At what age did you start dabbling in the share market?

[Scooter]

Age 16, out of school and into the share broking industry for a job. Still there, still investing, never had debt or mortgage, made own money from employment and investing. First investment Michael Hill, biggest gain Software of Excellence, worst investment Vending Technology.

[Okebw]

Age 20. Started university with the grand idea of studying marketing and management. Then hit the core finance paper and fell in love with finance and property. Few hit and misses as well as a few major successes over the last couple years.

[Hoop]

I'll never forget my introduction to share investing. At the age of 21, I was advised by the tutor of a share investing course to begin investing in "safe' blue chips first and then gain experience....
Yep..gained experience alright..I bought JBL and the company suddenly collapsed without warning a couple of months later...I lost the lot...

[dingoNZ]

Started with managed funds and soon realized I could get myself better gains by taking on more risk and picking stocks myself, ofcourse this comes with ups and downs but I have done significantly better than my benchmark. I'm currently using my Kiwisaver fund as my benchmark and trying to annual beat its returns, I also compare my returns to FNZ (the NZ50 passive fund). What are you chaps using as your benchmarks?

[Harvey Specter]

I also compare my returns to FNZ (the NZ50 passive fund). What are you chaps using as your benchmarks?

I use the FNZ as well (and the latest upgrade of Sharesight now does this automatically for me). My goal for each year is to beat the higher of the FNZ and 0 (ie. dont lose money on bad years).

I also have a look at OZY because if I was to give up picking shares, I would probably diversify by buying 50:50 FNZ:OZY and would add in a world index at some point as well (currently only my kiwisaver takes care of my global investments so I am heavily overweight in NZ shares)