So, the stock market continues to crash and yet I have complete faith in the recovery. Stocks and Shares are a long term investment, 5 years minimum and you've got to reinvest dividends.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

My shares continue to fall with the credit crunch. Not to worry though, shares are all about long term. Even through the tough times, over a 5 year period or longer, with dividend reinvestment, shares will beat the average % you'll get from your savings account.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

For those of you interested, here's an update of how my shares are doing.

The goal was to loan £5000 over two years and try and beat the £345 interest. I received the £5000 on the 25th March 2008 and began playing the market. My total investment stands at £1600 as I've not invested it all at the moment, just taking my time and getting a feel for what I'm doing. The bottom line is this: Profile stands at £1637.25 which is a +11.07% overall profit. I took the loan at 6.7% APR so we're winning at the moment.

Cheers
Ryan partingtin

After last weeks loss on spreadbetting I decided to try a bit of betting. Now I have a friend who bets on horses daily and I believe he makes a considerable loss. My plan was to 'lay' the clear favourites and collect the pennies once they fall. Laying is basically betting on a horse to lose, as it's our primal instinct to win I was hoping for a tidy profit from others greed. So with £125 I started laying the favourites and my liability was lower than evens. If I wanted a £20 profit, I would be risking about £15 as the odds are pretty low. I lost all my money. How? When we bet on horses to win, we lose, we bet on them to lose, we lose? It does not make sense and my dreams of easy money are shattered and I'm pleased. There is no such thing as easy money and had I won, I would have no doubt thought it was the key to future success. Back to hard work and reading my book on the 'mis-behaviour of the market' to try and understand stocks and shares better. Looks like I'll be sticking with long term investments.

Phase two was initiated yesterday, spreadbetting. £250 into my account with the intention of making £50. The Euro was gaining against the Dollar, but it was moving too quick and I anticipated the fall. I sold at £2 a point but the price continued to rise. I was helpless and ended up losing £183 in a matter of minutes. Spreadbetting is being removed from my portfolio, it's a losers game.

Quite a bit going on recently so here's a recap for those new the site and following the money

Idea: Take a low interest loan, put it in the stock market and try and beat the interest. This is called 'gearing'. So £5000 secured from Alliance and Leicester at 6.7 APR over 2 years. Total repayable £5345. Over 2 years I need to make a profit of £345. The green is currently being transferred to my 'Stocks and Shares ISA' so any profits are free from capital gains tax. Once the transaction is complete, ill keep you updated of where the money is, and how much it makes..... or loses.

I called up the Halifax this morning to change my 'Cash ISA' to a 'Stocks and Shares one'. As usual I battled through the automated service and finally got through to the ISA department. To my surprised I was told the Halifax hold no such account, to have an ISA other than the a 'Cash ISA' I need to go through a financial advisor. I asked a couple more questions at which stage the call handler resumed the position of "I know more than you, go away please I'm busy". I hung up and called back on another number, spoke another division and then got put through to the correct person who was very helpful and got me sorted.

When all else fails, persistence prevails.

House prices in the UK continue to drop and the Pound was at it's weakest in history against the Euro. 'Now is not a good time to buy a house' - How many times do we hear that? The market is the same as it's always been, volatile. Today, this week, this year, is a normal year for the market and there have been no shocks, not if you understand the mis-behaviour of the market. I'm waiting until April 6th to update my standard ISA to a Maxi ISA with the Halifax so I can escape capital gains tax when investing in shares and have it all managed in one area. Share builder with the halifax does make you wait days before you can buy/sell shares but the advantage is you only pay £0.50 processing fee per action.

In the coming months I'll investigate some other accounts which allow instant buy and sell and advise on the advantages and disadvantages. For those of you with some spare cash who would like to have a play on the market, start today, never ir a right, or wrong time.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Some experts are saying now is the best time to invest in shares. Great news for me having received my 5k and about to invest. It's nearly 5 years since the index of Britain's leading shares reached rock bottom. March 12th 2003 the index hit 3287 and ended up soaring upwards 105% before the credit crunch in June last year. Last weeks Footsie closed@5495 and I think there are still a few points to drop before any major come back. Confidence from investors is not quite there as some fear a possible recession like back in the 1990s. Partington's tip of the week is; add some lower risk shares to your portfolio and stay tuned. I'll be releasing my picks once I've completed some additional research.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Are we all looking forward to the bank holiday? I know I am. The £5000 is due in soon, rang up today and arranged to get the monthly payments taken out on pay day. I've decided the money is going to be split and invested like this;

£4500 in long term shares, split out into £250 for each company.
£250 LAY horses on betfair, what? Nothing wrong with that.
£250 for spread betting, I'm convinced I'll lose this, but let's give it a shot.

Stay tuned
Ryan partignton

Good morning. A lot going on in the stock market recently. Namely Bear Stearns being bought out for $2 a share. Last year their shares were being sold for around $175 a share, towards the end of last week they were at an $82 low. Yesterday they opened at $2 a share due to a take over on Monday by JP Morgan. Now that's a substatical loss of cash if you had your capital tied up with them. Even for those who never, the ripple effect is causing banks in the US and the UK to lose money per share, which does not help my £100 with Barclays! Not to mention, Barlays having a big stake in Bare Stearns so we all get to share the loss. All this while my 5K is being processed, ready to throw into the market. Can'w wait... Stay tuned

Cheers
Ryan Partington

He who tries, wins. After a number of unsuccessful loan attempts, I've managed to secure £5000 over 24 months @ 6.7APR (Alliance and Leicester) which is online access only, so there are no benefits of tieing me up and demanding the money as it's just not possible. £5345 repayable so I need to make £345 over two years to break even, I can't see that being a problem but things never work out how you expect. I'll be diversifying across a range of shares in different markets, but probably stay in the UK, no US or Japan trading. Stay tuned, I should received the £££ within the next week, I'll let you know where and why I invest. Lets make some money.

Cheers
Ryah Partington

A couple of weeks back I invited you to join my journey into investment. The shares were bought as I explained and here's how they are getting on.

I like the returns for such a short period of time, much better than my bank would have paid. I've started reading an investment book and here are some keys elements I keep seen repeated; long term shares beat any other investment. Yes they will go up and down, but if you leave your money in, shares win the majority of the time. Be patient, 5 years at least. Shares beat property. But we must keep a roof over our head and a mortgage is far better than rent. For additional investments, look at shares.

I'll keep you posted
Ryan Partington

After my money doubling effort on Thursday I decided it was time to raise the steaks. I lost £50. I did what I had on Thursday, watched the candle stick chart and thought I spotted one on the rise. I bought at £10 a point and was ready for the profits to roll in. Instead the value began to drop and because I only have £50 in my account an 'Auto Stopper' had been put in place which automatically sells your bet to make sure you don't lose more than you have. I threw another £50 in, I was feeling lucky this time. I was convinced Aricom was going to continue moving up, they were under the 'winners' section on the bbc website, let's do this I thought. - This time I bought at £2 and setup my own auto stopper - I lost £3.20.

It's tough and I'm starting to see it's going to take a little more than 'feeling lucky' to make my fortune. Like with anything I'll need to understand the market. I'm not sure at the moment how to progress, check back tomorrow.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

I'm not shitting you, here have $25 and give it to an entrepreneur in the 3rd world. You can't give away money these days. I did however manage to double mine yesterday. I'm not going to explain how spread betting works because others can do it a lot better than I. I read the first 6 articles on this site and was ready to make my first purchase. I put £1 up and said "Legal and General Rolling Daily" will RISE on the market. And it did, that £1 became £2 and I was setup for life, but I forgot to sell and trading closed. Madness. Today, I'll sell that on and look to make a biggest investment. At the moment with my very limited experience, betting on the movement of the market for someone like me is a 50/50 chance of either losing and making a few bucks, normally the former. I understand a lot more now than I did 24 hours ago but I'm not impressed, I'll keep on reading today and put up some bigger money. From what I've read, here are a few key ideas:

• For the majority who play the spread betting game, it is not thier full time job
• One person however is quoted on making £2000 a day average, £500 on a bad day
• The company that spreads your bets for you, e-trade in my case, win if you make or lose money, so they don't mind a successful spread better.

keep it real?
Ryan Partington

Good morning. Yesterday I spoke to Black Horse about a loan, here's how it went

I wanted: £25000 over 12 months @ 6.9% APR
was offered: £15000 over 15 years @ 17% APR

I also spoke to e-trade and asked about my application for an online account.
Me: hello, I ran through your online application form about a week and a half back but haven't received any details
them: what account did you apply for?
Me: (I can't remember, I think it was Fortrex or something, i'll give that a shot) Fortex
them: sorry?
Me: Fortrex
them: ....
Me: ... what accounts do you have again?
them: (they list them)
Me: ahhh yes, Forex and Futures
them: you got the questions wrong on the online form when you signed up for the account, have you traded before?
Me: no...
The story continues along the same lines, I never had a clue what was going on and settled for a 'spreadbetting account' which is for those new to trading, once you've had one of them for six months you can upgrade to the account which deals with Forex and Futures.

Just waiting to here back on that application now...

Loan for £25000 rejected and my details were passed onto a broker. They called me after more information and then passed my details on to a load of loan companies. I have a meeting Saturday afternoon in Liverpool city centre with Black Horse. I've been asked to take in proof of income and details of mortgage. I'm aware they may try and hit me with a silly APR and if that's the only offer, I'll reject.

The reason I believe I got rejected from Personal Loans.co.uk is because the total ask (£25000) over 12 months is more than I earn a year. I wont let a small detail like this halt my quest. E-trade will be called today about my application as I never had a chance yesterday (poor excuse, I know).

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Did quite a bit yesterday. Although no one thing was hard, I did start to feel unsure of my actions. I put that aside and thought (this is where others would quit) and applied for the £25000 loan. I've still not heard anything from E-trade and will chase them today, want my account live so I can start losing money and gain experience.

I called Halifax and asked what was going on with my Sharebuilder account, we managed to kick it into life and I had no idea what to do. So I invested £100 in barclays and £100 in Marks and Spencer. Apparently they are the hot investments at the moment according to the Halifax page and I WANTED A PIECE OF THAT PIE. This is how it works:

I have to move money into my 'fund' of which I can then invest. I can only do this on certain dates, this is setup so Halifax do everything in big chunks and can therefore offer the service with less commission on trades... So I've got £200 going in on the 17th of this month.

The same rule applies for buying shares but the dates are different from those you can put money into your 'fund'. So I'm buying the shares on the 21st of this month... nice. I'm being charged 0.50p for the Barclays deal and 0.50p for the Marks and Sparks deal, total of a quid. Now it's early days but over time I'll together a plan which looks at what my target is, and how close/far away from that target I am. For now, let's KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid)

Watching BBC 1 Wednesday night I saw a service advertised, E-Trade which allows you to trade CFDs and Forex. Now I haven't a clue what either of them are but the best way to find out is to get stuck in. I signed up for a 20 day trial and downloaded their software which comes with pretty graphs and a dummy £100,000 to invest. I made some investments here and there and over the course of the day made a massive £13 profit. With that success under my belt I applied for a live account this morning. If accepted I'll use this service to compare against the Halifax sharebuilder and keep you updated on which is best for what and why. Stay tuned.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Not good news folks. I made more money. As stated in last post, had £18 and layed horses so I only had £5 left in account, at the end of the day I ended up with £25.26. I was hoping to lose and get over this 'period' where my mind's telling me to keep on betting. Instead I'm just going to stop betting because at the end of the day the bookies always win and I'm here to make money, not live in dreamland and then ultimately lose it all. Once I've started using the sharebuilder account, of which I'm still witing for the details, I'll calculate the % profit required to ascertain monthly goals and maybe factor in a bit of laying then. But for now the betting stops. I'll continue to post about making money with large stakes once, as I said earlier, the Sharebuilder account is ready to go.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Yesterday I was still waiting for my confirmation letter regarding the sharebuilder accout with Halifax. So for the time being I adjusted my limit on betfair to 'unlimited' and added £10 to my account, bringing it to a total of £13.00. I had a £10 limit which will be removed in 24 hours.

So a friend of mine recently got a job in tote and he was told they only lose money if the favourite wins. Fair enough, let's keep things simple and bet on the favourite to lose. Layed 5 horses (bet on them to lose) and used my total £13. At the end of the day I had £18 in my account, not a bad start but making money can not be that easy. Today I have £18 in my account and have layed 5 favourites bringing my account to £5 which I'm not spending. Let's see what happens eh.

Cheers
Ryan Partington

Every now and again when trying to sleep my mind starts thinking of these fantastic money making opportunities. Borrow £25000, invest here and there, beat the APR and make a profit. It all sounds good until I wake up and do some research. We'd all love to make money by moving it around accounts, a cheeky punt here and there. This morning I woke up and have decided to just give it a shot. The number I'm thinking about is £25000 from a loan over 12 months, try and beat the 6.7 APR and see what happens. I've applied for a Halifax sharebuilders account, crunched some numbers around laying the favourites on betfair (horse racing) and read a finance article or two. I always say take action first and worry later, it has it's pros and cons, but I learn a lot quicker this way, and experience is priceless. I'll keep you updated and tag all the articles 'money/'.

Cheers
Ryan Partington