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The Pearshaped Investment Club was set up in September 1999 to provide some fun, some stockmarket education and the opportunity to make or possibly lose some money. |
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We are registered with the ProShare Investment Clubs, number 15126. Our constitution and rules are very closely based on the Proshare manual, in fact the manual was just about indispensable while we were setting up the club. |
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There were 14 founder members of the club and we have managed to recruit another 7 members since. But two have moved on leaving us with 19 members. At the time of joining we all worked for the same company at an office in Meriden near Coventry. But that is not a club rule. Moving on to new career opportunities should enable us to keep in touch with friends and colleagues, and not bar us from the club. Click here to see who is in the club and please be patient while our pictures load. |
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The August meeting saw us vote in member number 17, Richard
Williams. His picture is on display with the rest of us here.
Then in February 2001 we voted in Richard Sanders as our 18th member. Alan Wilde left and David Biles joined at the May 2001 meeting, unfortunately (or not) we are still waiting for a photograph of David. Taking our membership up to 19, David Owens joined us at the August 2001 meeting. Richard Sanders felt he had to leave when his new job took him across the other side of the country so his photograph has been removed. His place was taken a little later at the January 2002 meeting by Steve Rackham. We still have 19 members. |
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At the inaugural meeting of the club we had to choose where to bank our money and where to buy our shares. Girobank offer free banking for clubs and societies and that appealed to our treasurer. Cheques can be paid in by post and cash extracted from nominated Post Offices. Our subscriptions are paid in by standing order. All very convienient. We chose Charles Swab Europe as our stock-broker as they have a special nominee account for Investment Clubs with no admin expenses and we deal over the internet to keep dealing costs to a minimum. |
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Our meetings are held either at the Bull's Head or the Bear and that helps with the fun as one or two of us have been known to consume the occasional alcoholic beverage. The rest of us are social animals. |
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Founder members paid a £50 initial subscription and new members £75. We all pay £25 per month into the club's coffers and this money is used to buy shares on the UK stock market. |
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Part of the idea of the club was to pursue an adventuresome investment policy. Some of us have our own share portfolios, some carefully chosen and some in for the long term. And, of course, some of us were new to wheeling and dealing on the stockmarket. But the club provided us with the opportunity to take a higher risk and perhaps look to the short term . |
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So we bought our first shares in November 1999 and during the first few weeks we moved gently towards a small profit. Then in the space of the first two months of the new year our profits raced up to be over 90% of our investment and we were cock-a-hoop! Then in the next 2 months with the technology sell off they plunged back down again and at the end of April stood at about 10%. Since then we have watched our profits hit negative territory and then struggle back to level pegging by the beginning of September. But September was a peak and we've been losing ever since. It is often said that the value of shares can fall as well as rise - and we have proved it! You can see what that did to the value of our units over the months! |
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I attempt to update our share valuation weekly and our unit values monthly so please come back to this site and check our progress. |
| This page was last updated on 26th January 2002. | Return to Top of the Page |