What about the dividends?

Dividends for both MAP and IPL have been fairly low, MAP around 13c, IPL as low as 2c last time. Things should pick up with the recovery though, so I'm not placing too much importance on those numbers.

Snapshot of IPL shares

3 year snapshot

Looks like the shares were doing pretty well before the financial crisis hit. They seem to be rising slightly now that the worst is over.

6 month snapshot

The shares appear to have been in a fairly steady uptrend for the last 6 months.

Bought IPL Shares

I bought 250 IPL shares at $2.73 each for $682.5.
Brokerage was $30 + $3 GST.
Thats $741 overall to buy $682.5 worth of shares.
Another $33 will be required to sell them again.

Snapshots of MAP shares.

3 month snapshot

Suggests an uptrend.

5 year snapshot

Suggests an uptrend until the financial crisis, a fall during that, and possibly a new uptrend for the "recovery".

Savings

In the current economic environment, having a savings account is a waste of time. Interest rates are low, so most banks (or whatever else they call themselves) only offer a few % return per annum. Considering inflation is generally a few % or higher, youre actually losing money by "saving" it.
A lot of places advertise a higher interest rate, but if you look closer its always for a term deposit, or its a promotional thing that only lasts a month. When the interest rates are higher than inflation then it's worth considering, but otherwise it's not.
Better to invest your money in something (even if theres some risk) than just let it drain away.

Side Note About Direct Debit

You have to be careful when tranfering money from your bank account to some savings account via direct debit, as you would with ING for example.
If you try to use direct debit to move money out of your bank account, but dont have enough money in your account, you get charged a fee. This is in contrast to if you try to buy something with say a debit card and you dont have enough money, whereupon you will simply be informed you dont have enough money for the transaction.
If you try to take $500 from your bank account into your ING savings account but you only have $499, the transaction will fail and youll be charged a fee by the bank. Whats worse is, ING (or whatever) doesnt know how much is actually in your bank account, so it cant give you any warning. This is very annoying since a small mistake can incur a fee which cancels out all the interest youve got from the savings account in the first place, making the whole thing a huge waste of time.
The only way to be safe is check your available balance before using direct debit to move money.
Also, make sure you check your available balance, not your total balance, because thats what counts.

Bought MAP Shares

I bought 300 MAP shares at $2.36 each for $708.
Brokerage was $30 + $3 GST.
So I've spent $741 overall to buy $708 worth of shares.
Then of course I will have to pay more brokerage to sell the shares again. This is why buying small numbers of shares is bad, you have to see a fair % increase in their value before you even break even.

Another Stock

MAP - Macquarie Airports
This satellite company has just decided to pay its creator Maquarie Group (MQG) around $360 million in order to take back managerial rights for itself. They're paying that $360m in shares, so basically MQG is accepting a greater stake in MAP in return for letting it manage itself. Seems to me like MQG wouldnt do this unless it knew MAP would be better off managing itself. Despite this change to a seemingly more sensible arrangement, the big payment caused the share price to drop. Maybe a good time to buy?

Stocks I'm Watching

IPL - Incitec Pivot Limited
This company fell during the recent downturn from a height of almost $9 to a lot of under $2. It appears to be slowly recovering now, and has the potential to multiply any investments by 3 or 4 times (assuming it can return to its former glory.)

WES - Wesfarmers
Another company starting to recover from the recent downturn. I think this company has potential. They own Coles whos main rival in the supermarket area is Woolworths. Coles is a far better company that Woolworths, so I expect them to be quite successful and in turn make Wesfarmers some nice profit.

Starting Out

Hello, and welcome to my site.
My name is Chris. I'm a university student about to begin trading shares after having gathered a reasonable amount of kownledge in business, economics, and share trading.
This site will be my share trading diary. I will record which shares I buy and sell, their prices, why I bought or sold them, and any other relevant information. I will also keep a running count of my total profits/losses so you can see at a glance whether I'm worth listening to or not.
I will only be trading in stocks of companies listed on the ASX (Australian Securities Exchange.)

I may do well, I may do poorly.
I invite you to follow along, and learn from my sucesses and failures. I will start trading sometime next week with around (AUD) $1500. Things may be slow at first as I have limited funds to work with, however I plan to invest more money as I go along and become more experienced, so if youre interested in seeing what happens feel free to bookmark and come back later when there's more content.

Please feel free to leave any comments about my experiences or your own, they would be much appreciated.