With this yr’s Shares and Shares ISA deadline days away, many traders can be out looking for low cost shares so as to add to their portfolio.

Low-cost shares occur to be my favorite sort. I really like shopping for high quality firms after their inventory has dipped, within the hope of selecting up a discount.

But this isn’t a foolproof technique. Generally shares are low cost for a motive. As a substitute of recovering, their plight would possibly simply worsen. As ever with investing – no ensures!

With that in thoughts, I made a decision to name in a bit of outdoor assist, from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT acquired Barclays shares all incorrect

ChatGPT isn’t a inventory picker and I don’t take its solutions too critically. My newest request quickly jogged my memory why.

I couldn’t actually argue with its first decide, FTSE 100 financial institution Barclays (LSE: BARC). I’ve contemplate shopping for it, however I have already got loads of publicity to the sector by way of rival Lloyds Banking Group.

However ChatGPT rapidly blotted its copybook by saying Barclays “screams undervalution” buying and selling at a lowly price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 5. That’s plain incorrect. Its trailing P/E is definitely 8.5 occasions. Not an enormous distinction, however sufficient.

It will get worse. My unreliable robotic ‘bro then said the Barclays share price has “underperformed, down around 10% over the past year”. Wrong again! It’s really rocketed greater than 70%.

At this level, I gave up. AI is clearly utilizing old-fashioned info. I do suppose Barclays is price contemplating at the moment, though I’m cautious as a result of the shares have overperformed, and will battle to keep up their current momentum. Which is the precise reverse of what ChatGPT is saying.

I wouldn’t contact Vodafone shares

Its second decide was FTSE 100 telecoms large Vodafone (LSE: VOD), which it calls “a beaten-down telecoms stock with recovery potential”.

Vodafone terrifies me. It’s like a large monster of wealth destruction. It lures unsuspecting traders in with a blinding yield, solely to chew up their capital and slash sharehholder payouts too.

The Vodafone share price has climbed 5% over the past yr, but it surely’s down 40% over 5 years. At round 72p per share, it’s buying and selling at 1996 ranges.

ChatGPT acknowledges say that “Vodafone has been a disaster for shareholders for the last five years” then jauntily provides: “But with a 6.9% dividend yield and a turnaround plan in place, it could be a bargain at today’s P/E of around 7”.

Fallacious! Right now’s dividend is definitely 5.3%. And incorrect once more! The P/E is 11.6%. That’s nonetheless under the common FTSE 100 of round 15 occasions, however not as low cost as ChatGPT thinks.

It additionally claims that the telecoms sector is defensive, however a fast look at Vodafone and rival BT group suggests it’s really intensely risky. At the very least the chatbot was proper to focus on Vodafone’s big debt pile of round €36bn, which it calls “difficult given at the moment’s excessive rates of interest“.

The newest Vodafone turnaround plan could succeed the place the others failed, but it surely’s not a inventory I might contemplate shopping for at the moment. Personally, Vodafone nonetheless terrifies me. And so does ChatGPT.