From the success of Royal Mail to the fall of gold, this year's events can teach investors some useful lessons
What lessons did private investors learn in 2013?
It was certainly an eventful year – although the eurozone crisis died down and stock markets have generally risen, some investors have not had an easy time.
Many were forced to start taking their own decisions after their advisers dropped them following changes to the way they were paid. Others lost small fortunes because they believed the gold price could only go up.
But even misfortunes such as these can be turned to investors' advantage if they learn the right lessons. Here we look at five of the year's biggest investment stories and explain what they can teach us.
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Royal Mail's share sale
For a few weeks in October, readers of this website were interested in just one thing: the flotation of Royal Mail. It was clear from the popularity of certain Royal Mail stories (such as this and this) and the comments made online by readers that many had never bought shares before and needed help to navigate the process.
All Royal Mail investors who bought shares in the flotation have made handsome returns – the share price has risen from 330p to about 580p yesterday – but many were annoyed that they could not invest as much money as they wanted, because all applications were scaled back to £750.
Lessons Investors who don't follow up their purchase of Royal Mail shares with a more comprehensive long-term savings plan will discover that their foray into the stock market makes little difference to their future prosperity – £750 as a one-off investment is simply too small to make a difference, even if it gains 75pc.
Owning shares in a single company is also far too risky – you should spread your risk by owning a basket, ideally adding other types of investment, such as bonds, which pay a fixed level of income.
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