I am breaking all the well established ‘Rules’ of Blog scribbling with this one as I am going ahead without a plan and half watching the Lionesses in the Semi-Final against the USA which is very distracting (I am sure if I was watching the Men’s game I would be able to focus almost 100% on the Blog because it would be extremely dull as Men’s Footie often is).
I got the idea for this Blog from a fairly new chap to the Markets who strikes me as very much in the early stages of trying to figure out what the hell is going on (don’t worry, you will always feel like that, even after 20+ years with the Markets forever throwing up new tricks and challenges) and getting drowned in the sheer Wall of Noise that just bombards us. It is by no means a Blog subject I have not written about before and I intend to include Links at the bottom to several related Blogs on the subject which should help understanding (oh boll*x, the US have just scored a second goal……).
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I must have had this Blog in mind for the best part of three years and the simple concepts within it I have explained to various people in the Pub many a time since I first figured out what Jason @Stealthsurf was up to. What had stopped me writing it up until now was an inability to figure out how to ‘draw’ it and it was only after mucking around with Microsoft Paint to do those ‘Mechanics of a Trade’ Blogs that I realised I had found a tool to enable me to create what was needed here.
OK, I have to admit that despite my truly remarkable MS Paint talents, some of these pictures can hardly be called a Rembrandt or Van Gogh (and I have both my ears thank you very much !! …….or I did last time I looked in the mirror…..) but hopefully they are clear enough and simple enough to get the key points across and to provide Readers with either an entirely new way to go about doing things or at least to give a lot more appreciation of ‘Break-outs’ and how this could help boost their Trading/Investing Returns.
This Blog Series covers some pretty complicated stuff and I recommend that you read Parts 1 and 2 before you attack this one - you can find them here:
http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/the-mechanics-of-a-trade-part-1-of-3 http://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/the-mechanics-of-a-trade-part-2-of-3 Example 3 - You want to buy 3 Shares in Company XYZ - a ‘Tree-Shake’ This next situation only tends to happen on Small Stocks which are illiquid and where the actions of one Market Maker can affect the Price - on a large and liquid Stock, this kind of thing simply cannot happen as in effect it can throw up an arbitrage opportunity where another Market Maker can take advantage of the artificial Price move and in addition such big Stocks are watched by Traders in general for every tiny move and any mis-pricings would be quickly bought or sold away.
Following on from a different Blog I put out recently that was inspired by some text written by Chris Dillow in Investors Chronicle, again I have been reading one of his Articles and taking inspiration from it. This one appeared in the Magazine from 13th July to 19th July 2018 which had ‘Income Majors’ on the front cover and the Article was entitled ‘In the genes’ and appeared on Page 16. If you are a subscriber to the Magazine then I suggest you go onto the online version and do a search for the article because it is well worth reading. Having said that I have reproduced a few sections of the text here so this will give a good flavour of what is in it.
The starting paragraph is based on some Research that had been done which suggested that Investment Performance was related to our genetic make-up (presumably intelligence levels and Chris mentions the genetic factors that increase our potential Educational Attainment) and that factors such as ACTUAL Educational Attainment, Income Levels and inheritance had less influence. So this suggested that our genes predict how well we save and invest and further on in the article he mentions that such Genetic Factors explain about a third of our Investment Results; and I take from this that at least a part of the other two-thirds is down to how we manage our Portfolios in terms of things like Running Winners, Chopping Losers, Averaging Down at the right time, Avoiding AIM Garbage, TopChopping, Risk Management, Hedging, etc. And of course another chunk of that two-thirds will be down to pure dumb Luck (but if we control as much as possible of the other stuff then the Luck is less of a hindrance and of course sometimes we will get Good Luck which is the sort I like !!).
I figured that title would attract a huge Readership to this Blog - I nearly went with ‘Free Bitcoins’ as I thought that would drive devourers of Reading Material on the Web utterly insane with their frenzy to take advantage of such an appealing offer.
I nearly went with something along the lines of ‘Actresses and Bishops’ because that tends to draw a big Readership also but I didn’t think I could stretch what seems to be the dull subject of Dividends that far. I also know that a small chunk of Readers are under 18 so I need to keep it clean (ish). I have actually stolen the title from my mate Cappy (@SmallCappy on Twitter) who always comes up with this term when we mention the wonderful phenomenon of nature that is the humble Dividend Payment. He has nailed it with such a description and I am fully onboard with his use of this term and I shamelessly pinch it whenever I can (you should have copyrighted it when you had the chance, mate !!).
Some time ago a Reader emailed me with some Questions about how I learned to muck about with Charts and I have reproduced much of it here and added a lot to it. Apologies to that Reader if I did not ask your Permission to do this but I have been very careful to remove any references that might give away your Identity and you seem like a reasonable Chap so I am sure you will be happy that I share this around. And I am confident you will appreciate the improvements I have made to that original text !!
Thanks, WD.
I was reading Investors Chronicle from 12 January - 18th January 2018 (with Cover Story ‘Portfolio Secrets‘) and on page 24, in John Baron’s column, ’The Year Ahead’ he wrote this chunk of text about his approach regarding his Portfolios:
“Instead, Investors should remain loyal to tried and tested investment principles. When deciding the portfolios’ strategy, little attention is paid to short term market ’noise’ - from wherever it originates. The most important determinant is the ability of companies to create wealth and add value, and the conditions that sustain such an environment. The focus remains on the longer term when assessing sentiment and fundamentals, and volatility is therefore seen as an opportunity.
This is yet another of those Blogs I have had sat on the Slate of Ideas for me to write but it has taken up until now to finally float to the top and therefore earn my priority and focus (turds float and all that……). That’s quite a misrepresentation really - rather than an organised and sequential list of Blog Ideas for me to work on, it is a very higgledy piggledy collection of possible Blog Titles with a few having some words underneath to help me understand what I was thinking at the time of coming up with the idea and typing it into my working Blog Word Document. So the true way that a Blog gets to this stage is that it quite simply becomes the thing I fancy doing today and I just get on with it. At least in this way it is more pleasant for me to work on as I do what I want to do, rather than a Blog that I must do because it happens to be at the top of an arbitrary List.
You might have figured out from the Title that this Blog is about how I record my Individual Share Trades and Spreadbet Trades onto dedicated Spreadsheets so I have a record of what Trades I have opened and once they are closed off it enables me to calculate my Profit or Loss in £ Note terms and in Percentage terms expressed against my Capital that was used for the Trade (read that as ‘Investment’ mostly).
Getting Started
This probably isn’t a definitive or particularly detailed list and I’m sure you will find other tasks/actions you need to do to get up and running properly. Many of these will come from reading the Text in my Blog Series and also from your own particular requirements, but these are a rough set of Guidelines to give you some idea of what needs to be done to get going with your Income Portfolio: 1. If you are totally new to this then buy Naked Trader Book - chances are if you have already dabbled in Stocks you will have read Robbie Burn’s excellent book, but if this is entirely new to you, then I recommend you nip over to ‘Wheelie’s Bookshop’ and get a copy. It is pretty cheap really and would definitely be money well spent. Much of it will be more related to Small Stocks and an Approach focused on capturing Capital Gains rather than the Dividend Payments but it is still pretty much the clearest and most simple book on Investing/Trading and it covers a lot of important concepts in far more detail than I can in this Blog Series. There are also a lot of complementary bits like Robbie’s explanation of how he uses the ADVFN News feature to analyse Company Trading Updates etc. There is also quite a bit on the detailed process of how to Buy and Sell a Share and stuff like that.
I AM NOT A FINANICAL ADVISER OR FCA REGISTERED OR WHATEVER - PLEASE SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE WHERE APPROPRIATE AND READ THE DISCLAIMER AT THE TOP OF MY HOMEPAGE.
This can take several forms - a Self-Select ISA, a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension) and/or a ‘Normal’ Share Dealing Account (i.e. not a SIPP or an ISA !!). These things all have different features but also a lot of similarities. With a SIPP you are much more ‘locked-in’ and in essence you cannot get your hands on any of the Money you put in or the Dividends/Profits you make on the Account until you Retire (this would probably be 55 as a minimum legally I think but you need to check this as it will be rising in step with the State Retirement Age in future), but you get some nice Tax Benefits like with all Pensions (although you will be Taxed on any Money you take out in the Future to some extent). |
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