Happy 20th birthday to Shares. In the two decades since we first hit the newsstands on 23 September 1999, the investment magazine has gone from strength to strength in helping the public to improve their investing skills and get bigger returns.

Our goal is to educate readers so they can make better informed investment decisions. In the past 20 years nothing has changed in that respect. We’ve provided a constant stream of investment ideas as well as informed opinion on the markets and useful articles on a wide range of investing topics – and that is still the focus of the weekly digital magazine and daily stories on our website.

Perhaps the key thing that has changed in the intervening period is the way markets have moved, the changes to tax allowances, shifts in consumer trends and a whirlwind of economic and political developments.

Nearly all of the journalists at Shares have been writing about investing, or previously working as fund managers or other roles in the industry, during these 20 years of ups and downs, and so bring incredible experience of how to navigate good and bad market conditions.

In the past 20 years we’ve seen the bursting of the dotcom bubble, a new up and down cycle in commodity prices, the global financial crisis, the acceleration and then deceleration in China’s economic growth, a trade war, the run-up to Brexit and various monetary stimulus experiments by central banks around the world.

Investing hasn’t been easy but Shares has earned the reputation of being a trusted voice and a source of help for readers in managing portfolios, spotting good opportunities and avoiding bad ones.

We’ve also gone through our own major change with the shift to digital where we decided in 2016 to stop printing the magazine.

So where next for Shares? In the past few years we’ve sharpened our focus on helping novice investors, expanded our coverage of investment trusts, funds and ETFs, and boosted the amount of space given to managing money in retirement. We’ve also spent more time analysing the most popular overseas-listed shares held by UK investors.

We will continue this journey with the imminent launch of a first-time investor section in the magazine and a new series of educational videos. We plan to spend more time on portfolio construction and make our website much easier to use. Later this month will also see the return of our popular Money & Markets podcast.

If you have any requests for articles or ideas for making the magazine and website even better, we’d love to hear from you. Simply email editorial@sharesmagazine.co.uk with the words ‘Shares ideas’ in the subject line.

Thanks for your ongoing support and here’s to the next 20 years and beyond.

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