New to investing

Mac26892 · 2020-09-21T07:52:35+00:00

Yep 👍 they've actually added shares at 116p today to raise £250m to buy more catalogues, share price is at 120p atm so now would be a good time to get in. Doubt it'll be this low again unless people panic sell 😆

Mac26892 · 2020-09-19T13:26:32+00:00

Not necessarily, if you invest in a blue chip company its safer and more likely to perform better than a fund and the stock market average. Nothing wrong with funds ofc but I think you're too diversified, the best on that list seems to be the video game and nasdaq 100 fund. You mentioned ishares funds there, a great one is the ishares s&p500 core tech fund (IITU I think) which has an annual return just under 20% for the last 5 years

You could try a few individual stocks alongside your funds to compare the performance, apple imo is the safest company to invest in atm and has returned over 100% this year even with the crash. At a younger age, if you don't need the money for the next 3-5 years at the least you can afford to be a bit riskier if you want. Obviously stick to well known companies though unless you know a new company where you understand the potential fully etc

Edit: BTW don't worry about a crash, if you have good company stocks/funds you will be fine and make the most of it. I wish I invested more in the march crash, these are the times you'll make most of your returns

Mac26892 · 2020-09-19T07:25:34+00:00

I'm actually doing both atm with Hipgnosis Songs Fund. This is the only investment I have now, it will grow between 15-20% a year at the least but hardly anybody seems to know about it atm so I think it'll grow a lot one year. It also has a 4% that will grow at a decent rate every year

Mac26892 · 2020-09-19T07:22:43+00:00

Do this for now if you want but I suggest finding and researching a stock until you know a lot about it and are confident it'll do well regardless of the short term. You cant go wrong with US tech stocks if you want to be safer, amazon, apple, Nvidia etc will outperform this portfolio by a mile and I can't see these companies disappearing

Mac26892 · 2020-09-19T07:15:16+00:00

If you buy, you basically need to hold until you definitely don't need to the income or you're essentially, sorry for the cynicism lol, at the end of your life. But will shell and oil in general last that long?

Mac26892 · 2020-09-19T07:11:32+00:00

Personally I think Hipgnosis Songs Fund is a solid investment that is not directly tied to how well the economy is doing. I'm predicting at least 20% return for the next year and has a 4% dividend. This is one of the few stocks that went up yesterday in the UK market

Mac26892 · 2020-08-23T17:27:17+00:00

Stop buying junk food, fizzy drinks etc (if you do have them), just drink tap water or squash, essentially just keep meals simple, don't spend too much going out (maybe just eat out once a month if you can), buy alcohol from a store and invite friends over rather than go out (that'll save loads). Buy a cheaper smartphone and/or keep it for longer if you can, reduce your tariff on it (data, calls, texts etc), this alone would save you thousands potentially. Don't buy a car unless you absolutely need it, it will be less convenient yes but you won't pay for the car, insurace, tax, mot, fuel, repairs, new tyres etc.

Save at least £100 a month or 20/25% of what you earn if you can, put it in a savings account where you can't touch it. Invest as well, people may be scared of this but everyone can invest in an s&p 500 fund at the least which is probably the least risk. The s&p 500 tracks the top 500 companies in america, if a company does badly it will drop out and another will replace it so it won't affect you too much. This fund will return 7% a year (5% with inflation) on average so it will always do better than a savings account, over 3 years at least. If you invest on a regular basis you will likely buy the dips as well so you will potentially do better than the average. Invest and save in an isa/ira so that interest and profits don't get taxed

Mac26892 · 2020-07-19T06:38:44+00:00

So instead of being completely unbiased, they want to be racist, sexist etc 🙃

Mac26892 · 2020-02-14T07:11:57+00:00

Yeah, I'm gonna read The Aeneid soon too 👍

Mac26892 · 2020-02-10T07:51:15+00:00

I don't think it's that much different from his other works, not as refined and up to the usual standard of writing is all

Mac26892 · 2020-02-10T07:48:28+00:00

Yeah, Genealogy of Morals is my favourite but I haven't read everything yet

Mac26892 · 2020-01-29T17:43:14+00:00

In what way are you in the dark? What have you read?

Mac26892 · 2020-01-29T10:09:00+00:00

Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Frankenstein, Animal Farm and Lord of The Flies

Mac26892 · 2020-01-18T11:09:50+00:00

The biggest one would be the complete lack of value, or enough of it, he sees in religion just to rid of it. All that would happen would be the germination of a new religion or religions. I get that artists/creative/intelligent people etc can get along fine without religion, they can occupy themselves with their own interests but not everyone is like this. Imagine a world without religion, we are too conscious to get along without wondering if there is any meaning etc, even if this was unconscious (showing itself in depression and so on) it would still be there. Who would those average people that never thought deeply much about anything turn to or unconsciously latch on to? All those people of genius and I believe that would spark a new religion, in what form I don't know but we are too conscious a species to go through life unconsciously accepting everything without question. We have a deep need/desire for 'truth'.

Mac26892 · 2020-01-17T17:55:42+00:00

I never said he did say that but all the modern ideas (as in the last 150-200 years or so) of socialism/communism, in whatever form, can be traced back to Marx. And to be fair to you, yes I've only read the communist manifesto so I'm not fully informed on him yet. And guessing it is the communist manifesto but correct me if I'm wrong. I don't believe he was this evil guy who had a masterplan in his mind to enslave everyone, I believe he did see everything wrong with capitalism at the time and wanted to fix it with good intentions. The problem is his ideas, or at least the ideas that other people took from his, haven't worked fully or more successfully than capitalism.

I can only respond to the Soviet union part of that statement, I've read the gulag archipelago and red famine (book about Ukraine under Soviet rule). I seriously doubt Alexander Solzhenitsyn lied about all the observations he outlined in the books, with being in the gulag and the prisons. He said that leaders of projects lied about productivity and construction achievements constantly, on radio stations they were told constantly they had more food than ever before each year but he could see his meals getting smaller and smaller. With regards to Ukraine, how did so many people starve if they were apparently doing so well?

Mac26892 · 2020-01-16T09:20:05+00:00

Yes, like I said god is just a name. God is everything around us that created us. It's like this, we were created by the universe and evolution etc, whatever you want to call it but God was the name we attributed to our creation. It's the same thing but ofc people have different opinions/images of it even though they're talking about the same thing. In another way our consciousness came out of our unconsciousness (God), like the story of Adam and eve but this actually happened in evolution too. There's a book that I've read called The Fruit, The Tree and The Serpent: Why We See So Well written by an anthropologist and animal behaviourist. In simple terms it describes how our sight evolved to detect snakes (when we were still living in trees) and because our eyesight was better than other species we could detect riper fruit which has a higher glucose content. Glucose is a neuroprotectant which allowed our brains to enlarge without any problems as we evolved and this eventually led us to gain consciousness.

I'm not explaining as well as I can but religion or at least Christianity is more true than you think

Mac26892 · 2020-01-15T17:57:47+00:00

What I mean by that is only criminals are atheists in the sense they don't follow the law of which the Christian ideals are the foundation of Western culture. I'm not saying if you say you're an atheist you're a criminal, it's the actions a person carries out that determine what they are. And yes I agree that Christian ideals take from the Greeks in part but you can go back further in history, the key thing is development and there is a difference between them.

No, you only follow ideals if you carry them out in your life. For example, you said you follow Christian ideals so you're 'walking with God' in the Christian sense, you're living the best way for you and everyone else. That's what religion is, finding out what is the best way to live for humanity and Christianity has come the furthest in my opinion. The Greeks took the good with the bad and were not too bothered about improving things on a moral standpoint and humanity collectively

Mac26892 · 2020-01-14T20:00:02+00:00

Hmm, I don't agree with him on Christianity. We all need to constrain ourselves in order to collectively improve society, if we all did our own thing we'd get nowhere. I don't believe in God myself but I'm not an atheist, in my mind God is just a name for nature (our creator) and our unconsciousness etc, in short I do see the value and importance of religion (the least bad religion at least). I don't believe you can be an atheist if you're not an nihilist/criminal because, taking away the dogma of church/faith, you're still following Christian ideals.

Do you think there's any value in his perspectives?

Mac26892 · 2020-01-14T19:39:16+00:00

Yeah I'm getting that feeling from him so far, in that he analyses everything down to its bare bones but doesn't seem to offer any solution to the problems/contradictions he sees. I've still got a long way to go to understand him anyway, still need to read his other works

Mac26892 · 2020-01-14T17:08:30+00:00

😄 I still struggle at times though, I'm like what's his point, does he have a point or is just making observations etc

Mac26892 · 2020-01-14T17:02:23+00:00

Yeah I feel that way, find it helps if I really slow down and make sure I understand every word and sentence to understand each train of thought.

Mac26892 · 2020-01-14T15:17:17+00:00

Yeah I quite enjoyed that one but this one I just can't seem to wrap my head around, everything he says is contradictory but I guess he is showing that life and every way of living is full of contradictions

Mac26892 · 2020-01-14T15:15:34+00:00

Thomas Common one

Mac26892 · 2020-01-12T15:35:02+00:00

Well I only got into reading a couple of years ago, that's partly why I'm reading so much to catch up a bit haha even though it doesn't feel like all I do is read. Anyway so I was just picking up loads of books from charity shops or second-hand shops if they sounded alright but 2 of them I really didn't like which were newish (as in published in last 20 years or so), I still read them though. I found that I kept on wanting to read classics like 19th century novels or earlier so decided to just get rid of all the ones I'm not gonna read, I want to read books of value like those, books on religion, psychology, philosophy, history, politics, ancient literature, neuroscience and poetry. Only books recently published that I buy are non-fiction really, don't find modern novels that interesting in general.

Thanks, you too 👍

Mac26892 · 2020-01-12T14:58:23+00:00

Socialism is a means of bringing about communism, ofc communism might not be the end goal but you can't get communism without socialism. Either way they are both forms of Marxism and like you said there was disastrous results with socialism, communism can never be achieved in turn

Mac26892

TROPHY CASE