-Stocks and shares- Need help

Ok well ive been thinking about investing in something and ive came to the conclusion that i want to invest in stocks and shares i have currently £5000 available to do this with, although looking through the internet i have no idea how they work, but i have seen big rises in a certain share, which i do not wish to name, in the past 2-3 years.
Ok i live in the uk, how do i purchase the shares?
Is the share price as what it says like for example :
Sythe : 65, day high - 67 , day low -64...

Does that mean in my currency the price of the share, meaning at that above bit i shown does that mean sythe share is at 65GBP ea?

I need abit more info on this before i decide to invest, once i have enough information i am going to put my money into shares, i was just wondering if anyone can help, and explain them better to me?

Thanks.

 

It's nice to see your interest in the marketing and investment world!

Allow me to break down some points for you.

Personally, i usually don't recommend entrepreneurs jumping right into stocks but if they persist, this is some of the information I'll provide.

To begin with. You never want to buy a stock strictly on their previous success and profitable gains. When you're purchasing stocks you're purchasing a business. You're not looking for all the gains of a particular stock, you're looking for the future growth of the company. In simpler text, because a stock has gone up $00.75 or $2.00 in the past several weeks doesn't necessarily mean the stock is a safe investment. Most businesses 1-3 year term have profitable stocks but that's it, that's short term investing, slightly profitable but not career investing.

While looking for a stock to invest in you're first objective should be finding out the companies 10k; the annual document submitted by the company's accountants, available to the public. This is going to tell you where they are getting their money from, compare their numbers to previous years and determine whether business has improved or decreased in recent cycles.

Next you're looking for the companies ratio. It's ratio is determined by dividing the company's current assets by the current liabilities. If the company has a ratio -1.00 or 1.05 you want to stay away from it. The current ratio assures that a company is able to pay off any short-term liabilities with liquid assets such as cash, inventory, accounts receivable or other short-term assets. However, because a company has a higher ratio doesn't necessarily mean it's better. A safe, solid, trustworthy ratio is two - three.

Next you want to examine the history of paying dividends. This is the basic "make or break" while looking for stocks to invest in. While investing you have to remember, there are companies that make millions, billions, each year and increase their stocks but never return any of that to the shareholders. Then there are those companies that make medium profits, have a steady stock and always pay out to their investors. Just because it's a wealthy company with high stocks doesn't necessarily they have to pay out.

Remember, generally in new businesses all of the above are overwhelming. It's hard investing in a new company. They generally start off very popular for the first three years then die down. Make sure you have very high accessibility to the companies information. That they do, how the economy feels about it, can it be replaced with a machine in a few years, will something else replace the technology, etc.

Remember, when looking you're looking for how many sales the company does per day, per week, per month, per year, per five years. The debt of the company. The total earnings of the company and the equity, which should be higher than every pervious year. The equity should be 10% higher than previous years to determine the success of the business.

That basically sums up what you're asking i believe, typing this on my phone at work.. Haha, can't review the question. If you have any more information you wish to accumulate you can reply here or PM me.

 

yes pretty much gives me more of an idea what to look into before investing. There is one more question how much are the shares worth if it says : 65 for example on the stock market, does that 65 mean its 65 per stock/share? im not sure on that?

 

Depends if the actual stock value is $65.

For example, today Googles stock is 880 @3.30 meaning mtd it's worth +$800.

 

LLOY LLOYDS GRP. GBX 63.16 +0.30 +0.48

does that mean that is at 63.16? ea?

 

Correct, however, i personally would never invest in bank stock. Too much potential loss.

 

Could you tell me how i go about investing, and where? and how lol?

also what would be the minimum amount? i might try a small amount at the start see if it goes anywhere, get the hang of things, that way if i lose anything i wont be too bothered, itll give me a bit of experience,

 

One particular stock you have to call the company and ask them how to purchase them. They may offer DSPPs, you'll have to call to find out.

 

You can put in a bid to pay whatever you want for a share of a company and if someone's willing to sell for that price the stock system will automatically match you up with them and complete the trade. However, with highly traded stocks I can imagine you could get a share at the quote (63.16 in your example) very quickly if not instantly.

If you want to start investing you should try out an online brokerage. Most of them charge a small flat fee per trade and once you fund the account the process of buying is pretty easy.

 

you know the londonstock exchange website is that another way of purchasing stocks?

 

You can't purhcase directly from the LSE.
You need to open a brokerage account, preferably at one of the bigger more reputable firms whilst trying to keep trading costs low (check out their fees). However, something to keep in mind is that some of the firms charging higher fees do so in order to provide you with better market information so that you are more informed when buying or selling.

Also don't put all your 5k into one stock, try and diversify to hedge against the risk of it falling. The risk of every stock in a pool falling in value is far lower than the risk of a single stock falling in value.

If you want to spread your risk and leave the research to someone else it may be worth you looking into unit trusts.

 

very true, you need to be willing to invest large amounts or else the fees of buying and selling stocks will make you loose money.