Stocks and shares are the most popular form of non-cash investment the world over. Stocks & shares (also known as equities) usually make up the core holding in moderate to higher risk investment portfolios. The best investing courses for stocks and shares will help you tap into this potential source of investment returns and grow your assets over the long term.
The best investing courses for stocks and shares
Disclaimer: Stocks and shares aren’t suitable for everyone
It’s worth making clear at the outset that stocks and shares are not appropriate investments for all personal circumstances.
In particular, stocks and shares may be a poor match for your situation if:
- You have credit card debt, vehicle loans or other borrowings which carry a non-trivial amount of interest. It is often a great idea to pay down these borrowings before you begin to invest in the stock market. By reducing debts, you are effectively generating a risk-free return equal to the interest saved. If your credit card debt has interest of 15.9% per year, then you’d be saving yourself 15.9% per year on each £1 of debt you pay off. The stock market cannot compete with a risk-free return of that scale, this is why it often makes sense to deal with debt first.
- You may need immediate access to the money in the next 5 years. In other words, your investment time horizon – the length of time you can commit the funds – is relatively short. Stocks and shares make for poor short term investments, because the value of shares is equally likely to go up as down on a daily basis. It’s only over these long periods of years that we can be confident that a positive return should be generated. If you can’t commit, then you may get back less than what you invested if you need to sell after a market fall.
Finding the best investing courses for stocks and shares
To find the best investing courses for stocks & shares, visit our investing courses page which lists many courses from 5+ different educational providers.
Prices range from £free (trial period) to £2,000 for the finest packages of stocks & shares trading courses. Go ahead and browse our courses and check out the latest discount codes which we happily host and share as widely as we can.
Why are investing courses a valuable tool for beginners?
Investing courses are incredible useful for beginners because:
- You can begin with only a few hours per week, if time is short
- You’ll be taken through theory and financial concepts in the right order to naturally ease you into the more complex areas.
- You’ll benefit from engaging instructors, who will help to bring parts of the course to life which might be a dry read in a book about investing.
- Courses will use video and course work exercises, which will cater towards (1) visual learners, (2) auditory learners and (3) those who learn best by ‘doing’.
- Get to grips with the really practical side of investing by being shown how to physically place your first trade.
Why should you pick an investing course about stocks and shares?
Compared to cash ISAs and investing in corporate bonds, buying shares is a complex business. It’s worth spending a few pounds to give yourself a good grounding in the topic and avoid making investing mistakes.
As I mentioned at the outset of the article, you’ll find that most investment portfolios place stocks and shares at the front and centre of their holdings. Many investors place up to 60% or 80% of their money in equities.
Therefore stocks and shares make the obvious choice for any upfront education.
Enjoying this article? To read more about stocks & shares, check out our ranking of the best stocks & shares books.