Practise with buying and selling shares

[toastybase]

I would like to buy some shares at some point in the near future once i've done my homework.

The only shares I currently own are through the company I work for however I would like to buy some of my own choice.

I would like to practise this first and do a dry run online before buying for real. What are the best websites that offer a free 'fantasy share portfolio' to get started?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[z4chris99]

1. ask work if your allowed to trade / spread

2. get straight onto IG index

3. become bankrupt

(you can also get on http://simulator.investopedia.com/ which is an ok one )

dyor

[NightRunner]

Depends who you work for, where I work there are strict rules on:

- What you can trade
- When you can trade it
- How long you need to hold shares for (sometimes a minimum period)
- How much you need to notify your employer of

I have toyed with BullBearings before, which Isn't too bad.

[z4chris99]

We're not allowed to hold anything from our sector, free to do anything else.

[ringram]

z4chris99 said:

1. ask work if your allowed to trade / spread

2. get straight onto IG index

3. become bankrupt

(you can also get on http://simulator.investopedia.com/ which is an ok one )

dyor

I skipped item 1. Did item 2, careened towards item 3 and bailed before embracing item 3.

Definitely trade the sims first and be patient. Loads of good advice from the pro's on this forum.

[cailean]

If you look at podcasts subscribe to "Mad Money with Jim Crammer", it is a daily live show on CNBC and is a mixture of education, entertainment and stock analysis. It will show you how to think and do homework etc. Beware Jim is a bit excitable.... if you get turned off by "crazy yanks" (and only like boring presenters) he will not do it for you....

[cymtriks]

Why do you need a practise run?

It is unlikely that a beginner is going to be able to compete with people spending all day watching for rises and falls in the city and scouring news feeds for hints as to what a sector might do next. You might want a practice run to do this. Personally I wouldn't dare do this unless I was actualy working as a trader. I never have BTW though I've often thought that it could be a very interesting job to do.

On the other hand you are perfectly able to plot the graphs of share prices, read brokers opinions, check historic yeilds, make a note of where the businesses and sectors are going long term and choose consistently performing and/or rising stocks to hold for a long time. Would a practise run help here? I never bothered with one and I never lost money (though to be fair I never made that much either, a few hundred on some, a few thousand on others) on the few trades I made.

Good luck.

[NightRunner]

I've been toying off and on for 19 months - my account was left fallow for 9 of them.

Started with £100k on BullBearings...

[Steven Quas]

I don't think you can get a realistic feel of how you would perform trading shares while on a simulator. The key missing factor is how you are affected by losses and if you know it's only pretend, you will be tempted to stick it all on red, knowing that if it all goes wrong it costs nothing. I think you need to take small but real positions in order to feel the pain of a loss-making position. Only then will you know if you are cut out for it, in my opinion.

Steven Quas
Hamburg

[NightRunner]

Steven Quas said:

I don't think you can get a realistic feel of how you would perform trading shares while on a simulator. The key missing factor is how you are affected by losses and if you know it's only pretend, you will be tempted to stick it all on red, knowing that if it all goes wrong it costs nothing. I think you need to take small but real positions in order to feel the pain of a loss-making position. Only then will you know if you are cut out for it, in my opinion.

Steven Quas
Hamburg

That depends on the person, I'm treating it no differently than my 'real money' investments.

You (and others) may be frivolous with a simulator - but you'd not learn anything.

I'm not crystallising my funds while I decide what to take a risk on next.

[limpsfield]

NightRunner said:

That depends on the person, I'm treating it no differently than my 'real money' investments.

You (and others) may be frivolous with a simulator - but you'd not learn anything.

I'm not crystallising my funds while I decide what to take a risk on next.

I have no idea why anyone would bother with a fantasy portfolio for 19 months, no idea whatsoever. What a waste of time.

The financial equivalent of tyrekickers.

Edited by limpsfield on Sunday 8th January 16:03

[NightRunner]

limpsfield said:

I have no idea why anyone would bother with a fantasy portfolio for 19 months, no idea whatsoever. What a waste of time.

The financial equivalent of tyrekickers.

Edited by limpsfield on Sunday 8th January 16:03

No doubt you'll do some things which I consider to be a waste of a life - that's where personal preference comes in.

What you should probably consider is that the fantasy portfolio is used as a test ground for strategies before I use real money.

So guess what, the fantasy one has gone up, so has the real one.

I'm not going to trial a new model with my real cash - I need to make sure all the calculations/trending tools are working correctly

It may not meet your approval (which isn't my concern) but it makes me cash.





Simples.

[limpsfield]

NightRunner said:

No doubt you'll do some things which I consider to be a waste of a life - that's where personal preference comes in.

What you should probably consider is that the fantasy portfolio is used as a test ground for strategies before I use real money.

So guess what, the fantasy one has gone up, so has the real one.

I'm not going to trial a new model with my real cash - I need to make sure all the calculations/trending tools are working correctly

It may not meet your approval (which isn't my concern) but it makes me cash.





Simples.

I meet people who have been running fantasy portfolios for years and are just waiting for the right time, nearly to start.

Tyrekickers 99% of them who never will.

I just think it has a tiny benefit of the short term, but because it is not real money and relates to a particular time in the market cycle, it is very misleading for any future investment or trading approach.

Like I say over the last 15 years I have known a lot of poeple do this and almost to a man, they are delaying the inevitable of starting with real money which is why I think it is not far off pointless despite the useless attempts to dress it up with terms such as "honing my strategy"


But this is PH and we are all George Soros/that Buffet bloke

[NightRunner]

limpsfield said:

I meet people who have been running fantasy portfolios for years and are just waiting for the right time, nearly to start.

Tyrekickers 99% of them who never will.

I just think it has a tiny benefit of the short term, but because it is not real money and relates to a particular time in the market cycle, it is very misleading for any future investment or trading approach.

Like I say over the last 15 years I have known a lot of poeple do this and almost to a man, they are delaying the inevitable of starting with real money which is why I think it is not far off pointless despite the useless attempts to dress it up with terms such as "honing my strategy"


But this is PH and we are all George Soros/that Buffet bloke

Your obviously meeting the wrong people

Up your game boy

[limpsfield]

ok

but a quick click on a couple of your previous posts would negate a custard test

[NightRunner]

limpsfield said:

ok

but a quick click on a couple of your previous posts would negate a custard test

a stalker!

Are you suggesting I show financial statements on the web? really?

Crumbs.

[limpsfield]

not at all - but someone wondering about how to pay off 1500 on a credit card (I am sorry I didn't read the whole thing) sounds exactly like a lot of the people I have met who run fantasy portfolios for years.

I don't want to get in some internet slapping fight over this. Just in my mind numbing extensive experience due to my job, the fantasy portfolio thing is just another excuse to actually start doing some proper investing or trading.

I am not going to get too over excited about it - we all take our pleasures in life in different ways and if watching play money go up or down floats someone's boat there are much worse things they could be doing.

[NightRunner]

limpsfield said:

not at all - but someone wondering about how to pay off 1500 on a credit card (I am sorry I didn't read the whole thing) sounds exactly like a lot of the people I have met who run fantasy portfolios for years.

I don't want to get in some internet slapping fight over this. Just in my mind numbing extensive experience due to my job, the fantasy portfolio thing is just another excuse to actually start doing some proper investing or trading.

I am not going to get too over excited about it - we all take our pleasures in life in different ways and if watching play money go up or down floats someone's boat there are much worse things they could be doing.

Nice passive-aggressive post

All the best,

[mrmr96]

Quick steps to looking cool on the internets:

1. Setup two virtual trading accounts.
2. Use one to buy stock, and other other to short those same stocks. Try to pick a nice volatile market for "quick gains".
3. Your positions will diverge, but only post the "winning" one on forums.
4. WIN!!11!

[madmover]

What we did is fantasy shares basically... had an imaginary budget of 50k and had to see how much we could make over 12 months and every time you lost 5k you had to put £5 in the charity box to keep people thinking about what they are doing rather than just taking pure gambles. I bought some in energy, pharmaceutical and retail during the late summer as i knew autumn/winter was approaching and energy bills, fuel and consumer spending would start to rise and all in all when we finished i think it worked out i had a percentage yield of around 32.7% but many of our class suffered losses or made what in my view is a error of putting all your eggs in one basket. Some great information on here and on the stock exchange site itself you can make an account for free and set up an imaginary portfolio with realtime alerts etc We did it while at college and overall i learnt a few things from the whole exercise. May be of use may not but thought it was worth posting on the off chance..