Stocks and shares

c_man

Wondering how many of here have stocks and/or shares? Do you have them as part of your long-term savings, or are you a short-termer hopping from hot pick to hot pick? Made much money? Lost the house?

I put a healthy percentage of my monthly pay into a gloabl equity fund. It's a fire and forget, it's for way down the road and I realise I don't know better than the market so no way am I lumping into individual companies. I really think Ireland should introduce something similar to the UK's ISA schemes, it could help alleviate the "pensions crisis" and get people thinking about the long term...

Lots of (particularly MNC) employees I know seem to be taking advantage of discounts for buying stocks in their respective companies. I think this is too risky for me, but I suppose if you're (say) getting a 15% discount and flogging them off asap, then that's ok... I think memories of people being burned by the Eircom offering has left a distaste towards a lot of this among Irish people. But eager to hear differing opinions!

buck65

My pension is 50% comprised of shares, enough risk for me I think!

Hazys

My portfolio is heavily invested in Tulips at the moment, history will repeat itself just you wait and see http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market_bubble.asp

c_man

Hazys wrote: »

My portfolio is heavily invested in Tulips at the moment, history will repeat itself just you wait and see http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market_bubble.asp

You should definitely balance that with some bitcoin.

buck65 wrote: »

My pension is 50% comprised of shares, enough risk for me I think!

What age are you? I think that 50% allocation is far too low for the typical boards.ie poster demographics...

Sugar Free

I have a few in 'blue-chip' companies as part of a long-term investment.
I also take shares in lieu of part of my bonus as it's far more tax efficient (subject to holding them for a minimum period). The rest of said bonus I put into my pension, again due to tax efficiency.

I think most people are probably better off AVC'ing, over-paying their mortgage or putting a % savings into an ETF like Vanguard 500 (or a combination of the above depending on circumstances) rather than trying to profit off short-term trading. From a retirement/nest egg perspective I mean.

Wombatman

Might be better off over here.....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=859

c_man

Wombatman wrote: »

Might be better off over here.....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=859

Why? I'm more interested in hearing from ordinary people (well... AHers) in an informal setting.

Boom_Bap

sell, sell, sell!!!!!!


I have some, just because I forgot to post the form to sell them last year.

Wossack

Ive loadsa those bitcoin things on an old harddrive somewhere, wonder are they worth anything these days

Glenster

I have some from before I got a mortgage but I'd AVC and overpay the mortgage now before I'd buy anything new.

me_irl

I SAY GENEVA AND YOU HEAR HELSINKI!?!

diomed

I'm retired. I've some cash in National Savings.
Shares are bad value now. When they slump I'll buy.

valoren

c_man wrote: »

Wondering how many of here have stocks and/or shares? Do you have them as part of your long-term savings, or are you a short-termer hopping from hot pick to hot pick? Made much money? Lost the house?

I put a healthy percentage of my monthly pay into a gloabl equity fund. It's a fire and forget, it's for way down the road and I realise I don't know better than the market so no way am I lumping into individual companies. I really think Ireland should introduce something similar to the UK's ISA schemes, it could help alleviate the "pensions crisis" and get people thinking about the long term...

Lots of (particularly MNC) employees I know seem to be taking advantage of discounts for buying stocks in their respective companies. I think this is too risky for me, but I suppose if you're (say) getting a 15% discount and flogging them off asap, then that's ok... I think memories of people being burned by the Eircom offering has left a distaste towards a lot of this among Irish people. But eager to hear differing opinions!

+1

I've been saying it for years. An ISA for stocks and shares. We're backward in terms of investing in stocks.
There's two ways to look at the stock market. Investing and Trading.
Investing is where you buy ownership of the company that is earning and will continue to earn.
Trading is where you focus on price. And looking to profit from changes in the price.

All you need to do to generate substantial wealth is to invest a significant amount (I'm thinking 10k) into a tried and tested company, bought at fair value. Become a part owner, and then re-invest your dividends for more shares and to buy more shares with regular savings. Look to the kind of companies that have been and will be around forever.

Fair value is typically a price-earning ratio below 20. With the big blue chips, they usually trade at a premium, so it's best to buy in when the market is spooked and they are sold off in a panic. When Brian Dobson is giving the news of market crashes, global financial panic, that's your cue to buy.

Bust your balls at work to buy €10,000 of each of the following kind of companies; Coca Cola. Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, Exxon Mobil and Procter & Gamble. Any dividend king will do.

When you get your dividend payment, reinvest it for more shares. Whenever you have spare cash just buy more shares. Let the $50,000 compound for 20 years+. These are the kind of companies (dividend kings) that raise their dividend every year. When you have that, plus more shares bought with savings then you have a compounding machine that will take care of your retirement. With low cost brokers coming to market, then the days of the rip off brokers here are numbered, you can now buy single shares for miniscule fee's, instead of waiting to accrue large savings to invest a lump sum.

Unfortunately, we have no culture of doing that here. Instead, we get bamboozled with metrics and financial speak, scared into investing in funds, (which are invested in these kinds of companies anyway!) the fee's of which eat away at your absolute return. You'd better hope you don't retire during a recession that way.

Re-investing your dividend.

It is one thing to save, it’s another to invest those savings, but re-investing the dividends, along with more additional savings adds an additional and powerful layer to wealth generation.

To take a real world example.

Take yourself back to 1990, Italia 90 is in full swing.

Consider The Coca Cola Company.

Two friends, looking to invest, didn't make it to Italy, so they each have $5000 to invest. They decide to play safe and understand Coke’s simple business model. So they buy some Coke shares. They know that the company pays a dividend (one that increases each year) every 3 months. They have loaned Coca Cola their permanent savings and so they get interest from them when they make profits. They are co-owners of the company.

Barry decides to invest the $5000. He astutely decides to re-invest the dividend into more Coke shares.

Gary is also astute. The dividend will be re-invested. But he decide’s, as he was diligently saving every month anyway, to use some savings to buy additional shares, whenever he receive’s the dividend. (he decides that this amount shall be $200 every 3 months)

Results as of May-2017 - Coke stock trading at $45.

Barry’s investment of $5,000 is worth $71,370. He has 1,586 Coke shares (due to the 2 for 1 stock splits in 1992, 1996 and 2012 and dividend re-investment).

Gary has made a total investment of $21,800 (the initial $5,000 + 3 monthly recurring of $200) is now worth $144,409. He has 3202 shares.


Barry’s 1,586 shares will give him a dividend of $2,283 for 2017.
Gary’s 3,202 shares will give him a dividend of $4,610 for 2017.
Gary is now receiving nearly more in one year than he initially had to invest with.

It's worth pointing out that Coke stock became wildly overvalued towards the late 90's which meant it traded in the doldrums for a long period.
It went through a bubble and was changing hands between 80 and 90 times earnings. (which means you pay $90 for $1 in earnings i.e. madness )

What if you apply the 10k scenario above for an Irish couple in 1987 investing. Remember this was before the 1987 crash that October which suggests that your investment would have dropped circa 20% in a few days. Should you have sold up? Think it was all a scam? Potentially. But what if you did nothing and thought long term?

Exxon Mobil - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $184,000

Johnson & Johnson - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $385,000

Colgate Palmolive - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $418,000

Procter & Gamble - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $273,000

Assuming you were lucky enough to have $40,000 sitting in a credit union somewhere, you potentially could have been a millionaire today by investing. (total for the 4 was $1,260,000 )

All stodgy blue chips. Boring, unsexy companies. But all dividend kings.
Investing need not be complicated. The above is what Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway would call 'sit-on-your-ass' investing.

We need to be more investment centric in Ireland. You put your money with the best businesses in the world, sit tight through the inevitable crashes and panics and your money will have grown. It would do much to alleviate the forthcoming pensions crisis. The dividends from the such companies will cater for your retirement when you let them do what they do over the long term and even beyond your own lifetime.

biko

I only invest in blood diamonds and guns, return so far s through the roof.

ScumLord

I'm opposed to the whole idea of stocks and shares. They make our economies fragile, encourage bad behaviour from corporations, and give people a pass to act like utter scumbags because they're doing it for the shareholders.

diomed

ScumLord wrote: »

I'm opposed to the whole idea of stocks and shares. They make our economies fragile, encourage bad behaviour from corporations, and give people a pass to act like utter scumbags because they're doing it for the shareholders.

So no limited companies. just sole traders and partnerships?

Beasty

Company pension, state pension, personal pension, Shares, Listed funds, Share Options, Cash, Football and music memorabilia, limited edition books/prints, property (Ireland and UK), gold, silver, cash (Euro and Sterling), hand made chess board and pieces - I like to spread my assets and risk around a bit

daveyeh

I've no shares at all, but own about 14 pairs of stocks

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I dabbled in them many years ago as a long term investment towards retirement. As retirement approached I gradually reduced them in favour of State Bonds and more cash based secure investment. I kept a few in one large business that yields a better dividend than savings but it's a tiny percentage of my savings nowadays.

Lia_lia

c_man wrote: »

Lots of (particularly MNC) employees I know seem to be taking advantage of discounts for buying stocks in their respective companies. I think this is too risky for me, but I suppose if you're (say) getting a 15% discount and flogging them off asap, then that's ok... I think memories of people being burned by the Eircom offering has left a distaste towards a lot of this among Irish people. But eager to hear differing opinions!

This is what I do. 10% of my salary goes into the espp scheme at work and every 6 months we get stocks at a 15% discount. I think it's a no brainer really. The company I work for is doing very well. People that have been working there for 15 or so years have used their shares to buy their homes outright. The shares have gone up in value a lot in the past 10-15 years.

They have never really gone down by a huge amount while I've been there. They have gone up a good bit though. And the 15% discount is obviously great! I do sell them every so often for things like car insurance. Or if they are at a high price I sell some and put it into my savings account.

We also get given shares as bonuses.

Persephone kindness

I would never have the intelligence , confidence or the capital ..shrug. Fair play to those who do though

I am not really smart enough

RobertKK

My biggest shareholding in my pension which I run myself is ESPR, down about 4% today but up 152% for the year.
overall between the various stocks, some which are slightly down, others up, I am up over 50% for the year.

I own co-op shares and PLC shares in Glanbia, just this month a vote by co-op shareholders agreed to convert more co-op shares into PLC shares
As a fan of Manchester United I own a small shareholding which are up 20% this year.

valoren

daveyeh wrote: »

I've no shares at all, but own about 14 pairs of stocks

"Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that 'Price is what you pay; value is what you get.' Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down."

- Warren Buffett :pac:

Birneybau

This year, I invested in pumpkins.
They've been going up the whole month of October.
And I got a feeling they're gonna peak right around January.
And bang! That's when I'll cash in.

hairyslug

I have a demo account on Plus 500, and while from time to time I can get it right, overall I have proven to myself that I cannot be trusted with it.

wordofwarning

valoren wrote: »

+1

I've been saying it for years. An ISA for stocks and shares. We're backward in terms of investing in stocks.

All stodgy blue chips. Boring, unsexy companies. But all dividend kings.
Investing need not be complicated. The above is what Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway would call 'sit-on-your-ass' investing.

We need to be more investment centric in Ireland. You put your money with the best businesses in the world, sit tight through the inevitable crashes and panics and your money will have grown. It would do much to alleviate the forthcoming pensions crisis. The dividends from the such companies will cater for your retirement when you let them do what they do over the long term and even beyond your own lifetime.

I agree with most what you saying (I disagree with PE being 20 part, as it various with industry and market).

Warren Buffett believes you should just buy S&P500 ETF. It is highly diversified and low risk. You picked 4 stocks, that have done well and will likely continue to do well. But if you brought Enron, Kodak(sure Kodak was great, as it had a near monopoly on film) etc you could have ended up with no investment or a lot a less.

You can buy a S&P500 index fund on Vanguard with fees of like 0.13% per year

c_man

You could do worse, but by limiting yourself to the S&P you're putting all your risk in how the US performs. Why not a global tracker?

ILikeBoats

We have RSUs.
We take our bonuses in stock for tax reasons.
We pay the max amount into the DC part of our pensions to maximise the contribution our employers pay into it (that's a nice bit of free money there).
We both pay an AVC but not the max just yet.

Looking to start investing in Vanguard funds in the next few years when we accumulate the initial investment.

They should teach you this stuff in school!

valoren

valoren wrote: »

+1

I've been saying it for years. An ISA for stocks and shares. We're backward in terms of investing in stocks.
There's two ways to look at the stock market. Investing and Trading.
Investing is where you buy ownership of the company that is earning and will continue to earn.
Trading is where you focus on price. And looking to profit from changes in the price.

All you need to do to generate substantial wealth is to invest a significant amount (I'm thinking 10k) into a tried and tested company, bought at fair value. Become a part owner, and then re-invest your dividends for more shares and to buy more shares with regular savings. Look to the kind of companies that have been and will be around forever.

Fair value is typically a price-earning ratio below 20. With the big blue chips, they usually trade at a premium, so it's best to buy in when the market is spooked and they are sold off in a panic. When Brian Dobson is giving the news of market crashes, global financial panic, that's your cue to buy.

Bust your balls at work to buy ?10,000 of each of the following kind of companies; Coca Cola. Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, Exxon Mobil and Procter & Gamble. Any dividend king will do.

When you get your dividend payment, reinvest it for more shares. Whenever you have spare cash just buy more shares. Let the $50,000 compound for 20 years+. These are the kind of companies (dividend kings) that raise their dividend every year. When you have that, plus more shares bought with savings then you have a compounding machine that will take care of your retirement. With low cost brokers coming to market, then the days of the rip off brokers here are numbered, you can now buy single shares for miniscule fee's, instead of waiting to accrue large savings to invest a lump sum.

Unfortunately, we have no culture of doing that here. Instead, we get bamboozled with metrics and financial speak, scared into investing in funds, (which are invested in these kinds of companies anyway!) the fee's of which eat away at your absolute return. You'd better hope you don't retire during a recession that way.

Re-investing your dividend.

It is one thing to save, it?s another to invest those savings, but re-investing the dividends, along with more additional savings adds an additional and powerful layer to wealth generation.

To take a real world example.

Take yourself back to 1990, Italia 90 is in full swing.

Consider The Coca Cola Company.

Two friends, looking to invest, didn't make it to Italy, so they each have $5000 to invest. They decide to play safe and understand Coke?s simple business model. So they buy some Coke shares. They know that the company pays a dividend (one that increases each year) every 3 months. They have loaned Coca Cola their permanent savings and so they get interest from them when they make profits. They are co-owners of the company.

Barry decides to invest the $5000. He astutely decides to re-invest the dividend into more Coke shares.

Gary is also astute. The dividend will be re-invested. But he decide?s, as he was diligently saving every month anyway, to use some savings to buy additional shares, whenever he receive?s the dividend. (he decides that this amount shall be $200 every 3 months)

Results as of May-2017 - Coke stock trading at $45.

Barry?s investment of $5,000 is worth $71,370. He has 1,586 Coke shares (due to the 2 for 1 stock splits in 1992, 1996 and 2012 and dividend re-investment).

Gary has made a total investment of $21,800 (the initial $5,000 + 3 monthly recurring of $200) is now worth $144,409. He has 3202 shares.


Barry?s 1,586 shares will give him a dividend of $2,283 for 2017.
Gary?s 3,202 shares will give him a dividend of $4,610 for 2017.
Gary is now receiving nearly more in one year than he initially had to invest with.

It's worth pointing out that Coke stock became wildly overvalued towards the late 90's which meant it traded in the doldrums for a long period.

What if you apply the 10k scenario above for an Irish couple in 1987 investing. Remember this was before the 1987 crash that October.

Exxon Mobil - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $184,000

Johnson & Johnson - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $385,000

Colgate Palmolive - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $418,000

Procter & Gamble - Invest 10k in May 1987 - Reinvest dividends - invest a further 500 every may.

Todays value - $273,000

Assuming you were lucky enough to have $40,000 sitting in a credit union somewhere, you potentially could have been a millionaire today by investing. (total for the 4 was $1,260,000 )

All stodgy blue chips. Boring, unsexy companies. But all dividend kings.
Investing need not be complicated. The above is what Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway would call 'sit-on-your-ass' investing.

We need to be more investment centric in Ireland. You put your money with the best businesses in the world, sit tight through the inevitable crashes and panics and your money will have grown. It would do much to alleviate the forthcoming pensions crisis. The dividends from the such companies will cater for your retirement when you let them do what they do over the long term and even beyond your own lifetime.

How much has Barry gotten back in the over 100 dividend payments in that time?

valoren

Deleted User wrote: »

How much has Barry gotten back in the over 100 dividend payments in that time?

$26,385

Back of a stamp calculation. Assuming his initial dividend was $187 (3.7% yield) and it was raised annually at 8%

That's the gross amount too, before withholding tax of 15%

razorblunt

Q4 is when I make my move, early October I go long on Pumpkin Futures, they rise steadily over the month so I reckon come Xmas I can cash them in and live like a king.

valoren

wordofwarning wrote: »

I agree with most what you saying (I disagree with PE being 20 part, as it various with industry and market).

Warren Buffett believes you should just buy S&P500 ETF. It is highly diversified and low risk. You picked 4 stocks, that have done well and will likely continue to do well. But if you brought Enron, Kodak(sure Kodak was great, as it had a near monopoly on film) etc you could have ended up with no investment or a lot a less.

You can buy a S&P500 index fund on Vanguard with fees of like 0.13% per year

Indexing is the best advice really. Set and forget. But there's something tangible about holding the shares in the companies themselves for me. (not that you actually own them, they are pooled together in a custody account with the broker you being the beneficiary)

If the example couple invested 40k spread across P&G, Exxon, Enron and Worldcom, the investment would be worth $457,000. Still not bad where you lost everything in two of them.

valoren

valoren wrote: »

$26,385

Back of a stamp calculation. Assuming his initial dividend was $187 (3.7% yield) and it was raised annually at 8%

That's the gross amount too, before withholding tax of 15%

Adjusting the earlier dividends for inflation will close the gap further. And Gary's extra earnings will be harder hit by tax which will again close the gap further. Sometimes people just want cash on hand.

Thargor

I've been feeling like a bit of a mug for the last year or two for sitting out this current bull run. I was sure we were overdue for a crash but things just keep climbing. I have 60k sitting in Prize Bonds and more sitting in the post office waiting for a crash that never seems to arrive, must have missed out on 40-50% gains at this stage especially in shares I wanted to own like Google and Amazon. Now I know the minute I go in there will surely be a correction, or maybe things really will just keep climbing forever this time because of quantitative easing and various other schemes.

It really pisses me off tbh, my savings represent a lot of hard work and going without things now they just sit there earning fcuk all.

c_man

Thargor wrote: »

It really pisses me off tbh, my savings represent a lot of hard work and going without things now they just sit there earning fcuk all.

You could start "drip feeding" your 60k into an index tracker, maybe 1k a month? Then if a severe correction occurs, you could lump in a big chunk of the rest.

Depending on your timescale, time in the market beats trying to time it.

Have you gotten anything from the Prize bonds?!

Thargor

Yeah I think drip feeding will be the way to go alright, surely there has to be some kind of correction soon though?

Prize Bonds are sh1te, I'm beating most saving accounts but that's not hard these days.

BailMeOut

I have been buying shares every month since around 2002 and held onto most of my stock during the madness around 2008 and have a pretty nice portfolio now. The value of it today is nearly 7x what I have invested over time and most of my holdings are pretty 'boring' large well know companies.

Best advice I can give is for you to open an online brokerage account and buy at least one stock in a company you know and like as this will immediately get you interested in the market and you will start to learn and understand how it all works (it is not rocket science). Do not buy a stock from a tip from someone in a pub! Buy companies you use and know what they do. Example if you fly a lot on RyanAir and like how they are operating and growing then buy RyanAir.

ILikeBoats

BailMeOut wrote: »

open an online brokerage account and buy at least one stock

Can you recommend one?

BailMeOut

ILikeBoats wrote: »

Can you recommend one?

I use Davy Select https://www.davyselect.ie/

two other options in Ireland are

TD Direct Investing https://www.tddirectinvesting.ie/

Goodbody https://www.goodbody.ie

ILikeBoats

Thanks

valoren

I think our fear culture in Ireland against stock investing dates back to the Eircom flotation.

It was hyped up beyond belief in the late 90's. It was a national event.
I remember a Bank sending a letter home for a loan to buy shares.
I recall our accounting teacher during 5th year, giving an impassioned speech, telling us we should hound out parents into investing into this 'sure thing'.

The price went from initial IPO of (3.07 punts) or €3.90 and shot up to €5. 22% return.
Some cashed out. Most held on. They held on as the price tumbled in a prolonged death spiral ultimately selling at a big loss.
My uncle invested £10,000, sold them soon after and made £2,000 profit. He looked at it as a gamble not an investment in the truest sense.
He was a benefactor. A lot of people lost a significant amount of money.

I think that whole fiasco (the shares were overvalued by Merrill Lynch to begin with), it being a national movement, and the subsequent burn cemented in people's minds that the 'stock market' is a risky place, a casino, a cod, where only insiders win. Stocks and shares were vilified wrongly. That attitude which burned our parents generation filtered down into ours.

So then where could people put their money, after that fiasco, for a decent return? How could they invest if shares were just too risky? I think we're still feeling the ramifications of where people put their money today. Just look at the National debt.

razorblunt

valoren wrote: »

I think our fear culture in Ireland against stock investing dates back to the Eircom flotation.

It was hyped up beyond belief in the late 90's. It was a national event.
I remember a Bank sending a letter home for a loan to buy shares.
I recall our accounting teacher during 5th year, giving an impassioned speech, telling us we should hound out parents into investing into this 'sure thing'.

.

Sounds very like my Accounting teacher too, I was in 3rd year at the time.
Cork school? North side?

valoren

razorblunt wrote: »

Sounds very like my Accounting teacher too, I was in 3rd year at the time.
Cork school? North side?

Yes :pac:

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

suicide_circus

I've no money

Thargor

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Whats your outlook short-mid term for someone looking to build a portfolio for long term hold? Probably mostly global and US focused ETFs but with a few riskier plays aswell, do you think there could be some kind of correction imminent?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Thargor

Thanks, thats what Im thinking aswell and Im inclined to stay stockpiling cash as long as inflation is low, its very annoying watching the likes of Amazon and Google and a lot of others on my watchlist climbing 0.5-1% a day endlessly though.

mad muffin

Stocks and shares?! STOCKS AND SHARES?!?!?!

At 44 I don't even have a pension.

McCrack

Cryptocurrency for investment and trading is where its at now..for me anyway

Thargor

McCrack wrote: »

Cryptocurrency for investment and trading is where its at now..for me anyway

I have 30 ETH myself for a bit of fun but anything could happen there, its not investing, nobody has any idea where any of them will go, its pure gambling. Hilarious reading the threads on Reddit full of people trying to do TA on the various coins, everything is an ascending triangle or a bear trap.