The term 'small investor' certainly applies to me. So small-fry in fact I'm not even a proper paid-up member of Stockopedia, just an interloper. Maybe one day...
In one of the first books I even read on shares many years ago (the first time round before I lost all my cash), there was a paragraph near the start suggesting there was little point trading with small sums of money as costs - the execution fees, duty and the spreads - eat up the gains. Most people probably wouldn't bother for the micro-gains to be potentially made anyway. I'd got that book from a jumble sale or a charity shop, it was brilliant.
I stopped investing for many years but almost started again when seeing BP's share price collapse after the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the fear of annihilation at the hands of lawyers. I asked an investor I knew through work if it was a good time to buy and he said 'no', so I left it at that.
After the crash resulting from the Brexit vote I knew I should have got my act together. I'd left it too late. But started the long, slow haul back to knowing what was what. With not much money. I figured if I put any spare money into shares rather than into over-paying my mortgage I might come out ahead and help pay it off earlier in the end. It was effectively an endowment mortage being run by myself.
I started with Virgin Money on 27th July 2016,almost a year ago, so this is a sort of note to self of how I got on in year one. I bought 250 shares @265.7p. And sold them a few days later for a loss of £51.64 (incl.). That set the trend pretty much and the first six months were a bit rubbish and there were one or two moments I thought I need to stop, I can't get anything right.
My pattern was to put aside a few hundred quid every month till I had enough to buy at least £700 - £1000 worth of shares. I spent far too much time sitting over them before work and after work and selling and buying, sometimes taking money back out in nervousness (see my avatar for an accurate state of anxiety). I think on average…
