A Livewire reader has just started her own investing journey - here's what she's learnt so far

After seeing that wire, Livewire reader and new investor Debbie reached out to share her story, and I think she has a lot of interesting things to say about her thoughts and experience so far.

Debbie is 58 and used to be a legal secretary at a large firm, which she says gave her experience seeing how large businesses operate at management level. She has also done bookkeeping work, which has also given her some familiarity with analysing balance sheets.

Her story gets to the heart of what it's like to be a new investor in 2026 - from overcoming loss aversion to learning more about how the stock market operates, and even how she's using AI as a tool.

With her permission, I'm sharing it here in the hopes it resonates with other Livewire readers. 

Starting her investing journey

Before this year, Debbie had not really considered investing. She was worried she wasn't wealthy enough to do so, and was concerned with potential losses. 

"I was never interested in the share market. My view of it was that I could not put in money that I was not prepared to lose. Never felt rich enough to do that."

Her view changed a few months ago, and she has now started buying small tranches of stocks for the first time.  

"At the start of this year though, I took the plunge and bought some shares. I set myself a budget and ended up buying a number of small parcels. It has spread risk but the share prices will have to go up quite a bit to cover the brokerage fees, which are high relative to small parcels. My goal was to learn how it all works, so I did it that way to not risk big amounts."

She has also decided to concentrate her focus on the Australian stock market. 

"I am aware the NASDAQ is going great, but that it is largely due to tech companies being on a tear and I am reticent about this as it is based on huge amounts of borrowed money. Until it's clear how AI can be monetised, am not convinced."

The stocks she's bought and sold 

Debbie's first investments were some familiar names from across the ASX, and she's shared her thought process behind the picks here. 

"I started with Goodman Group (ASX: GMG), Technology One (ASX: TNE) and Temple & Webster (ASX: TPW). The first two because they appeared solid and TPW because it seemed to be growing quickly. GMG and TNE I sold at close to break-even to exit. GMG's decks are so opaque I could not get any sense of what they were doing so wasn't comfortable with them."

"TNE I really like as a business but its PE ratio is so high that it'll take years to grow into its valuation, so as soon as it got back to break even, I sold it too (in hindsight selling was a mistake as its share price is continuing to inch up)."

"TPW was my first big mistake - big revenue, but tiny profits because their margins are very thin and their advertising spend on social media is high. When I found that out I realised the share price was going nowhere but down and bailed even though it was a $200 loss. The share price has fallen much further since then so glad I bailed when I did."

"The one that did go right was Finder Energy (ASX: FDR). This is the only one that I have made a profit on. I sold the shares at a $200 profit as, with my new-found knowledge of these things, the company was going to have to capital raisings over the coming year or two of development that will dilute share value and first oil (if the field is in fact confirmed to be commercial - not yet confirmed) is about two years away. As it turned out that is what happened; the share price went up and has drifted quite a ways down since."

"My second big mistake, which taught me a huge amount about mining companies by demonstrating what not to do, was buying shares in Austral Resources (ASX: AR1). My thought was copper is becoming sought after, so buy shares in a copper miner."

"AR1 had almost gone broke, and relaunched with a splash in 2025 with declarations of bigger and better things. It looked promising but their true position was quite different. As soon as they released their prelim half year results in February, I immediately saw the accounting section was very off." 

"I went back through past decks until I found what they were talking about. They no longer owned their mine, it had passed to the hands of their creditors and all they were doing was winding it up and ceasing mining."

"What I believed was a copper mining company, is actually a business that owns one processing plant (operable), one processing (plant - not operable without expensive refurbishment) and no operating mine. I sold on open next business day at a $100 loss as I could see no basis to continue."

"I ended up with shares in a bunch of mining companies with expansion plans, pretty much. Because I am only buying $500 or so parcels, not much point buying slow compounders as it'll take a long time for them to go up enough even to earn back the brokerage fees, so I've gone for higher risk bigger reward, which suits my original thesis of 'only spending what I can afford to lose'."

"Of course, due to my magic touch, nearly all of them have shot down because they are in a capex desert or the commodity price has fallen. A couple I regret because I should have checked them more thoroughly before doing it. Decks with plans do not equal "funded, scoped, engineered, go ahead given" is what I've learned. One was speculative and failed, but part of my learning curve."

What she's holding now

Debbie is now mostly-focused on resources companies, and here are her thoughts on her current holdings:

"They run a bread and butter copper mine in QLD, and are expanding to a new mining area just a few kms away that is almost the size of a whole new mine. They are doing this with minimal capex, just upgrading their existing plant which is well underway."

Amplitude Energy (ASX: AEL) 

"A small gas producer in Victoria. This was my speculative fail. They were drilling for two gas wells and I figured one of them would hit commercial gas. Neither did. Share price tanked. Am bearing with them because even if they never hit gas again they own two gas processing plants, so are either going to end up toll processing for others, JV-ing or at worst selling the plants."

Capricorn Metals (ASX: CPM) 

"Open pit gold mines and moving into underground mining - highly profitable but gold price falling so party is over. Expansion should recover on volume though."

Develop Global (ASX: DVP) 

"One copper mine just started, dig and ship lithium mine on the way and another bigger copper mine coming up for FID in next few months. They also run a mining services business that has contracts at two mines, on in NZ and one in NT. Share price shot up and then it shot down due to investors realising their over-enthusiasm at prospects rather than actual throughput and fall in both copper and lithium prices - double whack."

Lindian Resources (ASX: LIN) 

"My biggest AI fail - in researching this company, Copilot was incredibly enthusiastic saying that NdPr is highly sought after and will be increasingly so in years to come and this companies' mine is going to be a blockbuster - not word for word but that's the gist. 

The truth is, NdPr is a bit niche, price is heavily controlled by China and the mine will be one of the first major mines in Malawi so it's all a bit untested. I found this out by doing a trick I should have learned to do sooner: open a browser, go to public version of ChatGPT, and get a second opinion. The answers can be completely different. Copilot very enthusiastic. ChatGPT saying it remains to be seen what the size and value the market is going to be for NdPr produced outside of China."

Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS) 

"Very early very green investor purchase on the strength of high gold prices and a deck that declared doubling output by 2030. I now know that there are many companies that claim they'll expand by 2030. It seems to be a favourite year. I understand the reason is that it is close enough to bat to but far enough away that it's hard to be held to. It is the worst of all of them now as the share price has got down miles since then."

Ricegrowers (ASX: SGLLV)

"I wanted to buy something that came out of the ground alive and it was either this or Graincorp. They're both not having a good year as the world had a big harvest for wheat and rice last season so prices are down, but decided on Ricegrowers as rice is such a worldwide staple, I like their value add and marketing (there'd be many rice sellers out there, a lot will come down to marketing), rice keeps for ages so they can stockpile and sell later when prices improve."

"This could be big disaster though, as I do not think they will make the cut at next ASX 300 rebalance, so may have to take the hit and exit to avoid a worse loss as they'll fall so far down that it'll take years to make it back to where they are now."

Santos (ASX: STO) 

"I never knew a thing about Santos until the Middle East crisis got me to consider energy stocks. When I did, I found they had two new projects about to come online and a newly confirmed spare oil field next to the one they just started in Alaska, so thought they stacked up even without the oil price hike. Wish I'd known about it sooner."

"You can see the theme - because I'm buying such small parcels I've ended up with companies that are working towards funded, scoped, confirmed catalysts that should grow them, and the expansion should increase share price. We'll see if it works."

The tools she's using - including AI

When researching a company, Debbie starts by using many of the tools on Market Index.

"I look at the page for that company to read recent announcements and last couple of quarterly or half yearly reports, check the PE ratio, check Director bios to see their cred, and check who the major shareholders are - all these things give me a sense of where the company sits in the ecosystem."

"I look at the broker consensus page to see how Team Broker views that company (if covered) - I now know these targets are to be taken with more than a few grains of salt, but they are least give an indication of whether that company is favoured or not."

She also reads the Market Index Evening Wrap every day, watches the SBS On the Money podcast and uses TradingView for technical analysis. 

"I have access to Carl Capolingua's charts which give me a sense of what the momentum is for that company and as a bonus give snippets from news items and revised broker targets in the news feed for each company."

Finally, she uses Nabtrade to see how a stock is being traded.

"I check the order book to see how orders are being filled - tells me if a bot is buying or selling and whether shares are in demand due to volume going through. AI gave me pointers on this or I'd never have been able to spot how bots operate. Nabtrade also has some very basic broker guidance that comes with it for free - it is AI generated so almost too general and/or to outdated to be of any use but it's some indication."

She also uses Google and AI for other general research and queries, but is understandably vary of leaning too heavily on the latter. 

"I learned by googling or asking AI when I struck a term I did not understand, and getting AI to summarise announcements and decks for me. A note of caution re AI: It can be wrong. It often answers questions based on outdated data or, as the share-broker industry is largely behind paywalls and it cannot get information, it will make it up."

"It is important to check sources, always ask for pros and cons of a particular thing or AI will nearly always just agree with you due to confirmation bias. Do not buy or sell shares on its recommendation; verify everything for yourself."

Her investment goals

Debbie didn't start investing with any clear objectives beyond looking to learn more about the stock market, but has found it to be more unpredictable than she expected. 

"I have to admit I did not go into this with investment goals. I did it to learn something new and if I made money along the way that would be a bonus. If I had found that the sharemarket was stable and predictable I may have continued to buy more shares or add to the ones I have, but at present it is anything but. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard the word "volatility" lately, I'd be far better off than I am."

"Add rising interest rates to the mix, and I can't see much incentive to put any more money into shares. I am going to let what I have sit for a while until they execute what they are working on and then see if I have actually made any return. At present on a $5500 spend, I have lost $1200 ($300 crystallised and $800 on paper). It's not inspiring."

But she hasn't ruled out making further investments, and already has some other companies on her radar. 

"Having said that, if things settle, whichever way that is, up or down, I am still researching companies and if anything came up that I thought was a particular good deal, I could end up buying some more."

"At present I am liking SGH (aside from their stake in Beach which is "Waiting for Waitsia" to turn it around, it has some good solid businesses in its stable), WES (when it bottoms out) and TNE (just a plain excellent company so could go back in)."

"I have basically gone from knowing absolutely nothing to being able to do a creditable gossip session about three-quarters of the ASX 200. The other quarter doesn't really interest me - mostly finance companies or retail businesses that will either do well or they won't, depending on how the economy goes."

What she's learnt so far

Debbie doesn't have any formal background in finance and decided a "hands-on" approach to learning about investing was the best course of action. 

But she has found there is a lot more complexity to how markets operate in practice, and a entirely new lexicon within the industry. 

"The share market does not work the way I thought it did at all. I now know that it is about sectors, super/ETF fund flows, algorithms and bots, and there is a whole language for it that covers accounting, mining, forecasting and investing terms."

"I figured that if I could work out why certain companies or sectors are going up or down I can better understand what they are likely to do next, and then I threw that whole idea out of the window when I found out that it's actually more about momentum controlled by large funds and macro factors, so instead have embraced the concept of buy the business not the share price. And wait."

"Buying shares turned out to be part-evaluating future prospects and part-popularity contest, while swimming through schools of bots and learning to read which direction they are heading to either follow or avoid them."

Despite her research, she's found her timing hasn't yielded amazing results so far - an experience that may be familiar to a lot of new investors. 

"How did it go? Pretty much every time I bought a parcel of shares, the share price fell afterward - I call it my magic touch."

"A few I had to sell to avoid even larger losses, one stock I sold at a profit, and for the rest I'll be sitting on them long term, leaving the companies to dig, drill and sell their way into executing their stated plans and making it back into the green all going well. If they do not, then so be it. I went into it being prepared to lose."

"Otherwise, if I am to buy any more shares, maybe next time I might just buy shares in an ASX 200 ETF, let my magic touch cause the whole index to crash, and then buy wisely from there." 

"I am only half joking as my magic touch has been very consistent so far. We'll see. 🙃"