DIY Investor Magazine
| Oct 2017
32
Q&A WITH CHRISS MCGLONE-ATKINSON
– AKA THE BRITISH INVESTOR
Chriss currently works full time in IT, as Network
Manager in a large primary academy in Hampshire;
when we caught up with him recently he told DIY
Investor: ‘Working as an educator with primary-age
children is extremely rewarding, and every day is
different!
I first began to get interested in the stock market in my
early 20’s (about a decade ago), picking up a copy of
‘The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing’ by
Jason Kelly.
The book outlined basic ratios (P/E, P/B, etc) as well
as providing information about famous investors such
as Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham and Peter Lynch.
Immediately I began to appreciate the mathematical
aspect of it all. From there I moved onto ‘The Intelligent
Investor’ and studying Buffett and never looked back!
Because of this, I would put myself more on the quan-
titative side of the fence, with a particular interest in the
area of valuation.
I am an avid reader of books on finance and investing,
though unfortunately the list of books on my Amazon
wish list grows faster than I can read them! Alongside
books, I listen to a number of business and investing
podcasts each week, which have been invaluable in my
financial education.
In the summer of 2016 I also began my own site, www.
thebritishinvestor.com, where I write weekly articles
on investing and businesses that I find interesting. I’ve
always liked the phrase ‘the best way to learn something
is to teach it’, so it seemed logical to me to try to offer
something for others to read. I must say, it’s been far
more successful than I’d ever hoped, and has allowed
me to have some fantastic conversations with other
investors.
I’m also active on Twitter @BritishInvestor, which has
become the core platform for my investing interests.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A DIY INVESTOR?
I began investing around six years ago, though I had
very little money to do so. The first significant step on
my journey began when I was left some money in a will.
At that time I was a regular reader of The Motley Fool’s
UK message boards, specifically the ‘high-yield portfo-
lio’ section. I’m quite pleased to say that my first signif-
icant investments were in dividend paying, blue chip
UK equities like Royal Dutch Shell and Vodafone. I liked
the idea of owning a portfolio that paid out decent and
growing dividends.
Sadly I fell victim to one of the behavioural traits com-
mon to novice investors: Boredom; by design, a high
yield portfolio should be held for the long-term, and
yet here I was in this exciting new world sat around not
doing anything.
I then made my second mistake: Getting sucked into
the promise of riches in small-cap oil exploration com-
panies; fortunately I grew out of this quite quickly, and
even made a little money on Tethys Petroleum around
Christmas-time (I managed to buy my wife some lovely
earrings with the proceeds).
It’s hard to say what happened between then and now.
I carried on reading about successful investors and
books about investing, and over time began to formu-
late an investing methodology, which I am continuing
to adapt and refine today. I began investing a far larger
sum of money in August 2015, and to date it has been
a remarkable success (up 55% as of October 2017).
On my website I list my holdings, and publish quarterly
updates on the performance of the portfolio.
WHAT TYPE OF INVESTOR ARE YOU?
In terms of time frame, I would easily class myself as
a long-term investor. Warren Buffett is noted for saying
‘our favourite holding period is forever’, which is some-
thing I can definitely identify with.
