How much money should one have to start in shares

finicky said:
SilverTounge15 said:
If i do go ahead with shares i will gamble on new upcoming technology or business... Straight gamble
Click to expand...

Almost as bad for your chances as betting on junior mining or exploration companies. If you're just starting off you have no idea how many small speculative listed companies are created just to make the directors management and brokers prosperous whether the companies themselves succeed or fail. Most of them will fail but the insiders move onto the next legal scam having made a small fortune from your share subscriptions. Its like selling pensioners a new roof or driveway when you're not a good tradesman. Except these guys are untouchable. All they're selling to you is a bright story.

If you want a bit of excitement, which I don't recommend on the ASX, try a tech company that's making a profit. I recommend signing up for a free subscription to motleyfool.com.au and then consider a paid subscription to one of their tipster newsletters. Plenty of ideas from them about prospective growth companies and many of them already make a profit and pay a dividend. The best tech companies have arguably proven to be those applying new tech to old businesses, e.g new telecom companies (TPM, MTU) or new classified companies (SEK, CAR, REA - advertising jobs, cars, real estate respectively)
Click to expand...

Yes thankyou I am the type to research diligently before laying money down, tech is where its at for me before anything else... I will check out motley thanks
 
Phiber said:
Gambling into shares is not investing. If you want to gamble, why don't you go to the casino instead? Put it all on black or something.
Investing in shares is not meant to be exciting and IMO should be approached with a long term perspective. You could do plenty of research and gain an in-depth understanding of the market and companies you are looking at, bearing in mind this does not guarantee successful investment, or adopt a more passive index based approach and let your savings grow over time with the dividends being reinvested. VAS is a Vanguard ASX300 index fund with low fees, so if you want to invest rather than gamble, this is one of the easiest way to gain diversification and match market returns.
If you want to gamble, there are more exciting things than the stock market: casino, races etc.
Click to expand...

Thankyou for your comment...
By gamble i did mean to research and place an educated gamble on companies i think have a chance at booming, im sure only a small handful do, i just find that approach more interesting, however im very new to shares so i dont really know what im talking about and a bit loose with my words...
For the record i have never lost money at the casino. I play poker and always make a profit unfortunatly my stradegy involves me not being a regular face but i still get my gambling fix from time to time but i wouldnt consider what i do at the casino to be gambling since ive put alot of thought into my method
 
That's perfectly fine, but you need to understand you are risking your capital for the thrill - there is nothing wrong with that as long as you are sure you are OK with it. It means you could lose most of it due to a couple (or a single) bad choice. If the sum you are investing is not significant for you, then I guess it's fine, but it could mean you are just tossing it in a bin. Personally I like to make sure I try and mitigate my risk of losing my capital and I would rather go for less risky strategies - Being burnt a few times has lessen my eagerness to educated gambling I guess!
Good luck to you either way, just have a good think about it.
 
SilverTounge15 said:
If i do go ahead with shares i will gamble on new upcoming technology or business... Straight gamble because buying shares in something like woolworths is boring
Click to expand...

Correct, it's boring.
In that case take you few grand in throw it in speculatives. An area that interests you is more worthwhile, then it more fun to follow the company news etc.
 
SilverTounge15 said:
If i do go ahead with shares i will gamble on new upcoming technology or business... Straight gamble because buying shares in something like woolworths is boring
Click to expand...

Correct, it's boring.
In that case take you few grand in throw it in speculatives. An area that interests you is more worthwhile, then it more fun to follow the company news etc.
 
SilverDJ said:
SilverTounge15 said:
If i do go ahead with shares i will gamble on new upcoming technology or business... Straight gamble because buying shares in something like woolworths is boring
Click to expand...

Correct, it's boring.
In that case take you few grand in throw it in speculatives. An area that interests you is more worthwhile, then it more fun to follow the company news etc.
Click to expand...

Most successful LONG TERM investors will tell you it's more fun to watch paint dry - just go read some of Warren Buffet's letters. Then go read the Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham.

More than likely what will happen if you gamble in spec shares you will get burnt, lose your money then be too afraid to invest in the market all together. Most people suck at picking individual stocks (I think they did a study some years back with a monkey vs a wall street analyst - the monkey won) so your best bet would probably be to invest in a low cost index mutual fund and just purchase a set amount every month.

Keep an eye on http://robinhood.com as well.
 
Abossy said:
SilverDJ said:
SilverTounge15 said:
If i do go ahead with shares i will gamble on new upcoming technology or business... Straight gamble because buying shares in something like woolworths is boring
Click to expand...

Correct, it's boring.
In that case take you few grand in throw it in speculatives. An area that interests you is more worthwhile, then it more fun to follow the company news etc.
Click to expand...

Most successful LONG TERM investors will tell you it's more fun to watch paint dry - just go read some of Warren Buffet's letters. Then go read the Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham.

More than likely what will happen if you gamble in spec shares you will get burnt, lose your money then be too afraid to invest in the market all together. Most people suck at picking individual stocks (I think they did a study some years back with a monkey vs a wall street analyst - the monkey won) so your best bet would probably be to invest in a low cost index mutual fund and just purchase a set amount every month.

Keep an eye on http://robinhood.com as well.
Click to expand...

Whats an average return on something like that?
 
SilverTounge15 said:
Whats an average return on something like that?
Click to expand...

Whatever the index is.
e.g. XEJ is the energy index
FNshda3.png


Currently undervalued in IMO, and will return higher in the medium/long term

Want a good speculative that you won't lose your shirt on? - Oil
Just buy the stock code OOO and you are effectively buying the oil index. That index just jumped up over 3% today. I've made 22% in 4 months on oil.
 
But the thing with indexes and "betashares" like OOO is that you don't get a dividend like you do with most major companies.
Small cap speculatives don't usually return a dividend either though.
 
I have doubled my money on oil in the last 4 months and I can see oil being over US$100 before this years out. Don't quote me though just my 2 cents. Instability in the petrol-dollar and increased tensions and high terror alerts all help push up the oil price which is still quite low atm, imo.
 
tozak said:
I have doubled my money on oil in the last 4 months
Click to expand...

How did you double your money?
It hasn't gone up even 50% from the very bottom to the very top in the last 6 months.

and I can see oil being over US$100 before this years out. Don't quote me though just my 2 cents. Instability in the petrol-dollar and increased tensions and high terror alerts all help push up the oil price which is still quite low atm, imo.
Click to expand...

Oil is cheap at almost any price when you realise what it is, how much of it is left, how much harder it's getting to extract, how much our society is addicted to it, and that wars are fought over it.
It's the best long term play of anything out there IMO.
 
mistered said:
Check out https://www.stockspot.com.au/.
Minimum $2k invested into a diversified portfolio of ETFs. No entry/exit fees, no brokerage.
Currently have an offer of no advice fees for first 12 months on balances <$10k.
Boring but safe.
Click to expand...

Interesting.
No dividends or interest mentioned, so purely a capital gain play?
 
SilverDJ said:
SilverTounge15 said:
Whats an average return on something like that?
Click to expand...

Whatever the index is.
e.g. XEJ is the energy index
http://i.imgur.com/FNshda3.png

Currently undervalued in IMO, and will return higher in the medium/long term

Want a good speculative that you won't lose your shirt on? - Oil
Just buy the stock code OOO and you are effectively buying the oil index. That index just jumped up over 3% today. I've made 22% in 4 months on oil.
Click to expand...

So best place to go to buy speculatives? should i go with vangaurd and how long until robinhood is in australia??? Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top