Best method to invest €5000 in shares??

ronan.h

Hey New Year and I'm hoping to start saving my money after years of working and not having much to show for it!!!
So I have about €5K to invest and would like to play the market with it... (online or face to face with someone - who? or any other way?)

The only thing is I don't fully know where to start to look into investments?
My requirements would be:
To pick and choose my own company shares to invest in.
To be able to sell at short notice to take advantage of high prices
and
To switch and change to company shares invested in....

All in all I hope to save for the next 18 months or so as I'm hoping to head off travelling then so not looking for any long-term investment ideas.

So any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Cheers

betterthanyou

the only way you could invest 5K directly in shares would be to buy shares and hold on to them for 5-10 years.

Otherwise the 5k would be eaten up by charges.

Check out sharewatch.com I thinks its the cheapest to buy shares
there is an annual fee, a cost to buy and sell shares, also tax on the purchase of shares.

18 months is a short time in the markets.

My advise would be to put the 5k in a Quinn Life Fund
QL because they have some of the lowest charges and on exit penalities.

so say 2k in europe 2k in america 1k in ireland

PDelux

If you have a AIB online banking account you can sign up for share dealing.

http://www.aib.ie/sharedealing/

If you bought shares in a company with 5k and then sold, it would cost about EUR120-150 in charges and EUR26 annual fee so its a little expensive.

ronbyrne2005

invest in a mutual fund,you buy into a fund that owns lots of shares which allows you to diversify and reduce risks.dont buy individual shares with only 5k unless you are taking a gamble on one or two shares.check out invesco rabobank etc for funds or buy an index tracking fund that follows the price movements in an index such as the iseq or ftse.

ronan.h

Thanks for the replies so far!
I'd be a bit of a risk taker by nature so don't want to go down that diversification road.
Would it be worth my while going to a broker directly or would they even entertain such a "small" investment?? or would this method prevent quick buying and selling??
I'd like to buy into 2 or 3 companies and hope for the best??

ronbyrne2005

sharewatch.com is cheapest i think.

phantom_lord

Why not put the lot into something like BOI for 18 months, it's a solid share, you'll pick up a decent dividend and probably a nice gain too.

Selik

Definitely recommending Sharewatch. I'm not a huge fan of their online operation simply due to the outdated look and complicated feel of the site not to mention the poor navigation but their phone service is second to none and you can buy and sell any shares you want in 2 seconds flat if you have an account set up with them.

It would only cost you E30 per transaction of you were to put near E1k into 5 shares of your choice (for example) and their yearly account maintenance fee is around E60 I think. Bit of a joke that really but I guess because they're far cheaper than the rest for transactions they get away with it!

madramor

ronan.h wrote:

I'd be a bit of a risk taker by nature so don't want to go down that diversification road.

Quinn Life Bio tech fund went up 48% last year.

You can pick a risky sector for your diversification and still get some security if any one share dies.

Buying individual stocks with only 5k is not risky its silly.

cianr

As ronbyrne suggested I would take a look at Rabo Bank's investment options: http://www.rabodirect.ie/investments/default.asp. Only 0.75% entry costs.

madramor

cianr wrote:

A Only 0.75% entry costs.

Rabbo Direct
.75% entry
.75% exit
annual charge between .7% & 2.0% depending on fund

Quinn Life
0% entry
0% exit
annual charge between 1% & 1.2% depending on fund

if you are investing for a period of over 5 years the best way to invest is to use a discount broker like labrokers
they can get you
103.5% allocation rate
0% entry
0% exit
discount on the annual charge

naitkris

i would recommend Firstrade - one of the cheapest online brokers (comparison with other major online brokers here) and they have good service and a clean and easy to use site.

happy customer so far over here who is fed up with rip-off broker prices in Ireland. only downside with them and many other online brokers is that one can't trade in Irish shares - only NASDAQ, NYSE etc.

Takeshi_Kovacs

anyone else had dealings with firstrade?
are they a reputable trade (i.e. i won't be sending my money into a black hole.. ?)

ixus

Mightn't be a bad idea to checkout www.askaboutmoney.com an Irish financial forum.

If you're interested in learning a bit about the stock market. Here's a game simulation I came across. Might give you a taste for day trading and the likes.

http://www.roninsoft.com/wsraider.htm

Euro Lotto's set to hit €100 mill on Friday.....remember who told you!

wheels of ire

Like you, this time last year I decided to get serious about trying to get my money to work for me and not the bank which paid me 0.1% on my money and made contact with a firm of brokers. I had been impressed by the success of the iPod, and just knew that iTunes sales would take off.
I approached the broker somewhat apprehensively, given that I was only playing with €1000. The broker couldn't have been more helpful, pointing out that everyone starts out small-and I even managed to get the trading charges reduced by asking.
Since becoming a crip I have developed my interest in technology, and so had been reading a lot of sites on the subject. This was how I knew that Steve Jobs make a few keynote announcements each year launchng new products. Mostly the shares go up, although there are occasional blips.
I bought 35 shares at $ 37 and sat back smugly as they hit $50 before dropping back to 37 in April, then bought another €1000 worth on 29/04/ Now my 71 shares are worth $4967, up 126%. (The Jobs speech still works- shares bought on 09/01/06 are up 10.53%,as the video download biz confounds the critics.
Some months later I bought €3k of Parmalat-last seen here on footballl shirts, and watched, stunned, as it plummeted before finally coming to my senses and dumping the shares in favour of Endemol (make Big Brother and a clatter of shows which I avoid, but which are hugely popular). Up 7.5% since 22/11/05.
I amn't saying this to brag. It is just that the differece is that I knew a lot about apple, and sfa about Parmalat, or at least not enough. i regard the money lost as a wake-up call,and more importantly, the cost of learning.
If you want to get good returns in 18 months you will have to either do a lot of work reading the obvious sites like Yahoo!Finance etc as a different language is used almost. Also check out sies like Motley Fool.co.uk and the Irish Stock Exchange site, ise.ie The BBC and and the Guardian have excellent educational sites, as do most papers. Personally I find that the London Indy has excellent coverage, in understandable English.
It all comes down to whether you are prepared to do this, and be warned, if you actually take the trouble to learn the rules and the new terminology it can become a hobby. Although my small portfoli is made up of only 8 shares (Apple,BP,Endemol, Google,ISEQ 20 Index tracker,Internet Business Group and the Vodafone shares from when I bought Telecom shares) it is up 13%
Now, all this really is a lot of work, but rewarding. It is gambling, but your horse can still race and become a,winner.
If you had the patience to to read thus far and you want an easier solution buy either a fund as already pointed out or buy an index tracker,as they are a reflection of their stock exchanges. My next invesrnent will be in a tracker of China Stock Exchange or/and Korea and India.
Or you could just buy Google shares- I own a mere 8- but they are going to keep on growing. In early August they were $303 and now at about $467. I was actually trying to buy before the announcement of the the trading results for the previous quarter. My marvellous shares eventually were bought on 2/11/06 at $387and now stand at $465.
I could go on but realise that it might be a bit boring. If you want to contact me by PM, you are welcome. But in your shoes I would take a chance on the emerging markets, and on just one of Google or Apple. How you split it is up to you.But I would go for half in those and the rest in a fund covering Korea Japan India and China.
BTW I don't work for any of the companies mentioned and hope this is of use. Just don't forget that getting wealthy may involve working.One way or another.
Good luck!

PDelux

wheels of ire, I agree with your approach and I think tech will do well this year.
Two stocks that I did well with were SNDK and OVTI. When i began to look at these two, I just thought it was common sense that the main player in the flash memory market(Sandisk) would do well - memory cards in mobiles,PSP,mp3 players etc.
OVTI is involved in cameras for mobile phones and again its commen sense that there is and will be huge demand for this.
I did look at AAPL recently when it was ~$70 but thought it was a bit pricey. I regret that now.