Andy Coates Blog

It was November 2005 when i first decided to take the plunge and invest in the stock market to try and earn some extra money. I registered with Barclay's on-line banking and once all of the appropriate pieces of paper were signed sent off and stamped i had my very own trading platform where i could buy and sell shares in my own time with. My first trade was in a company called Gasol and armed with £400 i made my first trade and bought shares in gasol, purely on the premise that the oil and gas prices were going up! That was a stupid move to guess the share price but i got lucky, within 3 weeks the price had jumped up 50% turning my £400 into £600, feeling content with a massive gain like that i decided to sell and re-invest. Over the following 6 month, i made a series of un-educated trades and dwindled my healthy £600 down to £250.

Now let that be a lesson, dont do what i did and rush in, this is easy to say in hind sight as everyone i know who trades shares has done the same. It was after this loss i decided to educate myself and it was then when i came across the book "The Naked Trader" written by Robbie Burns. This is an exceptional read for ANYONE who is even slightly interested in shares and the stock market and has a great section about "Paper Trading". This is pretend trading on paper to see how it all works, before you take the plunge! Another great resource is the Mottley Fool, an on-line resource for traders and anything money/investment related, Fool have a great bookstore and another favorite of mine is the UK Investment Guide which again is similar to The Naked trader but goes much more in depth.

Ok, so the title of this blog is "Make money With Shares" and since mid 2006 i have been making money with shares, not allot but i have managed make about a 20% return in the past 12 month. Thats 4 times the average savings account rate!

OK, so here , a brakdown of how to make money from shares….

Step 1- educate yourself, visit the Fool website and learn the basics of investing!

Step 2 - Read the two books i mentioned above plus this one Learn To Earn

Step 3 - Paper trade, choose several shares using the techniques you have learned and follow their rise and fall over the next few month.Step

Step 4 - Only you can decide when your ready to trade for real!

Step 5 - Only trade with money you can afford to loose, there is a possibility is there that you will loose a large amount of your stake!

Step 6 - DO NOT RUSH INTO THINGS AND BE SKEPTICAL ABOUT TIPSTERS!!

Remember it's better to make smaller gains over a longer period than take big risks, the key to this is teaching yourself and learning what moves the price of a share. Forums are a good place to get a good insight, but be wary of people recommending shares even if they sound genuine. I hope that this has given a very basic insight on how to go about trading in shares, I cant recommend the three books mentioned above highly enough so here they are again!

The Naked Trader by Robbie Burns
Learn To Earn by Peter Lynch & John Rothchild
The Mottley Fool UK Investment Guide by David Berger

All the best

Andy