I lost money in shares today – but doing well overall!
This year I have started trading in shares. So far I am doing quite well. I have made some losses, but overall I am in clear profit.
For the past 9-12 months I have been using 2 credit cards which both have a 0% interest on purchases deal which ends at the end of this month. My plan was to put all of my spending onto those cards and invest the money that I didn’t have to pay off into shares.
It has worked out well as my gains in shares have far exceeded my losses, but I have made the mistake (it was a gamble) of leaving it to the last minute before selling the shares I needed in order to pay off my cards. If I had sold a few weeks ago I would have made about £700 profit, but instead I lost about £600. I could have left it another few weeks and paid some card charges instead, but I don’t want to do that, or damage my credit ranking.
Overall though, I am happy with the profit I have made (and am continuing to make) with shares. The only risk is that all of the shares that I now have are based in the USA and there is talk that the $ might get stronger against the £, which means the $ shares that I have would lose value when I come to cash them in.
This is all a learning experience and although losing money is never nice, I haven’t actually lost that much – and I have gained a lot more. Am I going to continue with it in 2010? Absolutely!
November 26th, 2009 at 19:41
Actually selling yesterday wasn’t great, but it could have been a lot worse. If I had sold today I would have lost an additional £397. The UK economy is in ‘another’ decline at the moment – and maybe the shares came up too quickly before?
Plus there was a technical glitch at the London Stock Exchange today (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aDlfycct8WkM&pos=5).
Now is the time to keep an eye on the markets because a lot of stuff out there is very cheap right now. It’s just picking the companies that don’t go under is the problem – Borders are looking for buyers and have stopped all purchases on via their website