01.31.06
Taking stock of the situation
I finally decided after about a year to invest in the UK stock market. It’s actually the first time I’ve invested into a stock market (not counting company given stock options of course). It’s very overwhelming the amount of options and information available to help one choose a stock. Also one doesn’t have to just buy the stock, one could sell the stock before one has bought it and then buy it back later at a cheaper price (thats called shorting a stock). Sounds wierd huh?
But I intend to check out this playground of numbers and money, 2 of my favourite things. I guess your all curious to which shares I’ve bought? Well, I thought I’d start out easy and buy the ftse 100. Not all of it, but I bought it through whats called an Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). I bought some iShares. The FTSE 100 tracker to be precise. I know this purchase would of been better in March (up over 30% since then) but hindsight is always 20/20. Now this will be a long term purchase so it really shouldn’t matter how the market does in the short term. The UK economy is not going anwhere, and I have faith in it to last.
Here is a graph of the FTSE 100 over the last 3 years, straight up it goes:
Now for the numbers, I bought 170 shares of ISF. At a price of 579.65. Commission is £12.50 a trade, so total cost is £997.91. Total cost is really £997.905 so it seems the bastards have already taken half a penny due to rounding.
Warning: This is my personal blog, any stock or share information given is merely a diary of my accounts, not to be taken as financial advice. If you do, you have been warned.