Education

Learning From The Experts

One way to learn about how to invest successfully is to follow the style and rules of the experts. Yesterday (27/10/2016) I attended the AGM of Standard Life UK...

Post Date: October 28, 2016 Read more

Wealth Manager’s Charges Still High

There were a couple of interesting articles in the FT over the weekend (27/8/2016) on the costs to investors of having someone else manage your portfolio. Data from Grant Thornton suggests that investors who buy investment advice and financial products from mass market investment groups are still paying 2.56% per annum on average. This is only down from 2.86% in 2012 when the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) which unbundled product commissions was expected to reduce them substantially. Indeed product costs may have ...

Post Date: August 30, 2016 Read more

Book Review – Invest In The Best

The book Invest In the Best, written by Keith Ashworth-Lord, has recently been published. I am familiar with Keith's work (he currently runs the Sanford DeLand UK Buffettology Fund which has been performing very well), because he presented at a ShareSoc Masterclass event. I also remember reading the Analyst publication many years ago to which he was a major contributor and which very much influenced my own investment style. The subtitle of this book is "Applying the principles of Warren Buffett for ...

Post Date: August 10, 2016 Read more

Cash or Shares. Which is Better?

An interesting article in Saturday's FTMoney (18/6/2016) by Paul Lewis suggested that you might be surprised to learn that if you had invested £10,000 in a cash account in 1998, you would have done better than investing in a FTSE-100 index tracker. It's surely odd for the Financial Times to persuade their own readers that cash is better than equities because a choice of cash might mean they no longer needed to read the FT - they could just use a ...

Post Date: June 20, 2016 Read more

Where Bonds are Concerned, Trust No-One

The news that the holders of Lloyds bonds (ECNs) have lost their legal battle in the Supreme Court reinforces the message that when it comes to investing in bonds, you should trust nobody - not the issuer of the bonds, your friendly stockbrokers and wealth managers who advise you, or the FCA to protect your interests. The bondholders won their case initially in the lower courts, that Lloyds should not be able to force redemption of these bonds at par. But after ...

Post Date: June 17, 2016 Read more

Active Equity Funds Underperform – But What About Passive Funds?

Last Monday (21/3/2016) there was a front page story in the FTfm supplement which was headlined "86% of active equity funds underperform". The article said that a study by S&P Dow Jones Indices showed that "almost every actively managed fund in Europe investing in global, emerging and US markets has failed to beat its benchmark over the past decade....". The article went on to question the value added by stockpicking fund managers at some length Now it immediately struck me that the ...

Post Date: March 28, 2016 Read more

Fundsmith Annual Meeting – Another Good Performance

Last night was the latest annual meeting for investors in the Fundsmith Equity Fund. It was another good performance by Terry Smith on the night, and of course a good performance by the Fund itself was reported. It achieved a return of 15.7% last year (year ending December 2015) which was way ahead of any global fund index you care to choose. A lot of stock picking investors did well last year, but how many also have achieved 4.7% in the ...

Post Date: March 2, 2016 Read more

The Importance of Having a Stock Selection Process

There is a good editorial in this month's edition of the Sharewatch newsletter. As was emphasised by our coverage of stock picking systems in the last ShareSoc newsletter, the key is to have some system, and some discipline, when selecting stocks. This is the time of year when the media are publishing their "naps" for the new year and when many investors are looking to refresh their portfolios by getting rid of last year's duds and picking new ones. This is ...

Post Date: January 10, 2016 Read more

Spotting the Duds

There was a good article in this weeks Investors Chronicle (31/12/2015) by ShareSoc Director Mark Lauber on how to weed out those small cap companies that will prove to be disappointing investments. Here's one quote from it: "If you don't mind throwing some babies out with the bathwater, just eliminate all resource stocks and all foreign stocks from your AIM portfolio - you'll protect yourself from a lot of losses with this simple step." He mentions one resource company he invested in that ...

Post Date: January 2, 2016 Read more

Story Stocks and Purplebricks

Here is one New Year's resolution which investors might wish to adopt: avoid those "story" stocks! Paul Scott who writes a popular blog on small cap stocks for Stockopedia recently wrote "Above all, this year has taught me to stop chasing stories". He suggested it was a "virtually guaranteed way to lose money". He mentioned a few hyped up stocks that crashed back to earth in 2015 including Audioboom, Fitbug, Concha, Tungsten, Rightster and Torotrak. These are the kind of stocks that ...

Post Date: December 28, 2015 Read more

Group description:	All levels of experience welcome. A typical meeting agenda includes: – Macro Environment – Trades: Members review existing positions and identify securities with promising TA entry patterns or setups and with suitable risk/reward. Any security, long, short, futures, options may be considered. The convener takes actual positions in trades and maintains his own detailed ledger, accurately measuring performance of individual securities and cumulative activity. Members are notified by e-mail prior to the entries or exits that are decided upon. Following each meeting an updated copy of the ledger is circulated together with the next meeting agenda. Members may wish to maintain similar ledgers of their own but there is no obligation to do so. – Technical Analysis: Techniques and systems used in trades. Members can request discussion of particular aspects of TA.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online via Zoom
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	The first Tuesday of every month from 7 to 9pm

Group description:	Following the launch of the SIGnet Technical Traders groups, it was identified that there were a number of members who use fundamental and other information as their main source of choosing companies to invest in, who would find some understanding of technical analysis helpful to identify good entry and exit points for their investments. This new SIGnet Technical Analysis in Support of Investing group is therefore being launched and we welcome members of all levels of experience to join.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Online via Zoom
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	There will be an initial Zoom meeting on Monday 29th April at 7pm to launch this group, please email info@sharesoc.org if you are interested in joining.

Group description:	A new in person group coming soon! Keep and eye on our Events page to register for the launch meeting.
Meeting Type/Venue:	In person
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	TBC

Group description:	Open to all investors / people with an interest in investing. Typical meeting will involve members talking about recent purchases, successes, failures and possible future purchases. Also with occasional visiting speakers or members making presentations on a topic of interest.
Meeting Type/Venue:	We aim to meet on the last Tuesday of each month in a private room at a pub in Playhatch. Start time 7pm with members encouraged to meet up around 6pm for a bite to eat / drink before hand, if their diaries allow.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	7pm on the last Tuesday of the month. Meetings likely to last about two hours but with informal ‘overspill’ before / after.

Group description:	This group was set up as a forum to discuss companies in detail, each company is introduced by a member and discussion may last one or two hours. Membership is by invitation only and is for experienced investors.
Meeting Type/Venue:	The group meets at a venue in Waterloo, London.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Meetings are on Tuesday mornings at two month intervals.

Group description:	Our group members have wide ranging investment experience and work backgrounds. Discussion topics include reviewing our recent stock or collective investment buying and selling activity, plus what we are considering buying or selling and the reasons for our decisions. We also have a wider discussion on where we think opportunities might arise in the next few months and what we think needs to be avoided. Members occasionally lead discussions on specific topics such as recent events attended, articles or books of interest and sources of investment ideas and information.
Meeting Type/Venue:	During the pandemic our meetings were held on Zoom, but we have now resumed meeting in person at a location a few miles to the west of Colchester. Most meetings will now be in person, but it is possible that occasional meetings will be held on Zoom in special circumstances.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	We meet midweek every two months. Zoom meetings run for about two hours from 10.30am and in person meetings from 11am until about 3pm, including a break for lunch.

Group description:	Our group is a broad church that contains investors of varying age and experience. We discuss stocks and investment trusts that we have bought, sold or are interested in and the reasons behind our decisions, and try to make sense of the ever changing investment environment. Our members backgrounds are diverse and include corporate banking, engineering, teaching and the leisure industry. Discussions are robust and challenging but tend to be to be informal, and do not generally involve agendas, presentations or detailed preparation. We are a friendly and approachable group who welcome investors of all levels – we just ask that you contribute, at whatever level you can.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Our meetings are held in a very nice pub near to South Ealing tube station (Piccadilly Line), not far from Ealing Broadway (District, Central and Elizabeth Line). Group numbers permitting (and assuming members are happy to purchase food and drink from the bar), we may also have access to a private room in the pub.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	We meet every 2 months, usually on a Wednesday morning at 11am.

Group description:	Group focused on active investing, primarily in small / medium cap UK equities.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Regular Zoom meetings interspersed with occasional face to face meetings and social activities in the North West.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	Monthly on Saturdays at 10am.

Group description:	Our group covers a wide spectrum of mainly stock market investing and trading from equities – which include shares, ETF’s Investment and Unit Trusts. We normally rotate the meeting chairperson (responsible for creating, with member’s help, suitable agendas) and a meeting presenter (members take it in turns to provide a 15 to 45 minute presentation on a subject of their choice). Various investing topics of interest are regularly discussed such as software, brokers, investing categories and markets and any related topics of interest.
Meeting Type/Venue:	Meetings will be returning to in-person in a private room at a West London golf club, close to an underground station. In the meantime monthly video calls and an in-between meeting email group will continue.
Meeting Frequency/Timing:	In-person meetings will be held on the second Wednesday of each month in the afternoons, following a golf club one course lunch.