Looking to invest 150000 has anyone got any ideas on what to invest in.
looking at Pipex and Healthcare enterprise group

I like Fred1new's "trend is your friend". Modify with a cautionary note: "but not when it is running out of momentum". Add "run your profits and cut your losses". Add: "the shares you know best are the ones you hold; so if you want to buy, sell the one you already have, which is a dog, to make room".

Any other pow's? (that's pearls of wisdom, stupid!)

Eric

my favourite pow

shares can go down as well as down.

and just when you think it can't go down any further it will collapse!

I like the saying that "the Rothschilds made their money by selling too soon" and on the same theme "never be frightened to let the next man make a bit"

I thought Boyse contribution on Traders BB is very valid to investors.
Vice Number One: PERFECTIONISM

Perfectionism is often the chief culprit when the pain of losing exceeds the pleasure of winning. Desperately trying to feel good about themselves, perfectionists set unrealistically high ideals. They think they will finally be OK if they just accomplish X. (For X, you could substitute many things, including looks, wealth, popularity, or achievement). Because X is an unattainable goal, perfectionists ironically use their ideals as a basis for self-criticism when their performance doesnt match up. After all, is achieving X will make me OK, then I must not be OK if I fail to achieve X. The emotional theme of the perfectionist is not good enough. Perfectionists are driven to do more and more because they never feel competent, worthy, and loved as they are. Thus, even when theres a profit on a trade, perfectionists will look for the portion of the move that they did not participate in. If they caught most the move, they will reprove themselves for not trading a larger position. And when trades dont go well, perfectionists review all the reasons that shouldnt have made the trade, should have known better, etc. By focusing on the portion of their performance that doesnt match their ideals, perfectionists transform successes into defeats, losses into failures. They rationalize their perfectionism as a drive for achievement, but all they are accomplishing is an undercutting of their confidence.

Perfectionism shows up as negative self-talk and self-blaming. Emotionally, we recognize perfectionism from frustrated, angry feelings when trades dont work out as planned. Beating myself up is how many perfectionists describe their self-talk. The way to beat perfectionism is to make a concerted effort to talk to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend in a situation where things went wrong. Most people know how to treat others with respect, love, and dignity. They just havent learned to do the same for themselves. If you would be more nurturing, understanding, and supportive of a friend than you are of yourself in the identical situation, then you know that youre not being your own best friend. If a trade doesnt work out, the constructive trader focuses on, What can I learn from this?not Whats wrong with me?. In Woodies language, the best antidote to perfectionism is the ability to reassure yourself, There will be better trades down the road. The key is to not miss those better trades while youre beating yourself up!
Vice Number Two: EGO

Everyone likes to win in the markets. Its only natural to feel good when youve done your homework and end the day with a profit to reward your efforts. Ego involvement in trading, however, goes further than this. When the ego is involved, we write the market a blank check for our self-esteem. If trading is green, we feel good about ourselves; if we go into the red, we feel diminished. That places tremendous pressure on our trading over time. Not only do we have the burden and challenge of reading complex market patterns; now we also have a psychological gun pointed to our head ready to go off any time our pattern recognition fails us.

Most traders are aware of the dangers of trading with too much leverage. A trader accustomed to trading 2 lots, where each tick in the ES is worth $25, would feel overwhelmed jumping to 100 lots, where each tick now moves the account $1250. With the stakes raised to such a degree, the same trade would now no longer feel the same. It would be hard to let a position go against you by a point ($5000, instead of $100), and it would be difficult to let a profit run. When traders invest their feelings about themselves in their trading, they are operating with maximum emotional leverage. In the currency of self-esteem, they trade 100 lots. So much of their emotional account rides on each trade, that it inevitably affects decisions about cutting losses, letting profits run, and entering and exiting in a timely fashion. The successful trader wants their trades to work out; the ego-involved trader needs them to be profitable.

We know that ego threatens our trading when we find ourselves needing to trade just to win back some recently lost dollars; when we feel a desire to advertise our positions; and when we find ourselves riding an emotional roller coaster as profits wax and wane. Just as we can recognize traders perfectionism from anger/frustration, we recognize ego-involved traders from euphoria/depression. If trading has us truly depressed, we know that its not just our trading account thats hurting. The antidote to ego-involved trading is to place our self-esteem eggs in many baskets: recreational interests; other work involvements; relationships; and our spiritual lives. Many times we pour our self-esteem into trading because those other facets of our lives are not properly developed. A balanced life makes for balanced trading. In the spirit of Woodies CCI Club, we can take some of the ego out of trading by learning from others, by becoming a candle that lights other candles, and by using a portion of market profits to help others make a wish that will come true. If your good feelings in life come from good relationships and worthy achievements, you wont need the markets for your happiness. Market success can be the frosting on the cake of your successful life, rarely can it substitute to the cake itself.


Vice Number Three: OVERCONFIDENCE

It is common for traders to complain of a lack of confidence in their trading, but very often it is overconfidence that does them in. Overconfidence results from a lack of appreciation of the complexity of markets and an underestimation of the challenges of trading them successfully. In a sense, overconfident traders lack respect for the markets. They think that reading about a few setups or buying the newest software will prepare them to make money. Overconfident traders dont want to work their way up the trading ladder: they resist the idea that screen time is the best teacher. They also chafe at the idea of growing their account. Rather than start with one contract and wait until theyre profitable before trading larger size, they want big positionsand profitsright away. Because theyre so eager to make moneyand so sure they can make itoverconfident traders generally trade impulsively. They wont wait for the setup to form; theyll jump the gunand get whipsawed in the process. Instead of being patient and waiting for short-term patterns to align with longer-term patterns, they will take every trade, enriching their brokers in the process.

The hallmark of overconfident traders is that they think they are going to make something happen in the market, instead of patiently waiting to take what the market gives them. Spelling out profit goals for each day or week of trading is one manifestation of overconfidence. Humble traders know that markets expand and contract their volatilitysometimes the trade just isnt there. The overconfident trader, however, feels that he/she is bigger than the market. Indeed, overconfident traders will often take great pains to try to catch the tops of bull swings or the bottoms of corrections. As a result, they often fight the market trendand can get run over in the process. If the emotional signs of perfectionism are anger/frustration and the emotional signs of ego involvement are elation/depression, then the emotional signs of overconfidence are impatience/impulsivity. Overconfident traders overtrade. They fear missing opportunities more than they fear losing money. The antidote to overconfidence is rule-based trading and the intensive rehearsal of trading rules. By making entries, exits, stops, and position sizing rule-governed and vigorously rehearsing trading rules during simulated trading (as well as in real time with small positions), traders can greatly reduce their impulsive trading. Very often this means training oneself to focus on (and rehearse) what-if scenarios of being wrong in the market, as well as forcing oneself to spell out the rationale, targets, and stops for all trades. By making trading a more self-conscious process, traders interpose thought between impulse and action, gaining greater control of their trading. When the trading room admonishes, No boasting, just posting, it is encouraging restraint on overconfidence.

Fred1New

Thanks for that. A really helpful analysis and I suspect all of us see some of ourselves in some of it! There is a personality type system called the Enneagram which this resonates with. If any one is aware of it, or is prepared to investigate it, then it is a great help to understand yourself and to understand others and your relationship with others. I mention it partly because the Number One (of 9 numbers) is the Perfectionist and this is a very good portrayal of the types and attitude. We all need something of the perfectionist because otherwise we can be slap-happy and undisciplined. You know a No. 1 as soon as you go into their house and (feel as if you should) take off your shoes. They are tight-lipped and everything has to be in order. What I hadn't thought about was the attitude to trading. I am a Number Five which is characterised by wisdom, but the failing is a hunger for knowlege, a need to store away lots of knowledge before you act (a number five was reporting earlier, saying not to invest for three monmths before you had enough knowledge!). The key point is to know your type and characteristics and therefore the traps you might fall into. I won't comment further but could give references if anyone wants to follow it up.

One point I don't agree with from the above is in the last section. That is the part that talks about following rules. The person who follows rules is a Number 6 and we have an awful lot of them, particularly in the Civil Service. That is not, for me, the way to tackle investments, but I accept that is a function of my own type. It is not my way! I do the research but I will not set rules. I have just been explaining to the chap from Blue Index that I do not operate stop losses; told him I had just seen a guy having his investment in PET sold just because the price momentarily dipped. But I am able to sell - I sold Medical Solutions a few weeks ago because they missed their forecasts; they have now dropped another 75% on a profit (rather loss) warning; I am weighing them up again to buy. I believe the author confuses impulses with insights. You need to understand the rules, yes. You need to see the logic behind the movements, yes. You need to get the big picture and, in the light of that big picture, you have an insight which then governs the action. He has made the mistake of a dreadfully simplistic approach. Its better to read the guides who talk about such things as contra-cyclical investment - or you work out what the rules say, realise that is what everyone else is doing and THEN DO THE OPPOSITE!

Eric

You could put a few thousand in Antonov PLC.
More than a few thousand and you would likely move the price.
Antonov PLC and Rotrex have designed a two-speed supercharger - when the engine RPM drops, the gearbox automatically changes to a higher gear to ensure pressure is maintained. The market for these could be comparable to the market for turbochargers. They have designed a 4-speed gearbox which might go into production this year and a 6-speed gearbox which may go into production in 2005. With one of the designs, you can shift from any of 6 gears to any other with no torque interuption - this is called powershift. Rival powershift transmissions are the dual clutch transmissions which require gear shifts odd-to-even and even-to-odd, eg the highly praised VW dual clutch trannies. Gearbox length corresponds to car width in most FWD cars. That means thin automatic cars have been difficult to make in the past and so the US has no small cars. All that could be set to change. Antonov has designed a dual clutch transmission too that is shorter than the VW design, allowing thinner cars, and making small cars a viable proposition for the automatic driving US.

The news of the Rotrex partnership becoming official (heads of agreement) is only a couple of days old and the share price hasn't reacted to the possibility of supercharged cars hitting the streets in big numbers. Superchargers have been used for increased power in the past. Superchargers for fuel efficiency (required by 2008) isn't generally understood, but if a six cylinder V6 is replaced by an inline 4, the savings on friction losses and valve operation etc can be imagined.

Far too many people are daydreaming about hydrogen and fuel cells. Practical design solutions for today's problems that can b made with today's technology - that's where I think the money is. Development takes time and investors lose confidence. The turnaround for Antonov has already started. To be honest, you've missed it. But who actually manages to buy at the bottom and sell at the top?

Desire Pet. is still a good buy if you fancy a roller coaster ride! Don't forget to hold on tight.

Two essential investments for everyone:

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham updated recently by Jason Zweig

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by ??? Malkiel ??? (spelling unsure) now in its eighth edition

Each of these books will cost around 10, possibly including postage. I got the second one from Amazon and the first from a bookseller's on the phone. They're probably both available on Amazon; in addition, Investor's Chronicle seems to be recommending both of them in its "book club" and giving a phone number to order them.

Shares magazine and Investor's Chronicle are for keeping up to date with what's happening week by week; the books are more for strategy and understanding how markets work.

After reading lots of exciting "get rich quick" stuff, these two books were a breath of fresh air. The Intelligent Investor, in particular, contains a large dose of solid common sense. These books are possibly the best investments you will ever make because they will warn you against being silly with your money and throwing it away on wildly speculative shares or losing it gradually on commission charges and share-price spreads.

Azpol