When I first joined FI back in January I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I bumbled around for a month or two making mistake after mistake and buying some truly awful holds (Steven Davis anyone?). Eventually, I felt like I knew enough to put in a decent amount of money and set myself a target to achieve within in one year. At that point I also set another aspirational 'target' that I thought would be completely out of the realms of possibility and my own ability i.e. to be able to get a port value of double my total investment(£2000) within a year and to pay for a modest holiday with the profit.

This weekend, I reached that aspirational target with 3 months to spare! I still expect ups and downs and will only exit trades when they've met my targets as opposed to a fire-sale though. I will then continue with my original amount all over again.The FI forums have been one of my main sources of information and over the months just through reading them I have: found out news as it breaks, avoided some major pitfalls, swerved some dodgy pumps, been reassured that other people are following similar strategies and taken part in some excellent discussions. I have always avoided FI related twitter and kept mainly to these forums and FI related blogs. I would like to thank everyone that has posted in the forums for their input and help and I would really encourage new users to make the most of this excellent resource. There are a great range of users on here and most manage to look after their own interests while helping others with great aplomb.

Thank you all again and thank you FI for inventing this wonderful product.

Edited to add - I am also aware that this post is somewhat of a brag as well as a thank you but it also serves to show new users that a great deal of success is possible on here and that If i can manage it, they have a chance too.

@Abaalan said in Thank You FI Forums:

So you managed to double your money?
I joined at the same time and an doing well , but nowhere near 100% ROI (albeit with a larger / dripfed port)
Would be interested to hear your strategy and let players who got you there.

But congrats that is impressive stuff!

I have indeed doubled it. Although, as I'm always seeing other people mention; not until it's actually withdrawn. I built up my deposits until the end of May and haven't added any more since then.

My profit has come mostly from capital appreciation along with £157 in dividends and £77 in bonus payments.

My strategy has generally been to buy PB talent and to hold between 15 - 25 players, except for April/May where I focused on Transfer speculation (always selling after a good rise before the deal was decided one way or the other) and in July where I bought a lot of IPD players while cheap prior to the season starting.

My biggest successes in terms of returns in individual players have been Parejo, Plea, Coman, Lewandowski and Insigne who all more than doubled in price. I also did very well out of Bale and Dybala by selling on peaks. I didn't get so lucky on Ayoze Perez as he tanked while I was abroad and still hold at a noticeable loss.

At present, I still hold Gnabry, Kramaric, Under, Suso, Orsolini, Immobile and Gerard Moreno on decent rises and the rest of my port are players with PB potential that I've only held for a week or two but all have Euro involvement in the pipeline e.g Brandt, Thorgan Hazard, Ben Yedder,

@NewUser130968 said in fi in freefall:

the index is in freefall i have 58 players and 48 have lost money over £400 down in 7 days need to have a re think as what to do

Your portfolio is in free fall not the index.

The index has dipped slightly after months of progress. The Footie has more than doubled since I joined in January.

'Spend it all on Pogbas'

Particularly when the person asking specifies their budget is £50 or a similar amount.

Do you want a medal or are you more of a parade person?

If you fall for that you deserve to lose any remaining money you haven't already sent to a Nigerian prince.

Ali Dia

4p with a 3p spread

I think the issue is that no matter how closely you watch, there always seem to be people quicker. A price can drop significantly in a matter of seconds and leave you with no chance of keeping up.

The risks of buying transfers are always high at this time of year but even more so tomorrow as transfers to the Prem are off the cards afterwards so future rumours have less chance of getting you out of trouble.

I personally will be avoiding unless one of my existing holds unexpectedly becomes involved.

I don't think Brexit will affect FI in any significant way whatsoever. It is a gambling platform and gambling always survives.

Brexit however when looked at logically is an absolute disaster. Ever since the announcement it has been a dark cloud of bad news over our country with supporters of Brexit clinging onto even the merest silver lining to try and dispell the obvious signs like the pound dropping like a stone.

Conservative politicians will happily tell you that no deal is possible and won't be a negative. Indeed it will probably go fine, if like them, you happen to own several houses and come from wealthy stock. For peasant folk like me with a significant mortgage, with many years to pay and who try to afford 10 days abroad a year, it doesn't seem to be likely to help in any way whatsoever and I'm yet to hear how it will be a benefit to me.

Most of the ills in our country come from our own government not the EU. The EU has been used as a scapegoat by our government ever since Thatcher and unfortunately unwarranted mud sticks.

Let De Ligt's slide from £3.30 to £1.90 be a reminder to all not to hold too long in the event of a transfer. Sometimes its best to sell on a peak and then rebuy a month or two later.

Nobody is forcing anyone to be on this forum so maybe a break would be worth considering for those getting wound up.

I vastly reduced my time on this forum months ago as it seemed to be in terminal decline and on returning to look for information about TOTM I can see I was right to do so. I've avoided soaps for my entire life because of the cheesy drama and this place now seems to be at best a football themed version of Hollyoaks. Thankfully, I've found my FI experience to be just as satisfying without the forum and indeed would suggest to Football Index it creates a terrible impression to anyone that stumbles across it; maybe it's time to get rid of it.

Now is a time to be patient. Of course the world goings on will have an impact on football and therefore by association FI. I'm down 4% this week.

Selling now with the current spreads will lead to further losses so I plan to sit tight. I've focused on summer transfer targets to hopefully they'll become more desirable over the coming months.

Goalkeepers get pb points as well as clean sheet ipd. They just don't win very often.

Dujon Sterling had come up several times as a must buy guaranteed to triple etc player in the last year. His big rises are often followed by a significant drop so I wouldn't hop on. I do think a few pre season appearances in June could see more sustained growth.

He was once very highly rated as a youngster on Football manager. That kind of sentiment can oddly help a price in these situations.

Kainz looks like a good hold with room to go up. I've now added him to my 'bargain punt' slot in my port alongside Fedor Chalov.

I think Ruiz is the better hold of the pair. I've always found Griezmann to be a very frustrating and unprofitable hold.

Ruiz ticks my boxes for the next 6 months as I think he will get transfer speculation which will help support his price, he'll be in the Euros and he's a good pb hold when they rise again heading into next season. I think his price is lower than it could be because of his club side.

@Chilling-Rick

A 9p drop on a £3.93 player isn't much.

I happen to think Cherki is a good player but some may be of the mind that his price is already quite high and that it could be a while before another significant rise will be had. Some youngsters will go up and up(Haaland) but others will tumble (Brewster was £3.72 in July with lots of hype almost everywhere but is now sitting at £2.13 as an example). At this price I imagine some people are reducing their risk as it is unknown to some degree if and how long it will take for Cherki to reach the levels needed to become a £5 or £6 player.

@Chilling-Rick

Daniel Parejo is a dividend legend yet look at his graph for the past several months as an example of how this isn't necessarily always rewarded over the whole season. Timing is everything.