First trade

Ok, so I opened a share trading account with HSBC France, I thought it would be simple but as with many things French, it wasn't. To trade on the Paris bourse is relatively easy but to trade in London required me to fill in a form and send it by post to my bank!!! Then there was the shock of the charges, £29.28 to buy then €91.47 commission!! I rang the bank and asked how I was expected to make any money and they agreed to give me 50% reduction on the commission. They had a breakeven point of £1.35 so it looked that I would be working for the bank. Still, it was a start.
Why did I choose GKN? I think you have to be able to convince anyone why you are buying a share otherwise you are gambling. Well the first reason was sentimental, I had applied for a job with GKN nearly 40years ago. I didn't get it but they were a company I had had contact with.
Secondly, when trading CFDs I had traded GKN and made some money and they seemed to go up to about £1.20 and then back to £1.02 so I figured I could make a little money.
Thirdly, with a western governmental startegy of boosting the car industry, I figured that GKN ought to be able to take advantage of that.
The first couple of days the share price went down to about £1.03 then it went up and never fell below £1.05 again.
Whilst CFD trading I had discovered bulletin boards(BB) where people post comments about nearly every share traded in London. The 2 that I read are London South East (LSE) and Interactive Investor (iii). I signed up to both and regularly post on the LSE site. It is worth noting that the quality of posts varies enormously, from abusive nonsense to informed research. To trade successfully you need as much information as possible and
I found that the BBs were very useful. To start with people mentioned things I new nothing about, like MMs (Market makers, who tend to manipulate the share prices) and various chart info like MACD and RSI.
 I would ask what these things meant and frequently people would post a link so I could read more. If I didn't understand I Googled it. Also, there is a cameraderie on the BBs that is useful to help pass the time whilst waiting for the share price to rise!!
I hoped that I would be able to make some money and I calculated that my break even point was £1.23. I wondered how long I would have to wait for the price to rise to that?