Investing for beginners

If you are a trying to work out how to save for your future or are considering becoming an investor for the first time you may be daunted by taking a step into the unknown, especially if you have heard about the potential risks involved.
At Blackthorn Financial Services Ltd we understand how to invest, where to invest and can support you on your journey, helping you to achieve the goals for your future, and trying to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls you may make if you attempt to do this by yourself.
Not having a strategy
You can simply decide to become an investor, go out and buy some stocks in businesses that you like the look of, or follow the crowd like many have done in the last few years however they have discovered at their cost that this method can result in significant losses (even if you manage to make some gains to start with)
Investment is not a matter of luck, and certainly not about picking out investments at random. You need to have a strategy, aligned to your goals, your views about risk and the amount of time you can invest for and that removes the guesswork.

We start your planning journey by understanding what you want from your investment, capital growth or income, or a combination of both. We establish what risk you are prepared to take, how long you can invest for, what your wealth targets are and what you can commit to reach them.
You will need to know the answers to these questions, and understand the impact they have on the investments that are right for you. We will help you with each stage of this process utilising our knowledge and industry leading software to aid in this process.
Book an initial consultation with one of our independent financial advisers or call us on 01327 264481 to discuss this further.
Understanding risk
There are not normally any guarantees with investments. Any investment opportunity carries some risk, and the general rule is that the greater the potential returns, the greater the associated risk involved.
Some risk may actually be desirable. Without some risk you may not be able to reach your financial goals. You must however understand the risk inherent in each investment you make to ensure that it is a risk you are prepared to take. We will explain these to you as part of the risk profiling, we carry out as part of our advice process and before you invest any funds.
Ideally, you would have a portfolio made up of investments with a range of risk. How that portfolio is made up will depend on your attitude to risk, capacity and tolerance for loss, investment strategy and such other factors such as the time you have to reach your goals.
Diversifying investments
Whatever your views of risk are, we would never recommend that you put all your investment eggs in one basket. You need a diversified portfolio made up of different types of investments, each of which that act differently to the others in your portfolio.
Again, we can help by carefully planning how your portfolio is diversified to ensure it reflects your attitude to risk and your investment strategy.
Investing for the long term
At Blackthorn Financial Services we believe that Investing should be viewed as a longer-term commitment of a minimum of five years, as this allows your money the chance to recover from the ups and downs of the market and the opportunity for your funds to really work for you.
You may have heard of day trading, which is buying and selling shares to try and ride market movements and make a quick profit, we believe this is best left to investment professionals, those with money to lose and the knowledge about the companies they are investing in.
Asking the experts
Our experts design an individual strategy that is right for you, based upon the information you give us during our discussions with you, along with our up-to-date market knowledge to ensure the strategy put in place is the best one, to help you achieve your goals.
To find out more, simply contact us.