Saga shares now on sale

Don't take financial advice from internet forums?

They are selling shares because they are in debt.

I have my car insurance with Saga. I have been offered shares. I like their car insurance, but would have no idea how their shares might proceed in the future. I imagine that their sector of the market is a growing one, but that does not really figure.

ATB from George

Growing and diminishing at the same time? 

It is SAGA after all.

Really? I advised George to invest in LVLT on Feb 18th and it's risen 14.4% since then. If you'd had invested last Sept, you'd have doubled your money.

Do your research, take advice from everyone and make your own decision.

And?

There is no way I (or anybody without some inside line) could do enough research to consistently "beat the maket". I don't have any particular insight as to why a particular share might be under-priced or over-priced. The extraordinary returns go to the insiders at the expense of the rest of us (on average).

My wife and I just hold a (fairly) diversified portfolio and save on fees by not using greedy and morally bankrupt funds. Nor do we trade frequently - only to rebalance and manage CGT. When we have cash to invest we choose companies we like for a variety of reasons, but we don't pretend that everyone else is naive and leaving money on the table.

I agree with the comments on Radio 4's "Moneybox" last week. Don't expect any quick "post office" type profit on these shares. They will be not be priced at a discount.

By the way, has anyone here (UK) been caught up in the Selftrade fiasco ? I'm in the process of moving away from them after their demand for the most intrusive financial information that I've ever come across. Here's the form that they asked customers to complete, otherwise their share accounts would be frozen (click on the pdf link). There was no way I would/could provide such information so I ignored the requests and now Selftrade have backed down after mass protest.

http://www.investorschronicle....GliYhgK/article.html

No one can consistently beat the market or know where a stock's going every quarter, not even insiders, so I've no idea why you've brought that up, except to make a pointless argument.

I don't trade frequently, not now anyway. It all got too complicated for me to work out the tax implications of buying and selling (2000-2003 period) and now I just buy what I think are strong stocks on market dips. 

Saga have been owned by private equity groups for a few years now. If they thought there was stacks more profit to be made (perhaps there's more competition in Saga's markets than even Royal Mail face...) over the coming years, would they sell?

We pretty much agree (other than that insiders can win - I know the theory that says that, on average they don't, but I'm not 100% convinced by the arguments). I bring it up because your original advice to do research on individual stocks is useless. Pick your stocks with a dartboard.

I re-iterate my advice not to listen to advice from internet forums. Which is somewhat ironic, perhaps.

Yes Winky, if you don't have the most basic understanding of investing, best stick your head in the sand and while it's there, hope that no one breaks into your uninsured home. 

I actually do investment analysis for a living, but at an asset level and not in the public markets, generally.  Mostly private equity, where get a good look at the asset at a level of detail simply unavailable to the punters. We do sometimes look to understand the true value of public companies holding assets that may be mispriced. I just don't think stock-picking from internet gossip is really the road to riches. Nor is a  strategy based on the uninformed opinions of taxi drivers, hairdressers and brokers who are incentivised for deal-flow and churn.

What makes you think my home is uninsured? Sure, it would be if it could be. But here in Canada, house and contents insurance are bundled and we require insurance as a condition of our mortgage. Do you really think buying insurance is a sound investing strategy? What about lottery tickets?