CONKERS' CORNER

Welcome to the 25th CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on the 14th July 2016. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Curry @jpsc01 on Twitter. Jonathan is a Trained Accountant, Company Director, Angel Investor, Equity Investor, Blogger and Non Executive Director.

Jonathan started investing when he was around sixteen years of age. He had been educated on the merits of investing by his Dad, who bought and sold shares. He remembers fondly his Dad explaining to him, “Shares are one of the few ways you can get rich by someone else doing all the work”. With the little spare money that he had as a teenager, he made his first investments in the Investment Trust sector.

After going to University, where he successfully attained a Degree in Politics, he then trained and qualified as an Accountant. His additional knowledge as an Accountant has enabled him to better assess the accounts and assets of a company. He is a great believer in thoroughly reading company RNS’s and also comparing them to previous RNS’s released by that company. This enables Jonathan to notice any red flags that many others might have overlooked. It also enables Jonathan to be comfortable with his selections until he decides that they have reached full value. He also does all this without spending too much time in front of his computer screens.

Listen now to gain insights into how Jonathan researches, selects his investments and learn from the lessons in his successful and investing journey. #LEARNING #INVESTING #CONKERSCORNER

Welcome to the 24th CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on 9th July 2016. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with the freelance Technical Analyst, Presenter and Host, Zak Mir @ZaksTradersCafe on Twitter.

The son of Doctors, Zak grew up in North West London and went to Harrow School in the 1980’s. After that he briefly attended London School of Economics. Zak did not find this to his liking and after less than two months, his passion for stocks and investing lead him pursue a job with a Stockbroker in Mayfair. Even back in the 1980’s, Zak had a great interest in SmallCap and AIM stocks (then known as the Unlisted Securities Market). He made his first investment in stocks in the late 1980’s and in the early 1990’s he tried being a Derivatives Broker.

Zak then spent much of the 1990’s doing what is now known as Day Trading using his self taught Technical Analyst skills and very expensive data feed. Today Zak is one of those go-to individuals that Private Investors, Event Organisers, Publications and Shows call on when they want an intelligent affable Presenter, Host or Technical Analyst. He can be found regularly on @OfficialTipTV http://tiptv.co.uk/ , @CityAM http://www.cityam.com/ , his very own Traders Cafe Events at http://www.zakstraderscafe.com/ and more recently on @LondonSouthEast http://www.lse.co.uk/

Listen now to gain insights into the many lessons that Zak has learnt during his near thirty years using Technical Analysis, trading Indices, Stocks and FX.

Welcome to the 23rd CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on 8th July 2016. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Reg Hoare @RegHoare on Twitter. Reg is a Managing Director at MHP Financial.

As the son of a farmer Reg did not have the opportunity to follow his Dad into the family business as it had not gone so well. He instead went off to Bristol University, where he successfully completed his Degree in Politics which had a big segment in Economics. The City which had been an “alien place” to Reg prior to his studies, now as a graduate seemed “like the logical place to go”. Therefore Reg applied for Graduate Trainee Opportunities in the City and was successful in gaining a position with Laurie Milbank a Stockbroking Partnership firm in 1983.

On completing his one year apprenticeship at Laurie Milbank, Reg opted to work within the Institutional part of the firm as a Salesman. He now has over 30 years of City experience, switching to Financial PR in 1995 after a successful early career in investment banking and securities at SG Warburg and Nomura.

Reg potentially could have been in the ISA millionaire club, however he opted instead to buy land in coastal Andalucia in 2001 and lovingly finished building the stunning Villa Cielo en la Tierra http://villacieloenlatierra.com/ in 2010. This sits well with his view that one should lock in profits and diversify your investments across many stocks and assets.

Welcome to the 22nd SHARE TALK’S CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on 8th July 2016. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Phil Oakley @PhilJOakley. Phil is an Investment analyst at ShareScope.

Phil never envisaged a career in the Investment industry, however his love for numbers and Economics led to him doing a couple of Degrees. After he graduated with a MSc in International Banking, Economics & Finance from Liverpool Business School in 1996, Phil went to work for BWD Rensburg, a Liverpool based investment manager. In 2001, he joined ABN AMRO as a transport analyst. After a brief spell as a food retail analyst, he spent five years with ABN’s very successful UK Smaller Companies team where he covered engineering, transport and support services stocks.

In 2007, Phil joined Halbis Capital Management as a European equities analyst. However after thirteen years of working for both stockbroking and Fund Management companies Phil knew that he had to get out of the industry. Underlying this was also Phil’s passion for writing and research and the realisation that he wanted to educate private investors.

In 2010 Phil went to work as the Senior Investment Writer for MoneyWeek magazine. He remained there for three years before being headhunted for his writing, research and analytical skills by Tim Clarke, who was General Manager of ShareScope. Phil has been instrumental in helping the software designers at ShareScope put together both the more recent ShareScope evolving platform and the SharePad software platform. He has also been writing educational articles for the ShareScope website https://www.sharescope.co.uk/index.jsp Britain’s best-selling investment software.

Listen now to gain insights into how Phil invests and learn from the lessons in his investing journey.

Welcome to the 21st CONKERS’ CORNER. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Edmund Shing @TheIdleInvestor on Twitter. Edmund is BNP Paribas’ Head of Equity Derivative Strategy.

In addition to his main role at BNP Paribas, Edmund writes weekly articles for the IBT Times UK, as well as being an expert columnist on the MindfulMoney website and on the Stockopedia financial website. He is also a highly sought after investment expert and you can regularly see him appearing on programs including Bloomberg Markets, CNBC’s “Closing Bell” and Bloomberg “The Pulse”. You can find some of Edmund’s recent appearances here: https://plus.google.com/+EdmundShing

All of that is a long way from where Edmund started out, having completed a Degree in Psychology at Oxford University. He followed that with a Masters Degree in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Sussex University and then completed a Doctorate in AI at the University of Birmingham.

With no background in investing or economics Edmund gained his first role with regards to Applied Research, looking at strategy at Goldman Sachs Investment Bank. After gaining a thorough grounding of the investment industry with Goldman, Edmund went onto work with Schroders and then Barclays Bank.

Prior to his current role at BNP Paribas, Edmund held a Fund Management role with Russia’s BCS Financial Group. He also wrote his insightful investing book “The Idle Investor” in which he explains his simple strategies to earn high returns and beat the professionals. You can find three of Edmund’s strategies here: http://edshing.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/idle-investor-three-simple-strategies.html

Welcome to the 20th CONKERS’ CORNER. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Nick Britton @NickBritton_ on Twitter. Nick is the Head of Training at the Association of Investment Companies (AIC). Nick leads the trade association’s Adviser training programme.

After reading English at Cambridge University, Nick began his career in journalism in Shanghai, China, before spending time as a freelance editor in Australia. He joined Vitesse Media in 2007, where he edited GrowthBusiness.co.uk and Business XL magazine, before becoming Head of Research and then Managing Editor in 2010. Nick then spent a year as Head of Research and Editorial at Fast Track, before re-joining Vitesse Media as Editor of What Investment magazine.

Nick then joined AIC http://www.theaic.co.uk/ in his present role in February 2015. He is a a regular contributor on the AIC website where he writes articles on all topics covering the Investment industry. In his most recent article, he shared his most commonly asked investment company questions: http://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/news/press-releases/ask-me-anything-nick-britton-shares-the-most-common-investment-company

Looking back Nick explains that as a young boy he had an interest in savings, but it was not until working in London in 2006, that his Boss’s interests in markets and indices rubbed off on him. Nick has since been a keen long-term investor in Investments Funds for his Stocks and Shares ISA and more recently his SIPP.

Welcome to the 19th CONKERS’ CORNER. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Catherine Stott @HypnoTrading on Twitter. Catherine is a Trading Psychology coach and expert, Mind coach and Author of the book “HypnoTrading”.

Catherine studied at the University of Reading where she gained a degree in Psychology. After her Degree she went to work as a human factors psychologist at a science and technology company. Her focus was predominantly on training and designing training systems for human use. This gave her a good understanding into how people think, work and interact with each other. She then went on to train as a Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Catherine first began working with Traders in 2010 and began developing an in depth knowledge on trading psychology as well as how hypnotherapy, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Havening Techniques can help traders with the wide variety of challenges they face.

Catherine’s journey and continued learning has enabled her to become successful in her field. She has coached, mentored and enabled hundreds of Traders to not only take a better psychological approach to trading but also to make more consistent returns and become more successful traders. Listen now to gain insights into how Catherine invests, the benefits of understanding your own psychology when it comes to trading and learn from her thousands of hours of working with traders.

Welcome to the 18th CONKERS’ CORNER. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Todd Wenning @ToddWenning. Todd is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of Chicago. He is also the Author of the book “Keeping your Edge: Strategies for Growing & Protecting your Dividends”.

Todd started his career as a registered Representative and then became an Equity Trader at Vanguard Group. He later moved to Virginia to work for Suntrust Asset Management where he helped to manage the portfolios of ultra-high net worth individuals.

Todd then went onto work for Motley Fool as their lead analyst on Motley Fool PRO, a US-based investing service that employed long and short strategies using stocks, options and ETFs in a $1 million portfolio. Todd then moved to London where he was the the lead advisor of Motley Fool Dividend Edge, a UK-based newsletter service that recommended and purchased dividend-paying stocks in a real-money portfolio.

In July 2015, Todd joined Johnson Investment Counsel as a generalist analyst on the firm’s small/mid-cap strategy, where he currently balances the demands of his work with that of a young family and writing.

Todd’s investing journey and discipline has enabled him to become a successful investor, analyst, researcher and Author. Listen now to gain insights into how he invests, the benefits of Dividends, compounding returns and learn from the lessons in his investing journey.

Welcome to the 17th CONKERS’ CORNER. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with @stealthsurf, Jason to his friends. Jason is very passionate about trend trading and the importance of position sizing.

In his early twenty’s Jason thought it was time to sort out his own personal pension and so sought advice from a Financial Adviser. This led him into investing in Funds. He quickly learned that you should run your winners and cut your losers quickly. He used to work in a plastic moulding factory and would work flat out, then travel and surf in places like Australia and New Zealand.

In 2008 when Jason returned from travelling he needed to have several operations on his knees and it was at this point that he realised that he could not to return to the heavy duty work related to plastic moulding. He decided at this juncture that he would trade full-time. This time however he decided that he would be trading rather than investing as he needed to make a living over the short-term. Two years ago Jason also started his own trading website http://www.tradingbases.co.uk/ Trading Bases is a systematic trend following technique and an insightful source of knowledge for new and also experienced traders and investors.

Jason’s investing journey and discipline has enabled him to become a successful trader so much that he earns his living from trading the stock market. Listen now to gain insights into how he trades, how he filters stocks, uses moving averages, position sizing, compounding and learn from the lessons in his trading journey.

Welcome to the 16th CONKERS’ CORNER. In this interview I have the pleasure of speaking with Leon Boros @Boros10 an ISA Millionaire and serial entrepreneur. Leon started investing when he was only 18 years of age having been inspired by his grandfather who was an amateur stock picker. However, he admitted that he did very little research and was susceptible to “story stocks”.

Leon is an Economics graduate and winner of the prestigious National Lord Kings Norton award for Economics for his ground breaking research on the financing of employee owned companies.

At the age of 29, Leon co-founded Capital Strategies Ltd, a corporate finance boutique specialising in arranging buyouts, trade sales, originating corporate transactions, share valuations and designing and implementing employee share plans. Leon gained extensive exposure to privatisation, outsourcing, education, recruitment and transport.

During his career, Leon has managed or originated corporate transactions with an aggregate value in excess of $1bn in the mid-market arena. His largest corporate transactions to date have been the £100m purchase by Capita plc of IRG Ltd, the £100m IPO of Benchmark Holdings plc, a leading animal health company, and the recent reverse takeover of INVE Aquaculture by Benchmark for $342m.

In 2000, Leon co-founded Myshares Ltd, raising in excess of £4m from 3i plc and a trade partner. Myshares acquired the market leading software for the administration of executive share plans from the Institute of Chartered Secretaries. Myshares was sold in 2001.

Leon is a well-known private investor and was until recently a non-executive director of ShareSoc, a not-for profit organisation, which promotes the interests of private investors. He recently published an e-book entitled “10 key investing lessons from an ISA Millionaire”.

Leon is currently the MD of Equity Strategies http://equitystrategies.co.uk/ a corporate finance boutique that combines Leon’s interest in equity research and investing, with his corporate finance skills and creative approach to advising and originating corporate deals.

Leon’s investing journey and discipline has enabled him to become an ISA Millionaire, as well as earning him access to pre-IPO Fund raising’s and Placings as a “Sophisticated Investor”. Listen now to gain insights into how he invests, how he manages his portfolio and learn from the lessons in his investing journey.