Stockopedia was back at the UK Investor Show last weekend, and despite a few moments of controversy (more later) we came away feeling pretty happy with the result.
We’ve always been keen to attend investor shows. For the team, it’s hard to beat getting face-to-face with our users, as well as those that don’t know us so well. We can answer questions, talk about plans and reach out to new potential users as well. Overall, these events have got us closer to our members and helped shape some important decisions about what we do.
After skipping a year in 2017, we returned to find a much more buzzing UKIS this year. It was kicked off by the hugely impressive Nigel Wray, whose family bought the show outright last year. Wray himself is an incredibly successful investor and he clearly has a huge passion for the mechanics of business and management.
The main thrust of his message in a lot of what he talked about through the day was the importance of high quality management with skin in the game. Thereafter, he’s a patient buy-and-hold investor with almost no interest in trading in and out of stocks. In fact, his wealth gives him the ability to buy large, declarable stakes in the businesses that interest him and then hold them long-term.
In a panel discussion (with Tom Winnifrith and Paul Jourdan of fund management firm Amati), Wray stressed that “the only way you’ll make lots of money as a private individual is by staying with things.” He said the power of compounding is phenomenal but that “everyone neglects it”. But he was also very clear that from his own perspective, he wants a relationship with the company and to understand the journey that it’s on - and to share in the joy of that journey.
For regular investors, however, the ability to make qualitative judgments can be a challenge. Jourdan said that “judging the quality of a management team is one of the most difficult things about investing”. He said the only thing you can rely on is experience and looking through numbers very carefully.
(Incidentally, Dr Jourdan’s ‘picks’ of stocks that he might buy today as a value investor, were Indivior, Diversified Gas & Oil and IG Group).
Fake news and the sources of stock ideas
Ed Croft, the boss at…
