocks, some larger than others, so if they are less liquid, I buy less £ amount, but not very often buy large companies, cuz the return are too small most of the time for my way of return expectations.

I try not to overdo the buying, apart from a Portfolio of growing stocks, I have a few open positions at a time mostly T+20, today sold BOX and bought again CPX @ 5.675p now they are paying 5.79p and rising, only 1MM left @ 5.80p

cp1 - don't argue! .... mentor (and his other aliases) reckons he's God and brooks no contrariness

Mentor I doubt you are that good as you wouldn't be bothering posting on a BB about bargain bucket stocks.
I've done fine over the years but not really into the self appraising and chest beating and certainly no need to buy anything unless it stands out a mile - and nowt does as the world (imo) is entering the next serious chapter of financial Armageddon. Suppose it's like the bloke in the bookies telling you about his 10/1 winner last week whilst he's quietly filled yet another waste paper basket up with screwed up slips. I'm sure life's great for you mind.