Barry's Story

I was quite lucky when I started because my younger son had already amassed a decent portfolio of shares. I piggy-backed off him for a few months which worked pretty well - investing in EUA, AVCT, RRE, ORPH amongst others but I kept asking him how he managed to find shares amongst the 1900 or so shares on the UK exchanges. He said it was just research but I still didn't know what to research and where to look. So he introduced me to some people on Twitter who provide great insights into companies and are happy to share their research without ramping or de-ramping. I also began to avidly follow investing forums.

But I was still frustrated that I wasn’t selecting my own shares. I wanted something that gave me some criteria to use to identify suitable candidates to buy. This is one of the main reasons why Stockopedia appealed so much to me.

There are two main ways that Stockopedia has improved my investing. The first is that I have played with setting up my own screens, either using my own rules and by using or amending Guru screens. That produced some decent companies very quickly. I then set up a checklist (that virtually every share fails) and then I score my Folio and my watchlists against that checklist.

The other way is using it as an actual stock market encyclopaedia. With the StockReports it is so easy to get a quick idea of what stocks to research further and those to ignore.

I feel more in control now. I enjoy identifying possible stocks to buy, and am more confident actively investing.

I introduced both sons to Stockopedia but my elder son found it particularly useful as a new investor. He was able to build his own portfolio from scratch, something I was unable to do when I started out. My advice would be to read The Naked Trader then subscribe to Stockopedia. Start slowly and don't invest too heavily to avoid early losses that would dispirit you. Watch Ed’s videos to learn how to get the best out of the site. Follow chat forums but be very careful and watch out for the rampers and de-rampers. When to buy and sell is always difficult and impossible to get precisely right. Avoid confirmation bias and don't stress too much about losses. If you have a portfolio with 3 stocks showing good profits and ride them and 7 losers you will still show net profits provided you are strict enough to exit positions and not get too attached to shares. I’m not very good at that and am far too attached to some of my companies!