I am just about to sell a stake in a company which makes up a large majority share of my portfolio and I haven't got any good ideas on what companies to invest it in. Does anybody have any good medium term investment ideas. Any would be much appreciated.

My advice would be to get some ideas before you invest. Don't follow tips on a bb unless you have already done your research. If you can't be bothered to do some research then invest in a collective scheme (unit or investment trust...assuming you are prepared for the relevent level of risk.

I'm bullish about Genus. (?) The average Genus Technician inseminates 5,000 cattle a year. Allowing for holidays and so on I make that around 20 opportunities to lose your wristwatch everyday. I wonder how many 'Technician of the Year' does ?

http://www.genusplc.com/

Antonov, the first company to display a six-speed automatic transmission at a motorshow will have the following positive events happening, god willing,

4-speed transmissions in production in 2004
6-speed transmissions in production in 2005
details of partner to be announced shortly

Basically, transmission length corresponds to car width in small FWD drive cars with the typical transverse engine. Antonov has designed a 6-speed drive-by-wire (so automatic, paddle shift, +/- lever, as you wish) transmission that is 10 inches long (700 say). Put in anything else, eg a 14 inch dual clutch transmission that will cost a lot more to make ($900), or a CVT that costs more still ($1100) or a conventional 6AT etc, and you are adding at least 4 inches to the width of the car. Then its no longer a small car!

So the transmission opens up totally new markets.

Small cars become possible for the US which likes automatics. Several companies are planning $10,000 type cars for the US. Peugot is thinking of reentering the US market, etc.

A transition to automatics becomes possible for Europe that already has small cars, but which has been shy of automatics before since they were inefficient. The Antonov isn't. Efficiency 92% @ 120 Nm, 1000 to 4000 RPM. The drive-by-wire possibilities mean the transmission should be acceptable to hardene manual drivers, but can be clutchless and have automatic modes.

India and China are beginning to get mobile. Being new customers they have no prejudices regarding transmissions and should take to automatics liek ducks to water. But being lower income countries, they will probably require small cars and hence transmissions that fit: Antonov.

The market for small cars is about 25m.

Antonov are now actively attacking the other half of the market. To speed things up, they have enlisted the aid of a partner, a larger company.

With royalties in the region of 20 per transmission and low running costs, 2m per annum in the past, but now rising to 4m due to high demand for new transmissions to meet ACEA by-2008 regulations, the company is looking like a safe multi-bagger long term.

The finance director think the shares will approximately double in the rest of this year.

i think RICARDO (RCDO) is very good investment.its a small company making profits and paying dividend and involved in auto industry which will never disappear

Their ex CEO is now on the board of Antonov, Christopher Ross.
The difference between the two is that Ricardo is massive already and so doesn't have the same sort of potential. Antonov can run for 4m designing transmission and patenting them for royalties. If Ricardo then provide consultancy services just helping somebody put a prototype together on a per hour per engineer basis or whatever, there isn't the same sort of massive income potential, relative to size.

Ricardo's market capitalization at the moment is 102m. By my estimations, Antonov will overtake them in about a year.

1 million gearboxes at 20 would give 20m. Take away 4m for running costs, 16m. 10/1 PE ratio and we could value Antonov at 160m; call it 102m, same as Ricardo.

But those calculations are based on 1 million cars. The world make 25m small cars a year, and the long term economic alternatives are really:-
1. manual
2. Antonov

basharat
I've looked at the graph for RCDO and there are lots of psychological barriers showing up on the chart as plateaus, eg 3.10 which was a failure to break clear of 3 or 3.90 which was a failure to reach 4.

Ricardo should get some work for the ACEA by-2008 vehicles and that might break them clear of the 100m 2 psycho barriers, maybe back to 2.50 per share and MC of 125m.

So maybe my guess that Antonov would overtake them in a year was a tad optimistic, as it was based on Antonov reaching around 100m MC around the end of this year. I didn't really consider RCDO as a moving target at the time.

Take a look at Sterling Energy, SEY.


NML may be worth a speculative investment, but personally i would only invest a small percentage in such stocks, due to their risk factor.

ARX may also be worth a little dabble, but until it confirms a breakout of the current downtrend, i would only build into any rise.

"Any decent Investment Ideas".. Well I wouldn't recommend this lot for a start, worth a listen http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9705000/9705399.stm

Wilco.

Advice, or opinion is often cheap.

But if it is important money spread it around a little and stick to the top 350.

At present I hold the following due to their trend and promised rates of growth.

But they are PROMISES!

Put a trailing stop loss on all of them.

BARC, RSA,BEZ,MARS,LGEN,GKN,SIG,TW.,BBY.

Looking at LLOY and RBS for breakouts.

But DYOH.

Use stop losses and spread your shares around.

This is a dodgy market.

Check out the twenty-or-so stocks detailed here Hoogi