ste

thats pretty good going! my shares are worth about 9k at the moment but that same pot was worth less than 8k a week or two ago! 20% up on a couple of stocks, 30% down on others since i bought them - its all good fun though :)

my main tip would be not to listen to anyone who tells you that they know which way the market is going to go - at best it will be an educated guess! unless they have inside information, which can land you in jail. if you're looking to dabble smallish amounts and just take a few punts, then spread betting is a much cheaper way to do it that buying shares - but you need to understand how it works otherwise you can be in for some nasty surprises. unless you're playing with big sums, you might struggle to make a decent profit on shares vs. the money you have risked. i'd say you need to trade in chunks of at least £1000 to make it worthwhile otherwise your fees will eat away too much of your profit e.g buy shares for £500 pay 0.5% stamp duty = £2.50 pay broker fee £10 cost = £512.50 stock goes up 5% (which is quite a respectable gain!) you sell for £525 pay broker fee of £10 so get £515 profit of £2.50 which is a return of less than 0.5% (when the stock went up by ten times that amount and could just as easily have gone down) do the same trade with £5k and your return is 4% if you're looking to invest longer term, then buy shares and/or funds. look for things that have historically paid good dividends, look at their price history and buy when the market dips - and use your ISA allowance to do it, like richard does. and always look out for the fees!!! there is a reason banks make a lot of money (ignoring the last couple of years...) and it isn't usually because they are extremely clever and make the right bets - its by taking fees for helping other people make the bets. if that all sounds a bit negative, it isn't meant to - its not as scary as it might sound, especially if you're fairly good with numbers. i think more people should get involved. just do it with your eyes open. i don't know how to link to the full thread but this is a post of mine from back in dec 09 on a similar topic

i do i work for an investment bank though so there are all sorts of rules i have to comply with - what i can buy, how long i have to keep it for - which does take some of the fun out of it. and they have just banned us all from spread betting - but that could actually be a good thing...

2nd picture down, next to the roller... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-14851225

i just bought a mk5 gt tdi and i love it. plenty of space but small/nimble enough in town, a doddle to park, comfortable, 50-60 mpg on a motorway run, 35 crawling around central london in heavy traffic. you can't go far wrong with a golf

you lost a finger? ouch!

2 bearded dragons and a canabis farm, by the looks of things :)

nice theory but we don't have anywhere near 300 million people in the uk, let alone 300 million motorists on the topic of petrol prices, anyone got much sympathy for this guy? ttp://uk.cars.yahoo.com/17012011/36/pound-192-tank-petrol-0.html

check out these bridges... http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=895520

the owner of hard to find records in birmingham used to have a bright yellow 911 turbo with the reg V1 NYL

spread betting is essentially a bet on which way a stock or index is going to move. you have an account with a broker which you are required to put money into to cover your open bets. betting on single stocks is generally much more risky than on indices. a simple example (ingnoring fees etc.) - FTSE is at 5300 and you think its going to rise - you open a position at "£1 per point" - if the FTSE goes up to 5305 (i.e. up 500 points) you could close your position for £500 profit. - if it goes down to 5295 then you are sitting on a £500 loss. its a bit more complex that that in practice but thats the idea. that there is no stamp duty, and profits aren't liable for capital gains tax - like when you buy shares. which is good. if your bets are leveraged, then you can potentially stand to lose more than your initial outlay, and if you don't monitor your trades closely and set tight stoploss limits then things can turn in the wrong direction pretty quickly. which is bad if you're looking at it as a bit of fun, prepeared to treat it as a gamble, and comfortable with the idea of losing some money, then by all means have a go but i'd reccomend you pick no more than a few stocks or indices and whatch them for a while before opening a bet, keep your bets small and don't leave them open for too long. perhaps have a practice on a "virtual portfolio" site first. if you are looking to get into the markets as a way of investing for the future, aren't that comfortable with risking your money, and have a longer-term view then stay clear. you'd be better off drip feeding money into a tracker fund (which basically aim to follow the performance of an index over time) you can do this within an isa. once you get more familiar, you might want to look at managed funds (where the fund manager has more scope to buy/sell assets in the fund as prices move in order to try and beat the performance of an index) or start buying shares yourself IG index is one of the main sites for spreadbetting moneysavingexpert is a good general site for savings and investments advice fool.co.uk is another good one and has lots of different message boards not sure if any of that is helpful. all my own opinion, of course...

spread betting is fun but you can get you're fingers burned quite easily if you're not careful. unless you're doing some research, be careful betting on individual stocks - especially with the markets as volatile as they are at the moment. an up/down bet on an index (i.e. the FTSE) might be a safer way to test the water. i'm not an expert but did you want to know anything in particular?

if you like that try the one my mate puts out http://www.joinnthefiasco.com has the link to itunes and his myspace

your problem being what exactly? lol

yeah, thats what i heard too. i meant to say i read that his wife found out he died over the radio. thats whats not nice