What do people make of this?

[DonkeyApple]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs...

The article struck me as an advertorial for a picking service but I might be doing the chap a huge injustice.

[DonkeyApple]

Derek Chevalier said:

GliderRider said:

Having read the article, I would summarise it thus:

1. Understand your subject. James Hickman was already an accountant, so that must have given him a head start interpeting company financial reports etc. Us normal mortals would need to read up so we also understandwhat we are reading.
2. Learn from others. He researched the stockpicking techniques of successful investors.
3. Filter out the 'rubbish'. Look for a return on sales greater than 10% and a return on capital employed greater than 20%.
4. Read and understand the company accounts.
5. If all looks ok, wait for a good opportunity and 'go in hard'.
6. Concentrate on three or four companies a year.
7. Avoid 'pipedream' businesses. Go for 'boring' long established companies with a good track record.
8. Avoid investment trusts if you want big returns.
9. Pick companies with tangible results.
10. Don't put too much faith in company announcements. Let their accounts guide your decision making.
11. Only invest in what you understand.

He stresses throughout that you need to spend lots of time on research. As, Arnold Palmer once said, 'The more I practice, the luckier I get.'

While the above sounds reasonable, hundreds of other people do the same thing. There's no edge.

Hundreds do. But thousands buy minibonds holding invisible bamboo farms, cases of Fune Weins and avoid IHT buy swapping their taxable wealth for AIM certificates which their children can use as toilet paper.

As a list for self investors I think it’s a cracking set of initial guidelines which asnis always the case requires far too much effort to read let alone follow when a bloke you’ve never heard of will simply cold call you and sell you a product that does all the work and will make you fantastically wealthy.