The Lemon Fool

If you fancy yourself as a stock-picker, Simoan.

That's fine - good luck to you - you will live or die by the (metaphoric) sword.

Some others don't and/or prefer a more structured approach - this experiment of mine is one such. I am adapting it as best I can (and as minimally as practical) to suit the circumstances.

Regards, Newroad

Newroad wrote:If you fancy yourself as a stock-picker, Simoan.

That's fine - good luck to you - you will live or die by the (metaphoric) sword.

Some others don't and/or prefer a more structured approach - this experiment of mine is one such. I am adapting it as best I can (and as minimally as practical) to suit the circumstances.

Regards, Newroad

I retired in July last year, well before my 60th birthday. Stock picking did me very well once I learned from many stakes early on. Thanks for your concern but I have never followed a mechanical investing approach in meeting my own investing goals. I appreciate others may need the comfort blanket that they are somehow mitigating risk by doing so but they are generally fooling themselves and they'd be better buying an index tracker. What I dislike, is the insinuation that investment through active stock picking is a losers approach that seems to pervade these forums. If you are prepared to put the effort in, learn to read company accounts as part of your research, and be flexible and open to new ideas, it's perfectly possible.

I'm agnostic, Simoan.

The vast amount of our investments are 50/50 active (i.e. stock pickers)/passive.

But you're sort of right, there is a substantial following for the view that stock-picking - even for experts - is on average a losing proposition. There is some rationale to this view. There are also some advantages that smaller active investors have over institutional ones. However, I'm not so sure that what you allege is "pervasive" on these forums - there are many active stock picking proponents.

Perhaps more importantly, your dislike seems to move from the intellectual to the pejorative - I'm not sure that terms such as "comfort blanket" are helpful. There are quite intelligent people who use a partially or wholly passive approach for rational reasons - some because they judge it superior, some for lifestyle reasons.

Regards, Newroad

Newroad wrote:I'm agnostic, Simoan.

The vast amount of our investments are 50/50 active (i.e. stock pickers)/passive.

But you're sort of right, there is a substantial following for the view that stock-picking - even for experts - is on average a losing proposition. There is some rationale to this view. There are also some advantages that smaller active investors have over institutional ones. However, I'm not so sure that what you allege is "pervasive" on these forums - there are many active stock picking proponents.

Perhaps more importantly, your dislike seems to move from the intellectual to the pejorative - I'm not sure that terms such as "comfort blanket" are helpful. There are quite intelligent people who use a partially or wholly passive approach for rational reasons - some because they judge it superior, some for lifestyle reasons.

Regards, Newroad

Mechanical investing does not work in my opinion other than for index tracking. HYP pervades these forums, and what is that if it's not a mechanical investing approach? Any such system is just a device to avoid having to make hard decisions about your investments because of lack of confidence or maybe even laziness, and then to pick your investments based on ineffective criteria. Its a way to avoid doing the hard yards of reading annual reports and trading statements at 7am each morning, and doing proper research to weed out companies with poor balance sheets, poor profitability, ineffectual management and awful business fundamentals.

One to avoid....

https://www.ukdividendstocks.com/blog/i ... -investors

simoan wrote: Next is clearly a retailer and clearly does not provide a technology based product. Only some weirdo at the LSE would consider it a "technology" company.

Next (NXT) is retail according to the LSE: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/sto ... /our-story

--kiloran

kiloran wrote:

simoan wrote: Next is clearly a retailer and clearly does not provide a technology based product. Only some weirdo at the LSE would consider it a "technology" company.

Next (NXT) is retail according to the LSE: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/sto ... /our-story

--kiloran

That’s a relief! For some reason my data provider has it under the technology sector in the software & IT services sub-sector. The data is provided by Refinitiv, which is now part of………. the LSE!

kiloran wrote:

simoan wrote: Next is clearly a retailer and clearly does not provide a technology based product. Only some weirdo at the LSE would consider it a "technology" company.

Next (NXT) is retail according to the LSE: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/sto ... /our-story

--kiloran

I read somewhere that Ocodo was a technology stock. It's in the business of AI, robots and logistics software. I thought it delivered shopping...

kempiejon wrote:I read somewhere that Ocodo was a technology stock. It's in the business of AI, robots and logistics software. I thought it delivered shopping...

Not according to the LSE: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/sto ... /our-story
Looks like a sensible classification to me

--kiloran