https://secure.digitallook.com/cgi-bin/digitalcorporate/msn/home.cgi
Basically what this is, is that it offers you £100,000 start-up money and then you can trade real shares with realistic market conditions etc. Its an excellent way of enjoying all the excitement of playing the stock market, but without the money involved, which obviously could be good or bad depending on how good you are.
And basically they rate you on how much you gain on the 100000 in terms of your assets. And then you get put on a ranking table, on which I'm currently 27 (get in!), and for the 15-19 year old league I'm currently 3rd (GET IN!).
Finally to conclude the post here's a few tips I've picked up during my reading of "Investing in Stocks and Shares" by Dr. John Wright
- Decide on what you want from these stocks - if its long term growth then look at a company which has been growing in price steadily over the last few years, and that's pretty much most companies in the FTSE 100.
- Another thing to consider is the dividends, which is a share of the profits. This will be high for some companies and generally will accompany a high price.
- A good way to make money is to do some good research on undervalued companies which generally will be better conducted on less known stocks, which are less analysed and your looking at the AIM 350, FTSE 250 etc.
- Finally diversify the portfolio of shares into lots of different sectors. This alleviates the risk of one falling - as then the money from that sector will be invested in other sectors fueling a rise in another sector, so basically you don't lose. Interestingly if you invest in 10 sectors that alleviates 90% of the alpha risk which arises from investing in just one company. Investing in 20 alleviates 95% of the risk.
