******** The Investment club thread ****

The aim of this thread is for people to share experiences of existing clubs and help people join clubs, or even start new ones in their own area.
With the personal message feature on Money am we should be able to bring people together.

Looking to join or start a club? just leave your details here.

Are you an existing club looking for new members?

"..as treasurer I am allowed a bit of flexibility.."

Fatal that. Never trust the treasurer.. It's always the treasurer who bumps of the chairman and does a runner ;-)

FIFTH TIME LUCKY FOR COURT KINGS

By John Husband


THE Sudbury Court has won our monthly investment clubs competition for a fifth time. The club, founded by actor Ray Marioni, picked last month's best performing share, supermarket giant Safeway.

Ray said: "With at least four companies wanting to buy it we figured that there was no way the shares could fall. And we were proved right. Everything else went down but they held up."

The 1,000 prize cheque could not have come at a better time. "It's been terrible, just terrible," said Ray. "At the height of the dotcom boom three years ago our fund was worth 60,000. Now we're down to 12,000.

"But don't get me wrong. We have had a few winners such as Lloyds underwriters Atrium. We're showing a 22 per cent profit on them. But almost everything else is down."

Now the Sudbury and all our other investment clubs have another chance to compete in our new Footsie Flyer competition in partnership with Proshare.

The Footsie Flyer game, in partnership with Proshare and City Deal, is open to Mirror and ProShare clubs which have been going for at least three months. Just pick which leading FTSE 100 share will show the biggest gain or smallest loss by the end of this month. As a tie-breaker, give your reason why in not more than 25 words.

Add the code word: "Valentine" and your ProShare Investment Club number to make your entry valid. We're taking the starting prices from this Friday and the closing prices on Friday, February 28.

Entries can be emailed to jonathan.agbenyega@proshare .org faxed to 020 7220 1731 or on a postcard to Mirror Investment Club Competition, ProShare Investment Clubs, Centurion House, 24 Monument Street, London EC3R 8AQ, to arrive by Monday, February 10. Courtesy of our sponsor City Deal, part of the Abbey National, the winning club will receive an account credited with 1,000 and free trading for a year. City Deal offers a full range of services, for details, call 0800 917 8889.

-IF you want to start an investment club, details are in the ProShare manual. It costs 29.50 but Mirror readers who ring 020 7220 1750 with credit card details pay 25, p&p free.

Our club currently has two vacancies.
Current members live in Shropshire/Mid Wales area.

I'm in the process of opening an account for the investment club with comdirect and notice on the form that they have teamed up with ProShare and offer FREE PROSHARE MEMBERSHIP for a year.

Always interested in meeting people interested in Resources Sector or Lloyd's Insurance sectors, in or around London, Surrey, Sussex by all means get in touch.

I have made money pretty consistantly now since October 1999 long only in a bear market, albeit it like everyone have got clobbered a few times made a few stupid mistakes over last three and a half years.

Refer my profile for contact details.

I sent an e-mail, but not sure if it worked.

So just in case - are you interested in joining an existing club or starting a new one? Or something I didn't think of - just want to meet up with others with the same interests?

LW,

Really just meet up with others with similar interests, pool ideas and try to beat a down market.

Right now being long is a tough call, I think specialising and being very sector specific is the only way to make money long IMHO in counter cyclicals, defensive, or special growth situations.

My gut feel resources, Lloyd's and maybe health/pharmaceuticals, but all ideas welcome, I am still very bearish on market for March 2003 expecting UKX around 3330 area this month by end of tax year selling.

So being sector specific is IMHO only way to survive right now.

Cheers

Ash

.

.

So how have the other Investment clubs out there doing over the last couple of month?

Ours seems to have finally stopped the rot, and we managed to take some Capital Gains on a few of our shares, enough to bring our value up about 5% over that time. Still have a long way to go. We agreed to put a small amount into Premium bonds (most of our cash float, equivilent to the value of the largest invester in the club, as we no longer get any interest - not that it was much anyway - on our bank account.) We now have 5K ready to invest Long on the short term. (We would love to go short, but just don't have that facility on our dealing account!) but the shares we want to buy just wont drop! The movement is very small, up and down in the same day. Oh well just have to wait and see. Anyone got any ideas, suggestions?

Maybe you should like at companies with high divs and go in for trading the divs

Ignore Ashley James for sure, see post 21 above

Shagnasty
I took the squelsh off to see what you had to say, but I needn't of bothered. I'm am a grown up - I can make my own mind up and I have not ignored Ashley James. Ains is just making a suggetion - which I did ask for. Your comment was NOT HELPFUL.

Ains

We have have been doing this, but I must admit have sold a few of them because the short term gain has been 5-10 times the divi! Too many of the companies were dropping 20% immediately after going ex-div reducing the value of the portfolio in the process and put the shares into loss, from a profit. In fact I have about 10 Blue chip high divi companies which I'm authorised by the members to buy when the drop to a specific price (which over the last few months - many have been well below) but they just won't drop! They aren't really doing anything. The movements are really small - both up and down.

It sounds like you are already playing them well :-).... maybe you need to widen the number of shares you play with .... I find monthly CD Refs handy as a way of filtering

you'll have to explain - what are monthy CD refs?

You need to look at the Hemscott site - its a CD with massive amounts of info and you can ask for companies with big divs etc via filters. its a way of seeing what is available in terms of fundamentals

little woman , listen to whom you like indeed, if you had taken notice of Ahleys 3300 FTSE forecast applicable to last week,disaster, he was wrong by
-(15%).
If you listen to ainsoph he has been wrong by 97.5% on his self confessed "biggest single share holding",although he called himself KDC at the time, and don`t be so rude you asked for advice not I.
Anyway the shares you mention are now moving into a Bull phase, and your best bet is to ignore paying `s for info. and trickle some money into a tracker
fund.
Stay grown up.

I am very interested in the share you claim is wrong by 97.5% ..... what is it?

ask KDC

Shagnasty - you are not giving me advice - just slagging some one off.

I don't believe in tracker funds - why pay management fees when there are no guarentees. If I'm going to lose or make money it because I made the decision.

I like constructive comments (not distructive which is all you seem to do.) Just because I'm in a discussion does not mean I am going to take up someone elses advice. If your going always make your comments so personal so they are not actually helpful please don't bother........