How do you subscribe?!

I can not find a link on this site anywhere!!!

Any help?

and i was just making the point that you don't have to be a billionaire to be good at your job, it would take millions to make billions surely??? also bearing in mind that we have just coming out of a bear market!!
these people are here to help us and point us in the right direction, i for one know that without a magazine like SHARES or BB's like this then investing would be a whole lot more difficult!

Their job is making money for clients.If they cannot make millions/billions for
themselves then they are useless - especially a Stockbroker.

BBs like this do an incredibly good job because people are not greatly influnced
by any one post.We get a Huge amount of info on almost every post so we have
the opportunity to assess that information CRITICALLY and make a BALANCED
decision.If a person takes their Stockbrokers advise they are then taking the
view of 1 person and that 1 person is often biased e.g.Morgan Stanley made
BILLIONS of dollars dealing on Corus AND they were/perhaps still are one
of the RECOMMENDING BROKERS e.g . buy,sell,hold on the shares.I know - I bought
Corus at 8.00 and sold at 14 on foot of a Standard and Poor report.They subsequently went up to at least 52.00 in 2 months.Surely their report was
biased as they MUST have known about Morgan Stanleys position.I believe much
of the City is corrupt.

I have taken "Shares" from day one & think it is still improving except for one thing- the small size of the index recently. Would anyone join me in asking them to go back to full page size? Please post if so as I guess they read this thread.

I agree Grandma, please bring the index back to full size.

I would also appreciate the index back in full size.

Regarding the debate re: subscribe or not to subscribe. I find the magazine useful regarding information on small companies but do not rely solely on their recommendations before buying. Used alongside other factors sentiment, results due, charting, etc, the magazine is useful to me. However,over the past 5 weeks I have been experiencing problems receiving the magazine on Thursdays. The first call to the Subscription helpline I was told 'It happens, we cannot guarantee arrival on Thursday, 18,000 copies are posted Wednesday lunchtime on a weekly basis.' Last week I was told they are aware of the problem and investigating the reason for the delay. Some weeks I do not receive my magazine until the following Monday or Wednesday, which is of little use to me by that time due to the time sensitive nature of information. Is anyone else experiencing these problems?

Bella - I find Shares arrives on the thursday most weeks, but friday about once every 5 weeks. I rang subscriptions helpline once when it hadn't arrived by saturday and they sent another one out as they assumed it was lost in the post. Both copies arrived on the monday!

I find the quality of the articles very variable. Some are very well written, others not - often too basic. I like David Jones (the Chartist) and I usually learn something new from each issue. But I do find Shares a good starting point for ideas to do further research.

Bella, I too have experienced this problem. -This year I think it has only twice arrived on Thursday, usually it's Monday.

Hi all,
Thanks for your varied debate as ever on Shares, and thanks for MrDavies for pointing out that as a young man I would not be off cruising Saga-style. I for one have no interest in sitting on a floating hotel for four weeks, and certainly cannot see why it is being used as the ultimate facet of riches.
Rather be off trying to learn to sail for myself somewhere hot, or holidaying in the US.
Keep up the comment,

James (Shares)

I gave the wrong impression.Despite living in Spain I have no interest - even
if I had sufficient money - of cruising.However,vast amounts of wealthy people do.
I would prefer if people delete cruising from their posts as it distracts from
what I am saying i.e.if Stockbrokers were any good they would be multi
millionaires and not be Stockbrokers.This applies to newspaper pundits
and shares magazine .... etc.
SHARES magazine does a huge amount of harm because punters are unduly
influenced - as can be seen by these posts NONE of whom see the bad side of
it - by pundits.The quality of information on this board is,generally speaking,far superior to Shares magazine,etc because there is such a diversity
of opinion.
rgds aj

My opinion on Shares mag is as follows:

1) until about 1 year ago it was pretty poor but has improved considerably since. The Chartist is partic good. Compared to IC it is far far better.

2) the writers of articles are only human (journos) and are subject to the same emotions as everyone else so if they get swept up by market mania you cannot blame them for losses made by your own decisions based on their tips. This is true of all financial press

3) Many companies I would never ordinarily come across are featured in the mag which is useful. The stats are usually pretty good, and they do attempt to do some in depth research into companies

4) the 350 table is very handy. I would prefer a few changes to the format e.g. the large no. of zeros for profits etc could be reduced.

5) unlike a rival mag, they do not waste our time with tiddling articles about savings accounts and other amateur stuff available in every weekend newspaper.

6) It would be nice to have some better forward diary stuff for xd & results going forward at least a fortnight, as long as it was accurate.

7) As an investor, a tip should only be the starting point of one's research. Then you can delve into co accs etc yourself for the full background b4 making a decision to buy.

8) I would prefer greater emphasis on the Mid 350 cos. There are too many small companies in the mag. This Slater 'elephants don't gallop' theory is IMO nonsense. Adequate gains can be made from bigger co's as witnessed in the past year: e.g. RTR OOM, CW, MTC and the like. If you want to make 1000% on a micro share good luck to you, but that IMO is gambling unless you know the company extremely well.

7/10 for Shares. Keep up the good work.

These last few comments on delivery have concerned me as Smiths had run out last week of the mag and I was going to subscribe,(only so I don't have to get dressed early on a thurs). I thought though that you got upgraded access on this site if you subscribed so wouldn't you get all the news here and not need the paper copy??

are you all aware that you can get shares mag online , usually first thing Thursday morning - just subscribe yearly I believe

i would like to add my tuppence to this debate.i like shares mag. i dont like ic.my reasons are : i am not an experienced investor , some of the jargon goes straight over my head . i do believe in results though and i think shares tips do pretty well on the whole.
i also am interested in finding out more about sipps and isas. they are usefull there too.
i subscibe to shares and money am because they are both good strating points for finding out about companies that i would never have thought of. someone else has done some leg work and pick it up from there . in my job i meet a wide variety of people from different work places and its amazing what you can pick up. this is also a good starting point.

has anybody tried trendwatch they advert on the Mam thread.?
I personally dont do shares (very rare and than also they are european not ftse).But just a suggestion to put something else in the picture.

rgds
zarif

dont forget:
Trade wisely and safely
If you fail to plan then you plan to fail!!!!!

There is always this argument about why people write, teach etc. etc. I think you have to take all at face value and make your own judgement. I mean, Tiger woods has a coach so why doesn't the coach scrap Tiger and win the tournaments himself!?!?!?

Any how, I think the answer is more simple than that. An analogy....

Why does a dog lick itself............... Because it can.

(It probably enjoys doing it also, which is why I write articles, because I enjoy it (Writing articles that is!!!))

If a stock is bound to go up, why does a market maker sell it, Surely the market maker would be better off keeping for themselves. (Doh!)

That's an easy one. They put the price up and then sell :-)

Why do people become soccer writers instead of playing football? It's a pretty stupid argument. Anyway, hasn't anyone noticed that Shares has guidelines which it prints each week making it clear the journalists aren't allowed to deal in the stocks they write about? Which is more than can be said for some of the people ramping their portfolios on certain bulletin boards.

Disappointed with Shares Mag this wk. There's no mention at all of iTouch. In fact there's it's not even in the forward diary for next weeks results due 16th March. There has not been a mention since the beg of the year when it was tipped of the potential to go up x 5 !.
Bit cheesed of shares mag. Shares that it has previously gone mad on then seem to get forgotten. OK, there may be not much news to report on but.. we would like to know if they are still backing their original views. etc etc.

There are also alot of other shares that are in the same boat.. previously mentioned a good strong plays (buys) and then ... nothing.

Also, don't like their new minute index.. just to get more advertising in !?

anyone else notice the FTSE 350 tables were out of alignment last week's issue? Very irritating!