Three steps to successful investing in listed stocks

Investing SSIAs: Many people wrongly assume that stock market investing is not an option for them when it comes to growing their personal finances. Some prefer to choose the more conservative option of saving in a deposit account which, as you can expect, delivers lower returns over the medium term.

Investing in property is a legitimate alternative but you need a sizeable lump sum deposit to get going and, with rental yields currently as low as 2.5 per cent, borrowing the balance is now fraught with risk. In the stock markets you can start small and there are only three key criteria required to make a success out of stock market investing:

(i) regular investing which deals effectively with stock market volatility;

(ii) adhering to a logical, easy-to-follow and time-tested approach;

(iii) the patience to let the power of compounding work its magic.

Special Savings Inventive Accounts (SSIAs) have proved to be a great success, and the 20 per cent of SSIA holders who opted to save through an equity product are ahead of those who opted to save through a cash deposit product.

At the end of May, when the first SSIAs matured, equity SSIA returns are estimated to have been in the order of 9 per cent per annum before costs, but also before the Government top-up.

This compares to cash deposit returns of about 3-4 per cent per annum. What is clear is that the equity SSIA holder made a positive return over and above cash deposit returns and did so against a backdrop where the stock market was actually still modestly down in value at the end of the five-year term.

Regular investing was the key to success in this instance. By buying units in a standard equity fund on a regular basis, the SSIA investor was able to take advantage of lower prices to buy more units for the same monthly investment.

Regular investing cuts straight through volatility and, while a simple concept, has set the record straight in how to deal effectively with the natural volatility that exists in stock markets (see article June 2nd).

You can invest in the stock market indirectly through the plethora of products on offer or directly through a portfolio of individually purchased shares.

Going the direct route requires a proper understanding of the difference between speculation and investment. Unknowingly perhaps, many private investors step into the speculative camp and end up with a speculator's returns, which as a group are certain to be disappointing at best (see article June 16th).

An investor is best served if he/she adopts a logical approach to selecting a diversified list of stocks that has worked well over time. The stock market is not like property. When you buy a property you can be fairly sure that it will still exist in 10 or 20 years. In contrast, companies and industries come and go and, for the majority, diversifying in the stock market is necessary to avoid stock specific risk.

As I pointed out in last week's article (June 30th), such an approach could involve buying a portfolio of 10-15 of the highest-dividend-yielding stocks in the UK FT 100 Index, which is comprised of substantially sized blue-chip companies. This can be done with as little as an hour's work a year and ensures you build in significant upfront value as represented by the dividend yield.

An investor can then expect the subsequent returns to at least reflect both the initial dividend yield and the subsequent growth in the aggregate dividends.

Over the past 11 years, from 1995 to 2005 inclusive, a fairly representative period, this approach delivered a compound per annum return of 12 per cent, against 8.5 per cent for the UK market. So this simple technique can be said to be "time-tested".

By following this approach, it is the strategy that counts not the individual stocks you hold, and you will come to understand that it is not necessary for you to know much, if anything, about the underlying companies in which you have invested.

The last criterion for success is to have the patience to let compounding work its magic (see article dated June 9th). With an initial €20,000 - say from your SSIA programme - and ongoing contributions of €250 per month, an investor could save a lump sum of €80,000-90,000 on a 10-year view from here, assuming an annual return of 7-8 per cent over this timeline.

Many younger Irish people may feel that they have been frozen out of the housing market. I would argue strongly that there is no need for despair.

You can build wealth outside the property market and its far better to do this than risk rushing into an overvalued asset merely to get on the property ladder.

In conclusion, the number of Irish people saving or investing through the stock markets is still relatively low compared to the developed economies of the US and Britain. In time, this should change. Irish society has become wealthier and with wealth comes a desire to diversify.

For those who have yet to acquire wealth, the great plus with the stock markets is that you can start small. Stock market investing can be as complex as you make it or as simple as you want to keep it. My advice is to keep it simple. With a bit of training everyone can successfully obtain the returns on offer in the stock markets over time, just like they do in property.

This is the last in the series of six article written by Rory Gillen, who manages the Select GV Equity Fund in Merrion Capital and is the course director for the stock market training company "Invest Like the Best" (www.investlikethebest.com). A copy of all six articles can still be obtained by e-mailing to r.gillen@iltb.ie