Some noob questions

Hello all,

Hope you all are having a wonderful day. So, I am rethinking lifestyle and started reorganising my finances, read some financial books and I think I am ready to start investing.

A little bit about me - I had a few tragedies in life and have been fighting depression over the past two years. Now I am over it and trying to put a positive spin on life. I do not have any debts and I earn a decent salary. I am not bad with my money; I have prior experience in investing even though I never invested in Australia. Time is my biggest challenge when it comes to investing. I work a full-time job and got to look after a toddler after that. On a good day, I sleep only six hours. So, not a lot of time to do my own research. I do not plan on trading frequently and definitely not day trading; I just want to buy for long term gains.

I was hoping to get some opinions on the following:

1. What is a good stock recommendation service? Can you share your experience with Scott Pape's blueprint vs Fool's Share Advisor vs Intelligent Investor? I have read some comments in the forums and most of them are at least five years old. Looks like the prices changed significantly for these services in the past few years.

2. What is a good trading platform? comsec vs SelfWealth vs others

Hey Snowcold. Welcome to the forum.
Congratulations on taking some proactive steps to manage your finances. I don't use a stock picking service, so I wont make a recommendation either way.

But I did want to chime in on the psychological stresses of capital drawdown. You may know this from previous investing experiences.

1. The riskier the investment allocation, the deeper the potential drawdown (this will be mitigated by investor's portfolio heat and risk management, which are more advanced topics). think term deposits, to stocks to commodities as an example.

2. A drawdown on your capital could and may influence your decision making, your sleep patterns, your mood, your relationships with others and obviously your ability to recover funds. ITs not an easy thing to be underwater if you don't have a positive expectancy to recover - that is, if you are at the whim of the markets. The markets are capricious: they give and take away without any regard for you.

3. Whatever method of investment you choose, it's important to focus on risk management. Spread your bets (max % of your capital can go on one stock for instance), at least think about where you will exit and why youd exit at that point. IF you're not sure why or when to exit, you should seek further education. Risk Management is good for your financial survival and your mental health!

I used Commsec for quite a while. I didn't mind it. Brokerage is a bit high but if your not a frequent trader, probably no big deal, and their conditional orders are easy to understand too.

Hopefully others will chime in.

@ $20shoes, Thank you for your reply. The points make sense to me and they are what I have thought through except for the exit strategy. I usually chose the exit strategy for each share based on my confidence in them.

Regarding the gist of points 1 &2, I am not planning to invest huge amounts of money and I never stress about money way too much. I will invest only what I am prepared to lose (<10% of my annual income). I just want to make sure that I am not rooting to lose my money

Also, agree with your point in diversifying.

snowcold said:

@ $20shoes, Thank you for your reply. The points make sense to me and they are what I have thought through except for the exit strategy. I usually chose the exit strategy for each share based on my confidence in them.

Regarding the gist of points 1 &2, I am not planning to invest huge amounts of money and I never stress about money way too much. I will invest only what I am prepared to lose (<10% of my annual income). I just want to make sure that I am not rooting to lose my money

Also, agree with your point in diversifying.

Click to expand...

snowcold, $20shoes gave you excellent advice & when starting on your investment journey you will be riddled with questions & self-doubt. I have a thread for beginners & anything I find important of of interest to beginners I 'Dump it here' in my thread.

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/dump-it-here.34425/

Skate.

Thank you Skate.

Have a look at the yearly stock competition for some ideas.

@snowcold as you are time poor at the moment I would suggest having a look at the following types of products that may get you started on your investment journey. I like the idea of these products below as individual stock picking or blindly following stock picking services could be a recipe for disaster.

ETF - Exchange-Traded Funds
LIC - Listed Investment Company

Explanation on the difference between the two

https://www.asx.com.au/education/investor-update-newsletter/201503-etfs-versus-lics.htm

and a couple of products that can be bought on market

https://www.vanguardinvestments.com.au/adviser/adv/investments/product.html#/etf

http://www.afi.com.au/Investment-performance.aspx

some further reading if you want -

https://cuffelinks.com.au/education-centre/lic-reports/
https://cuffelinks.com.au/education-centre/etf-reviews/

Good luck!