Thanks For Joining Us At The London Investor Show

28th Oct '13 by Edward Croft

15 comments 20371 reads

What a great day it was at the London Investor Show last Friday and thanks to everyone who attended both the seminars on our stand and the workshop I hosted in the main auditorium. Last week was one of the busiest ever for myself and for Stockopedia in general as we dashed to make it to the finish line for the show. Given that the event organisers were forced to evict a crowd still around our stand 45 minutes after the show closed and after all the other conference stands had been broken down I think we just about pulled it off !

Normally at these events we get a chance to wander around and see a few of the other stands or talks, but the growing numbers of subscribers who wanted to meet the team and connect with each other meant we were pretty much glued there all day. Credit and thanks must go to the editorial, research and design team on the stand during the day who helped to create such a buzz - Paul Scott, Ben Hobson, Carl Wells, Adam Collingburn and Stephen Bland.

One of the key things I learned during the day was just how many people want us to start running live user groups and seminars... not only to help people learn about investing and using the website, but to find like minded others, share stories and grow together. It was great to see so many people connect with each other on the day who otherwise might never meet - what we need are more ways to do this outside of the big shows. If you are interested in getting involved please do let me know as I want to put something together over the next couple of months.

The response to the workshop was extremely positive. We had a packed auditorium with about 300 staying till the end as I picked a fight with just about most of the powers that be in finance - from the fact that analyst forecasts are generally wildly inaccurate, buy recommendations generally aren't worth the paper they are printed on & live company presentations are so often full of low quality stocks that underperform. We do need to learn protect ourselves from what is pushed in front of us by professionals that so often don't have our best interests…

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Paul Scott

28th Oct '13

Hi Ed,

It's great to see Stockopedia going from strength to strength! There was a terrific buzz around your stand that I didn't see elsewhere as much. Investing in a high quality stand was well worth it too, in my opinion.

I really enjoyed doing my first seminar on small caps stocks, and confirm that I'd be happy to participate in any future events you organise - I like the idea of us having user group meetings, part social, part educational. I thoroughly enjoy networking with other investors, especially over a few beers, so count me in!

Cheers, Paul.

Edward Croft

Just to qualify my point about live company presentations - I think they are extremely useful for learning about companies and early stage stocks do need capital, but one must be highly attuned to the fact that human beings fall victim to something known as the 'narrative fallacy' - or that we tend to believe in good stories. This is something we have to beware of when investing - buying stocks whenever a charismatic CEO has sold you into the dream isn't a wise investment process. Story stocks that are allied to strong fundamentals are worth listening to, but stories without good fundamentals at high prices can be an absolute disaster.

Hi Ed,

I mentioned this in my seminar too. Opinion is divided on whether meeting management helps or hinders investors. In my view, there are a few key points;

1) Don't become friendly with Directors, as this clouds your judgment. So I rarely talk to Directors after they have done the main presentation, during the mingle sessions afterwards, as I don't want to get to know & like them.

2) If you buy shares in more than (say) 1 in 5 companies that you meet, then you are probably being too gullible.

3) They will always present the most positive view possible. Don't expect them to tell you where the bodies are buried! So always be sceptical.

4) There is often an ulterior motive for companies suddenly deciding to do lots of investor presentations - e.g. they need to stoke up some buyers in the market in order to let an Institution exit without killing the price. Or they are planning a Placing & don't want their own holdings diluted.

That said, there are some good quality companies out there with honest & competent management teams, so I'm not suggesting people are overly cynical. Buying shares in a company is essentially backing the management team, so personally I like to meet them if possible, but keep a slight distance as well, so that I don't end up falling in love with the stock.

Cheers, Paul.

Jonathan777

I would be very happy to attend any Stockopedia-organised events.

Jonathan

Roger Lawson

I think running seminars on stock screening, and fundamenatal analysis on a regular basis would be a great idea. It's something ShareSoc would certainly support and promote. We want to do more on the education front ourselves, but resource is always a problem. Glad to discuss how it might be done.

Barry Singleton

I would like to attend any seminars that are arranged. I found listening to Ed on the stand and in his presentation extremely useful and a way of saving hours of trying to work things out for myself. it has already improved my screening.

Barry

Thanks Barry - good to meet you and I do remember our chat ! We've been talking a lot post-show and we'll definitely be doing more webinars on a regular basis and seminars once we are sure we can get a good turnout. Please do continue to spread the word as the more investors we can get using the platform the more we'll be able to gather folk for live seminars - thanks for dropping by too!

xigris

When you do webinars, could you make them accessible at a later date/downloadable - even just for a short time? Due to my job, I'm almost invariably unable to attend these during the day, but I would be very interested in watching them later.

Xig

Hi xigris,

We are going to be hopefully releasing a video of the seminar + slides I did in the main auditorium within a week or so. Unfortunately the seminars on stand had a lot of background noise which made the audio impossible to record. We are going to address this for future events - at the moment we are still learning how to do all this well - we'll get it all down pat in future !

Cheers
Ed

SevenPillars

29th Oct '13

I'm surprised you don't make more use of YouTube, Dailymotion, etc. Can't be that difficult to put the seminars and webinars on there.

Hi SevenPillars - we do put some vids out on youtube - obviously we should do more though. I'd like to be doing something every day on that front but we are quite constrained by resources at the moment - we'll get there eventually ! Like I said above - the key thing that we learned at the show was the amount that people wanted to learn and gather - lots of people asking for seminars, meetups and webinars. Big focus for next 6-12 months.

Stephen Bland

It was good Ed. I've held seminars before and enjoy discussing and teaching investors about my ideas, HYPs in this case. One of the hurdles faced by DIY HYPers is an effective database from which to filter out prospective shares for the strategy and Stockopedia is I believe the best one available for this purpose, as well as having innumerable uses for other approaches too.

I'd certainly be interested in presenting further HYP seminars if sufficient demand exists here.

Sbjben

1st Nov '13

Well done Ed you laid on an excellent day. I found both your presentation and Paul's just what I wanted. I am certainly keen to learn more and increase my expertise in quickly navigating and understanding of the mass of information available on Stockopedia. Yes you can drag yourself up by the bootstraps but that time and effort could be put to much more constructive and rewarding use and it is great fun interacting with other like minded individuals and learning together. However stuck out on the Suffolk coast makes London centric meetings a bit of a marathon. I am keen to participate but perhaps I am limited to webinars.

2nd Nov '13

Sbjben, We've a webinar booked for the 20th November - so do sign up for that one. We hope to be doing one per week time and resource forgiving ! We are moving office in a couple of weeks and will have a very high speed broadband network from that date, so we'll be able to do these a lot more easily.

ianquanstrom

24th Dec '13

Hi Ed,
I came specifically to the show to see you guys and listen to the presentation. Although I have been investing for some time, I did not know what my reasoning and plan really was. Your talk focussed me and made me realise what I was doing and why. Now I have a plan which has substance and I can follow it easily. Before it was pure gut feel. I also liked your, don't take advice pitch. I can relate to this as every tip I went after failed. My own gut always seemed to win.
I also listened to a number of other presentations, which you analysed also. I concur with your analysis, but can only assume that none of the other exhibitors liked it very much.
I also invest in corporate/retail bonds. Are you planning to do anything on this line? More specifically for bonds in existence rather than new issues.

Thanks for joining us at the London Investor Show

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Edward Croft

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