Ground Floor: Travel agents, kitchen and bathroom fitters and car dealers are preparing to sing their way to the tills this summer as the SSIA money begins to flow - but it seems that some people might have got the savings habit. The financial institutions are loading us up with savings options and a few of my friends, aware of my financial past, have even asked for stock market advice.
On the basis that I want to keep my friends, I never give advice on investing, other than repeating the fairly boring mantra of keeping it simple and picking some quality stocks.
But most people don't want to hear that. Everyone wants to find the stock that's going to go stratospheric overnight, but that's pretty elusive. However, if you're prepared to take the slightly longer view (and remember, the SSIA habit got you thinking in five-year terms), you can do pretty well out of the stock market, which consistently outperforms other investments over time.
The key thing is having a plan and sticking to it - but that's what most people find hardest to do. I was having this discussion with an old colleague of mine, Rory Gillen (now a director of Merrion Capital Group) when he told me about his additional venture: training courses for people who are interested in the stock market.
I've seen investing training courses advertised before, and they usually come with the sort of tagline guaranteed to make you feel that after one day you too can pick that stratospheric stock, but Rory (as befits a serious equity analyst) eschews that approach. The tagline for his course is determination, discipline, desire.
The key thing is the discipline, followed by the determination. Most of us have the desire, but we just don't want to have to work at it.
In the interest of doing a bit of footwork for Ground Floor readers who may be interested in dabbling in the stock market when the SSIA money comes through, I took myself off to one of the courses to see if it lived up to Rory's sell.
The company is called Invest Like The Best and it offers an initial free workshop to explain the technical jargon that goes along with markets so that terms that would normally make your eyes water such as "P/E ratio" and "price to net asset value" end up seeming fairly straightforward. The seminar I attended is a follow-on to the course and aims to build on your newfound confidence by teaching you how to pick a selection of stocks.
The key element, according to Rory, is getting your damned emotions out of the way so that you can deal with market volatility, lower your risk and give yourself some opportunity to correct errors if you've already made them.
Somewhat bravely, given his background, he suggests that you stop listening to too many analysts' forecasts (or opinions) and look instead for the facts. This way, you will avoid some of the common investing errors such as buying a share without knowing why, just because you've heard loads of people talking about it; or selling it and not knowing why either; or - worse and we've all done it - selling a share to grab some profit, only to see it rise substantially afterwards.
Invest Like The Best's strategy is about teaching you to select a portfolio of shares based on some very simple and sound criteria, which will hopefully see you through good times and bad. It's not recommending the shares to you, just telling you different ways of identifying possibilities for your portfolio.
As it points out, it's impossible for a private investor to carry out the amount of research needed to objectively buy shares, so what's needed is a different kind of plan that would be about "controlling risk, not shooting for the stars".
Invest Like The Best normally gets about 30 people at each seminar and the day I was there, there was an eclectic mix. Some were looking for advice on their future SSIA money; one woman (about one-third were female) wanted to be able to hold reasoned arguments with her husband who has controlled the investing purse strings up until now; some people wanted to find a better way of managing their investments and some were investment club members looking for advice, as well as one or two market professionals getting some extra insight.
Rory takes you through the course in a very relaxed and informative style, giving information in easily digestible pieces along with some practical exercises to help you along. He deals with questions competently and runs through the whole gamut of investing options, from property to investment trusts, exchange traded funds, managed funds and direct equities.
Everyone looks at the stock market as a bit of a rollercoaster ride and it can be. No matter how good you are, you'll always make mistakes. The important thing is that your mistakes don't leave you with your dreams in tatters. Sometimes a little education goes a long way.
The introductory workshop is free. The seminar courses cost €695 (or €595 if you've been to a workshop) or you can become an Invest Like The Best member and have full access to its website www.investlikethebest.com for €299. Like Rory, I'm making no recommendations. But the course was both fun and informative and - in case you want to feel the emotion anyway - you get a free stress ball too.
www.sheilaoflanagan.net
