I have never been more busy than I am during lockdown. I am getting about 4 hours sleep. Not because of health issues or family – thank god – but because of the number of people wanting to learn to invest. I’ve never seen such an interest. Not even when I was writing my weekly column in the Financial Times during the online trading boom.
The most common questions? Which shares should I buy? Which broker should I use? How do I know when to sell? How do I judge if a stock is good? What do you think about Lloyds Bank shares? How do I buy oil? Should I buy Shell? How do I buy Amazon shares? Are Apple going to spike up? Are Amazon to overvalued? What about buying US stocks from UK?
OMG. I have no issues answering questions. To keep things simple and free and be as helpful as possible I used technology to answer. I created a free broadcast channel (like WhatsApp Group) – but on Telegram – so feel free to get my views on all of the above there: https://t.me/pipspredator
I always try to tell people if something will be low, medium or high risk. I show them where to get data free – what’s important and what is not. And most importantly how to have a strategy and process so you are quick and not sporadic.
You see too many people come up with names first. Instead they should have a strategy first. I show them my 6 strategies for different risk levels and then how to find stocks to put into each.
So I explain that in my strategy based on quality companies with market share, cash flow, lots of working capital, that I would hold forever, I buy their leveraged 2x shares. For instance, I love Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. I buy the shares which give me 2x the return on their moves. Not, spreadbets. No these are exchange traded products. Of course 2x leverage means 2 x risk too. But that’s why I like quality stocks for that strategy.
At the other extreme is my higher return strategy. Companies which last year went up in value, generate good cash flow still, have lots of profits in their bank account already received and if they return to their January levels will give me a 100-500% return as long as their other financials are solid.
Sadly what I have seen is too many people plucking stock names out of the air, not knowing when to get out, and following wild strategies on oil including spreadbets. That’s insane.
By Alpesh B Patel
