My top stock market investing tips after a decade of investing

I’ve spent the last decade of my life investing in companies trading on the London Stock Exchange. There have been a lot of ups and downs in that period, as well as lessons learnt. These are my top stock market investing tips, which I’m applying to my own portfolio.

I want to share these because investing can be a lonely and at times frustrating endeavour. Often I’ve found my biggest enemy is my own mind and temptation to tinker too much, or trade when I get bored. That rarely works for me, so instead, for sustainable success, I’m going to concentrate on the following.

Hold my winners

For any long-term investor, one of the key things to do is hold on to winners. If I think a company has an ongoing competitive advantage, why would I sell now for a 10% or 20% gain if I could potentially have a far greater increase in the value of my holding in the future? The only reason would be if I need the money for something better.

Overall (and this isn’t a view that only I hold), I feel it’s best to exit losing positions early while holding on to shares that are performing well.  

Do my own research

My second stock market investing tip potentially even more important. The key to finding shares with an ongoing competitive edge has to be to do my own research. By all means, be humble and listen to the opinions of others. But responsibility for my portfolio and the decisions I make, ultimately, are mine alone. 

I intend to always do my own due diligence on any new long-term investment that I’ll add to my portfolio. This means looking at the financials, the annual report, the market opportunities, how a company compares to its competitors, the quality and backgrounds of the management team and so forth.

Invest for the long term

Thirdly, having spent a decade investing, I’ve come to the firm conclusion that I’m best suited temperamentally to long-term investing.

This isn’t the same as becoming emotionally attached to a share, or holding out of stubbornness. It’s instead about owning parts of businesses that I think will do well for a long time. If I can add them to my portfolio at a fair price, all the better.

Investing for the long term is about mindset. It’s about patience, having a vision and a strategy, about putting in the work to find companies that will thrive over the next five years or more. I purposefully avoid unproven technologies precisely because, at any point, the investment case could come crumbling down.

At the end of the day, my approach after a decade is working reasonably well, allows me to sleep at night and not spend all day looking at the markets. I aim to avoid selling my winners, do plenty of research and invest with years and decades — not weeks and months — in mind.