Alastair's Story

Before using Stockopedia I mainly relied on “buy” recommendations from investing magazines or fund recommendations from AJ Bell Youinvest. By the time I started using Stockopedia I had over 40 holdings with many of them struggling to go anywhere.

Basically after Stockopedia I decided to bite the bullet and sell those that were just going to go down further. I realised a loss on them all but I figured I could do better in other stocks. It was a painful process - no one likes to realise a loss. I think I got rid of around 15 within a couple of months.

I feel I’m much more confident in my buy decisions, although the sell decisions are more difficult. The overall portfolio is in much better shape!

For new investors I would say keep your portfolio manageable, without too many holdings. It’s easy to jump from one investment to the next, as everyone says they have the next winner. Don’t jump around based on week-to-week action. I’m still new at this myself but hope I’m getting better all the time!