ITV

@itv off to a good start... have more good short ideas than long atm... hit me up with tips if you're good!

Exercise done ready for another goal day :) ££££

Exercise done ready for another goal day :) ££££

Exericse

Exercise every day is going well- told people that I have to give money to charity if I don't do it is a strong motivator.

Ninety Thousand

Right...

Let's get right into it.

We have 90,000 views from all over the world now. By the end of the year, hopefully within six months, we will be at 100,000.

So this article is going to be partly about being ruthless when needed to reach your goals. If you are clear cut in your goals there are times when you have to be ruthless to reach them. That's because the world can be a ruthless place. The world isn't full of nice writers just trying to write. You should only be ruthless when needed- but there are times when you need to be.

If you see someone who is impacting negatively on you reaching your goals you should act on that RIGHT AWAY. Don't overthink it or be too nice- just act. Personally I have overthought it too much in the past but not any more. The more firmly you deal with it the less likely they are to mess with your goals again.

I will quickly state here- your goals should not be anything CRAZY like to kill people. You should have a reason for being ruthless. Most of the time I have been ruthless in the past is in a REACTIVE way when people have been ruthless to me first.

I think you have to have a ruthless streak in you to be a top writer these days. Nietzsche had it and it's needed now.

Yeah so you just have to have that focus on your goals to not take any shit when not needed.

Ha... quite an AGGRESSIVE tone there you could say.

The whole thing is... my goals overall will make the world a better place so I'll do what it takes to get there. I still want to be the best writer I can be, there is a lot more to come. At the same time... I want to make sure I am well paid enough for time spent on writing. I am not Mother Theresa. If you like my writing please donate or think of some other way to add value to me- that will motivate me to produce better content.

Whenever I start writing I just do it for the flow and to express what's on my mind. Maybe if I get truly famous as a writer historians will dig up poetry I wrote in the paper at four years old. I have a long way to go before people would go to that effort though- a lot of people who read are TOO PASSIVE myself included in some ways.

That's why I currently have a goal of exercise every day, or I have to give money to charity. I haven't for five years so that will be a strong motivator for me. Nothing hard about exercising you just have to do it. Have to improve my diet too.

But yeah let's talk about PASSIVE READERS a bit more. I've read over 2,000 books in my life. My life is decent now but it would be BETTER if I had just taken more ACTION based on the 'self help' books I've read. That's probably why I read less now, of regular books anyway. A lot of people don't read books at all, it's worth doing but you have to either ENJOY THE WRITING STYLE or get inspired to take action from the writing to make it really worthwhile.

Jumping in right here with more on this article...

When I was 19 I decided I could either just read books all my life or I could start writing one. So I started and that novel became Playing to Win. That's what really teaches you about writing- not just reading but writing a novel. 5p per hour but it was worth it in many ways. I didn't do it for the money although I thought it would make me more. Buy that if you want to support me.

It's free these days to set up your own blog so do it if you're into writing.

But yeah... a lot of writers died poor and I always knew I would never let that happen to me. Really the vast majority of writers have to have other income to be able to write- it's probably tougher to make money writing now relatively than a lot of points in history but I guess it's always been hard. People think about Harry Potter and imagine some writers get a lot of money. It's only the top 1% who do. I've had over £50 an hour for writing before but it's not consistent.

Still I think I will always like doing it for the flow...

Here's what Google is giving me when I'm looking at 'All Time' views... not sure it's totally accurate but it gives you a rough picture...

Lots of worldwide views... and too much passiveness from most people. HOWEVER I have connected with some great people with this blog and I believe I will connect with much more...

Anyway... for now this is the rough version of this post... will add more later. Thanks for you support. There is more to come.

Whitbread

Good rise for @WhitbreadPLC today... will it get to @Financial_Orbit 's target price of 5000p? I hope so because I still hold!

Exercise

I have to exercise every day or I have to 'give money to charity'... let's see how I do :)

Prelude

90,000 article will be on www.markhowitt.blogspot.com in about a week. Expect some direct content I will make it a powerful one...

Shares

Busy goal day yesterday... yet I will state publicly now I want to go to the UK Investor Show in 2019. Now to get rich enough to make it a 'no brainer' as @Financial_Orbit orbit says!

Shares

BP and @Shell soaring higher today... good day overall up nicely :) ££££

twitter

Pretty good twitter figures...

Instinct

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
6s7 seconds ago
More
Up winning in poker... gone more long on @ITV today... good value at these levels... learning just to TRUST instinct...

Share Investors

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
14m14 minutes ago
More
Happy to network with more share investors today... will be examining some more shares and have plenty of money to buy!

Global Reach

Networking

Doing quite a bit of poker and out in Huddersfield tonight...

Feel free to connect if you're cool... I'm available for share investment consulting and writing as well.

Greene King

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
32s32 seconds ago
More
I could make a hell of a lot of money in spreadbetting... maybe someday even doing it full time... we'll see how it goes and I have a lot to learn...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
1m1 minute ago
More
Greene King killed it more than any share in the FTSE today... and my biggest spread was on Greene King... shows my INSTINCTS for spreads are still good.

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
2m2 minutes ago
More
So yeah... bit tired but let's write some more stuff...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
7m7 minutes ago
More
@greeneking truly killed it today- more ££££ for @Financial_Orbit and me :)

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

Instinct And Selling

Morning...

Just come out of a nice sleep and have this idea on my mind to BLAST OUT...

Hope you are enjoying the FREE content... feel free to donate BTW ;)

Or connect if you're cool...

So let's get right into the content.

Just over a year ago I hadn't sold any shares in over ten years. If you count closing spreadbets I have sold about 45 times since then... I have sold some regular shares too...

What have I learned from this?

I was brought up on the 'long term buy and hold' approach. 'Buy and hold forever.' Well... in the very long term you are dead. Nobody has lived for ever yet (although one ex employer thought he would...)

So at SOME point in your life you are probably going to sell some shares, if you have any. And I've always known that deep down so now I am learning how to sell shares. The act of selling shares is not physically hard even if it may be psychologically hard if you have done long term buy and hold for a long time. But in reality you just click the sell button.

Saturday April 14th Update...

What are the 'risks' or capital investment of buying a share or doing a spreadbet? Well for a share the buying cost for me can be around 1% or slightly less. 0.5% stamp duty, £5 dealing cost. Then there is the eventual cost of selling the share for £5. Then having thought about it there is the capital cost and time investment of that capital. When I am buying a share usually the minimum time I would hold it is at least six months- otherwise it would be better to spreadbet it. In fact the only time I have held a share for less than six months is with Bovis- should just have held that even though I made a high percentage in a few months- influenced by Chris Bailey there, nobody is right all the time.

What are the capital risks or investment of owning a spreadbet? There is the spread cost, which on a FTSE 100 company could be 0.25% or less. Then the spread cost of selling, again around 0.25%. Then there is the small 'daily charge' you incur for having a spreadbet. You can get 3, 6 or 9 month options to avoid this charge... you will be paying more for the share at the start but if you sell it before these periods you can get a higher than normal price for the share too. This area is something I have to learn more about- I have done both but at the moment only have daily funded bets.

So there is no point doing a spreadbet if you think the price will stay flat, or even close to flat, for a sustained period. That period can even be a month. Ideally you should be aiming for good gains- but don't CHASE them sometimes you have to give spreadbets time. Never panic and sell too soon- you should keep a daily view on your limits and stop losses too. Chris Bailey only does spreadbets in 'extreme situations'.

Key thing that has been buzzing around in my head about spreadbetting over the past few days...

Sometimes you may only need one or two 'ideas' at a time. Greene King was the best spread idea over the past 3 days in the FTSE... and it was my biggest spread. With more of a capital investment in it I could have made an absolute fortune- it was still my biggest spread and I did very nicely. Looking backwards, ideally ALL my capital should have been in Greene King. In fact, imagine if I had sold ALL my shares and just put it on spreadbets on Greene King... just the rise in the past two trading days would have made me around one million pounds...

You can't look back though you can only look forward. I still own Greene King shares and got the timing close to perfect there. Including stamp duty and dealing costs the shares are still up over 20% in just over 2 weeks...

Really it all about identifying those key shares seeing they are FUNDAMENTALLY GOOD then taking advantage of the positive catalyst. Buying a fundamentally good share or spreadbetting before a key results date or before good news is key...

Same with shorting. This can effect even fundamentally good shares... you want to short before the bad results date or bad news is made public... I have quite a lot more to learn about shorting though...

Key difference between shares and spreadbetting- how much you can win and lose. You can win and lose a lot more with spreadbetting. I actually have relatively little money in spreadbetting at the moment having exited a number of positions in the past 2 weeks. All of the exits were done with nice gains.

Let's hit it off with one very recent example. I sold Royal Mail a few days ago for around 572p. It fell quite sharply on Friday after I sold it. 572p was around a three year high. I think that is a key factor in selling shares- if you have a yield on a fundamentally decent but 'low growth' share of Royal Mail of around 4% and an OK PE of around 12.5... coupled with many brokers thinking it is a sell it is OK to sell.

Because you have to be aware of that 'downside risk'. Remember you can ALWAYS buy a share back again if it say falls 10% for no fundamental reason. The opportunities will always be there.

The fundamentals of selling are similar to the fundamentals of buying in my mind. I've gone over this many times but in a nutshell if the PE is TOO high and there isn't much of a dividend yield you may think about selling. Of course I still have much to learn about selling but here are some thoughts I have about it...

A lot of times I trust my instincts when to sell a share. Yet... you have to be careful not to look at shares TOO much. You can let a share hit a limit order then sell- if there is no cost involved in this it is fine just to set one up if you are prepared to edit it at least once a day. Basically you should be looking for that moment when selling a share... I can see this is OBVIOUSLY overvalued now, time to sell.

You have to be aware of the potential 'risks' or 'headwinds' (that is a popular investment writing word... Mr Rupert Hargreaves likes that one ;)). Like with BT... it is going to be a LONG time if ever before it reaches 500p again. Some of this risks can be hard to see others not. But you have to be aware of a risk that could send the share slamming down... remember that you can always use that money from selling for other shares... or just SPEND IT ON YOURSELF which is something I am learning to do too!

So yeah with shorter term trading when selling you need to know key dates like ex dividend dates and result dates. When spreading if you can spread with a juicy dividend date coming up soon on a fundamentally good share you can well turn a profit. Think Taylor Wimpey and ITV recently...

So yeah... just so you know I am going to slam out a NONE SHARE NINETY THOUSAND post when we reach ninety thousand. Just had this idea for instinct article and it turned out nicely. Time to win more on my goal day...

Shares

Well... shares and spreads KILLED IT TODAY... with @GSK BP., Shell... many things POWERING UP. I'm in shares for LIFE and ready to get more ££££

Connections

You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
56s57 seconds ago
More
I spent a bit of time looking at my twitter followers, Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
15s16 seconds ago
More
And it's a large percentage of high quality winners... even if I do get more 'famous' I would still value quality connections over quantity... spending more time with high value people to reach mutual goals...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
2m2 minutes ago
More
If you want more twitter info on my views... I can get over 40,000 tweet impressions a month now...

Morrisons

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
12s12 seconds ago
More
@Im_Cheaper_ Plus @AldiUK is cheaper... that's it really...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
30s30 seconds ago
More
@Im_Cheaper_ I shorted @Morrisons again today and it kind of hits home why @AldiUK will just continue to take their market share... Morrisons do too many things so there are TOO MANY THING THAT CAN GO WRONG.

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
1m1 minute ago
More
@Im_Cheaper_ It's interesting though...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
1m1 minute ago
More
@Im_Cheaper_ Getting your tweets flooding my timeline again today...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity

My Instinctive Thoughts On Shares And Making Money

Right...

Let's get right into an article...

Firstly...

I'm a bit tired at the moment because this has been a full working week. I worked on the bank holiday despite snow. Every day is goal day.

Share and spread performance this week has been very good overall. BP, GSK, RDSB, SSE... they all recovered. I could tell they were all cheap. A lot of my FTSE 100 shares are still relatively cheap.

I managed to exit quite a few spreads in profit today and over the past few days. Practically everything I've 'closed' has been profit recently- and spreads such as Taylor Wimpey are fighting back. I spread Taylor Wimpey earlier in the week at close to perfect timing. It can certainly reach 200p a share again quite soon despite going ex dividend.

So yeah let's touch on a few other things.

I haven't talked to my share mentor Chris Bailey in about a week. I won't totally get into why. But I understand he has other things to do.

I say he is my share mentor and he is. But you could also say my father is my share mentor too. I was only fifteen years old when he gave me a share magazine and told me to pick some shares as I had too much in cash. I didn't know anything about shares then but I chose Manchester United. He said that was OK and bought some too. I still have the certificate in the new house.

I made over 100% plus dividends.

My dad doesn't even look at shares that much these days but has quite a lot of the same shares that I do. I talked to him today and he managed to get a better deal on his gas and electricity with a company I had never even heard of. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

My father has been investing in shares before Chris Bailey was even born.

Even my grandfather had some shares.

So it's my duty in a way to carry on the Howitt tradition...

It's a Brave New World now though. My dad never shorted shares. He never spreadbet. It was much harder to twenty years ago- the internet wasn't even widespread...

Part of me being a share investor now is trying to take advantage of when shares are too cheap AND too expensive. There is a multitude of opportunities. Maybe I will just learn a set number and take advantage of when they are cheap or expensive. FTSE 100 shares are better for spreadbetting though as the spread is much lower. I have some spreads on Greene King at the moment but the spread is a bit too big on that one. It has to be quite a compelling opportunity to spread a FTSE 250 share.

Slamming in a bit more after Wheelie D chat... yeah I am going to spend some more time learning the TA side of things... it's not something that like massively instinctively appeals to me TBH but it will help me make money so I'll do it. Hopefully get Wheelie to tell me some things TBH... he was the first person I really chatted to about spreads and we chat most days... he's v into TA...

So yeah... I talk to other people about ideas. I read about ideas. I closed out of IAG today as a spread which Chris said not to go for. But really it's just another version of Easyjet really... I still hold IAG shares.

The court case against Lloyds is over now. My lawyers believe there may well be a favourable outcome. I do too. Three and a half years in the making but I do believe another chunk of money will be coming my way.

Understand that I remember everything important that happens to me. Illegal builders who have disturbed me will not go unpunished. I have a very good track record with legal claims and complaints.

Yet anyway I see the chance to make more money in the future and I will do so.

Share Investor

Shares and spreads truly KILLED it today... @BP_plc @shell ... everything up big time. Readers around the world read me because I'm a REAL TALK share investor... I manage to overcome obstacles to WIN :) £££

Twitter...

You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
46m46 minutes ago
More
@Im_Cheaper_ is an interesting twitter account about @Morrisons

0 replies 2 retweets 1 like
Reply Retweeted 2 Liked 1 View Tweet activity
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
48m48 minutes ago
More
Thanks for your support. It really is some inside information into the company that they employ such liars... fundamentally though @AldiUK and @LidlUK will just continue to take its market share...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity
Show this thread
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
1h1 hour ago
More
Closed @cineworld position today with a nice profit... originally got that tip by reading @ruperthargreav1 articles...

0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
Reply Retweeted 1 Liked 1 View Tweet activity
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
1h1 hour ago
More
I'm short @Morrisons again... way overvalued. My local Morrisons, one of the better ones despite employing liar Violet Rowan, has lost a lot of customer since @AldiUK opened. PE of over 20 is far too high...

1 reply 3 retweets 2 likes
Reply 1 Retweeted 3 Liked 2 View Tweet activity
Show this thread
You Retweeted

Mark Howitt
‏

@MarkHowitt
1h1 hour ago
More
Won BIG poker poker and shares off to a good start...

Morrisons

I'm short @Morrisons again... way overvalued. My local Morrisons, one of the better ones despite employing liar Violet Rowan, has lost a lot of customer since @AldiUK opened. PE of over 20 is far too high...