One of our favourite 10thousandgirls, Marie Delaitre generously shares her journey, tips and lessons from playing her way into the sharemarket.

Would you like to have fifty thousand dollars to invest in the sharemarket?

The ASX sharemarket game allows you to play with fifty thousand ‘pretend’ dollars (risk free), and learn about the sharemarket for three months.  It sounded like a good deal to me, so I signed up!

Three months later, I made a nice little profit of $3,694 … ok, a ‘pretend’ profit of $3,694.  In the game, 21% of the 10,000 players made a profit.  I came 92^nd in NSW (out of 3,300 players), which is not bad for a first time player and novice.

Here is what I can share with you.

General lessons from the Sharemarket Game and our GIG (Girl Investment Group)

• Buy what you can afford. If your investments are going to keep you up at night and have you constantly fretting on share price movements, it could end up driving you batty.  Keep it simple and fun.
• Do your own research. Don’t just follow what someone else has to say.  People can seem very knowledgeable about ‘a good company to invest in’, but it’s your money, your risk.
• Good companies come good in the long term.  Hang in there through price dips; remember that shares are long term investments.  During the game, when a market rumour about one of my companies made the price fall – I panicked and quickly sold out at a loss (even though I had bought because I knew it to be a solid company).  The price eventually came back up, but I had already sold.  It was a good learning experience.
• Have a plan. Know whether you are making a gain or loss along the way (know your rate of return – is it better than putting money in the bank?), and know when you will step out.
• Diversify. Don’t put all your money in the one company/industry  (the ASX game makes you do this by default,  you can’t have more that a certain percentage of your portfolio in one company).  This means that if one company/ industry does badly,  you don’t lose all your money.
• If you are investing and researching yourself, it can be time consuming,  know how much time you wish to invest too.
• Don’t just ‘guess’ – build a strategy based on facts, not hunches. I created a watchlist of ASX companies who have 2 or more women on their Board of Directors – and started to track their performance over 4 month.  So far, the results are not as magical as I had expected.  What sounds good in theory, may not work out in the market.  The watchlist functionality on the ASX website is a good way of seeing how a share performs, without actually investing.
• Keep your records straight!  When buying real shares, ensure some of the routine stuff is completed from the outset – eg: have you given the company instructions to pay your dividends directly to your bank account, are you able to participate in a dividend re-investment plan, do they have your tax file number?

Lessons from playing

• During the game, having a ranking helped me feel ‘confident’ that I was doing fine.  If my shares went down, but so did the leader, then I wasn’t worried.  When this was not the case, I spent more time looking at whether the shares from one company were being significantly affected.  Outside the game, I will try to follow an index which resembles my portfolio to keep my confidence up – and calm my nerves.
• I checked on my portfolio once or twice a week during the game.  The newsletters from the game were a good prompt to check on my portfolio.  I did not make too many changes – once I chose a company to buy into, I held on to it.
• Buying small packets of shares (less than $1,000) can make it hard to make a good return in the short term due to brokerage fees.

My friends have asked me whether I would do the same things if it was my own money – and to be honest, whilst I really liked the profit I made in the game – if I had $50,00 I would be afraid to just invest it in the way I did. So my goal is to start with small investment bundles – use the principles and habits I have been learning to build a portfolio over time.

I suspect that when I read this in a few years time, I will have leant new things and methods, but this is one of the first steps – and I wanted to share it with others who are thinking of buying shares on the sharemarket directly.

Possible actions to get you started:

• Your first investment in the sharemarket could be an investment in learning about the market, while you save up to buy some of your own shares.  The ASX runs the game twice a year, and you need to pre-register.  Check online at www.asx.com.au for the next registration date.
  • Choose one or two companies to follow (put them on your ASX watchlist)– and when you have enough saved up and are ready to try investing,  buy some shares using an online trading account.  Small investments build up, and over time,  you will be glad you took a step in!

Marie is actively involved in a GIG (Girl Investment Group) in Sydney. The group of 8 meet in one of the girl’s homes each month and learn about the basic financial principles; how and when to invest in shares and property, what the options are when it comes to choosing a managed fund, how to be proactive when it comes to super and insurance and what new investment opportunities are becoming available in the fields of ethical or responsible investing. Most importantly, the girls are clear on their plans and goals and keep each other accountable to staying on track. Oh and they manage to have a vino, laugh hysterically and make sure everyone’s love lives are tracking along well too… To start a GIG in your area, check the website or contact 10thousandgirl to see if there are others looking for like minds to form a group near you.