The Wonders of Google

When Sian and I set out with this project I spent a long time looking around for a set of on-line tools that I could tailor to our needs. At the bare minimum I wanted an RSS feed that could be tailored to give information about our shares. As I use iGoogle as my personalised homepage in Firefox, it would be handy if it could be placed in a Google widget.

I found a number of tools, some paid for and some not, some Google widgets, but none really gave me what I needed. Then I found Google Finance haha!!

http://finance.google.com/

Not only does Google Finance give you massive amounts of news, you can also set up your profile so that you can track the value of shares that you own, taking into account the purchase and sale commission. Tracking the value of the shares can be done in so many ways... I now have a widget on my homepage that displays my current portfolio status and links back to more detailed pages about each company. I can track historical performance over a number of time periods and can see news releases about the company attached to the performance time line. Excited? you betcha!!

And then, if that wasn't enough, I was hunting around trying to discover how I could grab this sort of information for my own purposes (entering it into a database so I could carry our my own mathematical analysis) and I found this
http://docs.google.com/support/spreadsheets/bin/answer.py?answer=54198

Basically, you can enter functions into the GoogleDocs spreadsheet that will grab the data for you... see here for an example using Google's own share prices
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkYWXZssQmM5mmkqQuKqVJQ

Now I can take that data in the form of an RSS feed and extract and manipulate any way I want.

I've got to say, if information is power, than the degree of power these Google guys are moving toward scares me a touch, but they know how to provide data provision services.

What man supposes, God disposes.

I'm not sure where that quote comes from, but it is apt. My intention has been to blog as near to daily as was likely to be interesting, but last Thursday I went to my GP as I had been suffering from massive headaches for a week. One listen to my list of symptoms and she had me admitted for investigation for a possible subarachnoid haemorrhage.

Fortunately I was discharged yesterday, cleared of subarachnoid haemorrhage, but in the process I had a lumbar puncture which indicates that I'm suffering from an increased pressure in my spinal fluid which may be the cause of the headaches (and curiously, the draining of some of the fluid has brought about a significant improvement in my symptoms).

So, apart from scaring the hell out of my wife and friends, I reckon pretty much good news... my brain is not damaged, I'm not bleeding into my brain, and we have likely identified the cause of the headaches, which is treatable.

So why am I telling you all this? As the title suggest. We make plans with all the best intentions. We follow all the rules. And the universe has a knack of throwing a curve ball:-)

I guess the trick is to learn to expect the unexpected, and to look for the opportunities and advantages that it affords us when it happens.

Knowing where you want to go

OK. Wanting to get a feel for the basics, I've purchased a couple of beginner's books and one that seems more advanced in terms of strategy (I've had some recommendations of others which I will definitely look into, but stage one... know thy territory!)

I wanted to launch straight into strategy, but the first book I'm ploughing through (Investing in Shares for Dummies, UK Edition) spends a long time talking through what kind of investor you are and just what it is you want to achieve. It shouldn't be news to me... it seems to be all about defining well formed outcomes :-)

Seems there are three kinds of behaviour (not necessarily mutually exclusive)

* investing - a long term strategy... your investment may fluctuate in the short term, but with a knowledge of the market and wise investment, you are looking at a long term growth over maybe 10 years. Investing requires that one is prepared to tie up one's money fairly long term.

* saving - savings don't fluctuate... they are safer, but don't offer the same potential in returns.

* speculation - pretty much a gamble... a gamble based on a knowledge of the market maybe, but a gamble none the less.

Actually, I know a man who speculated on spread betting and made 10's of thousands of pounds in a few weeks. He lost it in less.

Our strategy certainly includes all three behaviours, but initially our share buying has a speculative flavour... we've put some money in based on an initial assesment of the market and some likely looking prospects (good move) and instinct (oops)

The Adventure Begins

Ever read Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick? In which time starts to run backwards? In an interesting way (as opposed to a scary one) that seems to be happening to me:-) Having found ourselves, after 18 years together, in a set of circumstances at considerable odds to our original values, my wife and I have restructured our lives. The details are not hugely important, suffice it to say that we are basically risk takers who had found ourselves increasingly adopting a security mentality, and one that would never see us succeed. Years of "ooh, you must have a mortgage", "what will you do when you retire"... pension this, savings that. We found ourselves in debt to mortgage companies and lenders, paying for pensions that would amount to little if anything, life insurance that probably wouldn't even pay out, insurance on the fridge, kettle, radio... fleeced by people who make a tidy sum from our money without offering much real return.

So, time for a turnaround. Let go of some of the securities so we feel ready to take the risks again. We can save a sum of money every month by cancelling various policies, and take control ourselves. We've opened a share dealing account. Bought a couple of books. And purchased our first shares.

We will be documenting success and failure, discoveries, strategies, ideas. Every pratfall and every "aha" moment along the way. Those of you who know me personally might find share dealing at odds with my generally liberal left values, and the ethical issue are something I hope to address in these posts too.

Sian and Adam would like to invite you to join us as we document our learning curve from total (and I mean total) share dealing newbies to financial independence :-) Let the adventure begin!