Wheres the best place to buy some shares guys?

Cheers

Thesharecentre is very user friendly and offer a frequent trader option which as the name suggests is cheaper if you trade often or percentage charge per trade option.You can also buy ISA's with them.No guarantee of your shares going up wherever you buy them obviously especially recently.Premium bonds are a safer option unless you have a golden strategy though technically a fixed term cash ISA offers a greater guaranteed return on average subject to annual allowance.Gold mining stocks have been recommended as the market hasn't reacted strongly to the rise in the gold price so people think they may catch up in future.Dividend stocks are an option but when their share price goes down you wonder whether waiting on the dividend is worth the while.A rising share with good dividend sounds good if achievable.Best idea seems to specialize on a popular share or 3 but be very selective in those shares choosing something like Tesco as they seem to have captured the market and are looking to new markets though you can never be too sure.There's also these penny shares mentioned above but you'd need to know the exact reasoning behind their trades with a notion of proposed entry and exit points which isn't that clear from what has been mentioned.Personally I just retreated to premium bonds and an ISA to get that safety factor after wading through the choppy waters of speculation.

Hi guys,
Haven't posted for a long time but came on fisk tonight and looked at old posts and thought it would be interesting to catch up. Still trading shares most weeks, but getting married soon (june) so money is now tied up and no spare cash to pile in.
I will post current holdings over weekend, but I have to say that the last years trades have Been eventful. I enjoy my trading but work and home life have been so much busier in the last 2 years, I haven't even concentrated on tff it's that bad

current holdings and buy sp/ average in brackets

GKP (80p) long term hold and now fufilling promise 380p
IFL (av c35p) still in isa. dont need cash have sat on loss, 20p
RRL (5.35p) sitting on my profits at 11p sliced at 18p. very cheap now
BHR (13p) sliced at 21p, bought more on way down, now sitting on lots at 12.3p average, confident. last buy 9.9p, now 11p ish
VOG (3p) sitting on alot more of these now 3p average. gas looks good here and confident its a matter of time
ANGM (av3.9p) bought some at 1p when it got to silly price, top sliced those at 3p. now sitting on loss from 6p ones as only 2.3p now. holding
MONI (29p) bought back as sold early, now 37p
*XEL (95p) flown this week but had for months, gonna sell for wedding soon 155p today
*AFR (75P) oil, got back in on a piracy rumour ! 126p today
*BZT (50P) disappointing but they have offer for mankayan pending , now 29p
*NRRP (3P) URANIUM, disappointing but hasnt recovered since japan issues 1.58p
*BMR (5p) MINES , now 4.62p
*RKH (260P) FALKLANDS OIL, 360p today

sales
RBS (39.2p) sold out at 33p for another loss
SOLG (29.5p) sold out at 16p
BLNX (17p) sold out at 111p
EML now west african minerals and sold up last dribs
HOIL (356p) sold at 342p and has dropped lots since like most stocks
GCM (165p) sold at 245p now looks silly low price
NVTA sold at loss when all the bad news came out, painfully getting 65p

Hi Ben,

I find this information very interesting. Especially some of the gains you have made.

If you were to recommend 5 shareholdings (ranging from high to low risk) to invest in today for a relatively short term holding what would they be?

Kind regards

N

I have sold XEL over the last 2 days at 155 and 175p.
i thought they would drop when they opened up yesterday and no suprise they did.
they are a super punt long term

nigel

i wouldnt reccommend things generally as you really need to research them to have a bit of confidence, but if you are interested i like

risky
RRL although its rising today, so perhaps wait to see 11p again.13p now
BHR i really think this is v stable and due a rerate, looks cheap today@10.25p
XEL with the resource upgrade i think 125-130 would be a good price to get in, i see this like rockhopper / gkp etc. this is risky though as volatile last 2 days. if it ever goes sub100 i would whack in a years isa.

less risk
TSCO looks cheap and a stable one that could rise 10% between 312-342


key to most things though is patience, but also a feel for when to take a good rise.

I was thinking of buying shares in Futura Medical.
Currently 99p but I think they have good upward potential.

Thanks Ben,

Some very interesting thoughts there and I note your comments about recommendations.

I will have a closer look and a think.

Kind regards

Nigel

suprised
it seems futura have risen alot, but they have an interesting product.
its.... cough...hard not to see them do well this year if it goes to plan


nigel
i would read the boards on iii, shareprice or lse.co.uk for any shares you are interested in

I got myself stuck with a gold mining company called Ortac Resources (OTC)

Originally I think I bought in at 1.6p a share, at one point it dropped 0.7p , now trading at 0.93p (I think my average is now about 1.25p.

It was tipped up this week in an article in the Mail

Might be worth a punt if anyone fancies a penny share investment. (What do ya think Mike_? )

*

European gold explorer could see its share price multiply if it can obtain permission to start production at one of its sites
By GRAEME DICKSON, MARKET TRADER AT OPTIVA SECURITIES
PUBLISHED: 17:05, 14 March 2012 | UPDATED: 17:05, 14 March 2012
•
One of the main reasons why I have been putting forward the notion of buying into gold exploration stocks over the last month is that they have largely underperformed - not only the underlying gold price performance but that of speculative oil shares.
At some stage I believe investors, both institutional and retail, may make a partial switch towards gold exploration and development plays.
In continuation of this theme, I think it might be an opportune time to examine Ortac Resources (OTC), a somewhat overlooked gold exploration and development company:

Ortac owns the Sturec project within its Kremnica Mining Licence area in Slovakia, which has an estimated gold resource of just over 1.2 million ounces at 0.5 g/t Au (grammes per tonne of gold or gold equivalent).
In January the company issued the results of a scoping study carried out by the renowned mining consultancy SRK, which showed a Net Present Value of US $309 million (£196.8 million) at a gold price of US $1,586 (the price at the time of writing was $1,675 per ounce).
To put this into perspective the NPV is nearly ten times the current market capitalisation of Ortac and is based on 11 years of mining life with an annual average production of 86,000 ounces.
Since then the company has announced further drilling results revealing high grade intercepts and encouraging widths of gold leading the CEO Vassilios Carellas to state that the results ‘provide further evidence thatthe recently completed scoping study is based on sound principals’.
On Ortac’s website the company states that it is confident that Kremnica has the potential to achieve a two million ounce/equivalent resource of gold through additional exploratory drilling.
It also owns nine other exploration assets across Slovakia with assay results from its exciting Zlata Bana prospect due shortly.
There are still a number of hurdles for the company to overcome, primarily that of obtaining all the necessary permitting to commence mining production at Kremnica: to that end the company is actively engaging and investing in the community, where unemployment stands at an uncomfortable 18-22 per cent. Once all the permits are in place I would expect Ortac’s shares to multiply several times over.
In the meantime the company appears to be on the lookout for a strategic acquisition in central Europe, using a possible mixture of its £8.2 million of cash and shares.
It is worth noting that the company’s Enterprise Value (EV) per ounce is just US $15.44 per ounce (market Cap £20 million minus £8.2 million cash, converted to US Dollars and then divided by 1.2 million resource).
The average EV for European based pre-production companies (according to stockbroker Seymour Pierce) stood at $74.86 per ounce, albeit this figure may have altered somewhat since this figure was shown to me back in January.
Nonetheless it does illustrate a stark difference between the industry norm and Ortac’s EV. It therefore comes as little surprise that we saw yesterday’s announcement that Henderson Global Investors had increased its holding in Ortac from 4.5 per cent to 10.61 per cent.
It might be worth noting that the consensus target price on Ortac Resources is just shy of 3.2p, some 269 per cent above yesterday’s closing mid-price of 0.865p.

I need this to treble tomorrow to get all my Cheltenham losses back

Possibly a silly question, but how does one go about purchasing penny shares? And does one need to go through a broker and thus pay for their service?

The easiest way to trade shares is to open up an online share account, I use Halifax, but I think all the big banks will offer a similar service. Once you have opened an account it works just like a bank account and you can transfer funds in and out from your regular current account.

You can research companies on various online sites - http://www.iii.co.uk and http://www.londonstockexchange.com/default.htm are 2 popular sites. Both these sites have community forums with regular posters providing news/tips/advice on investments. WARNING Be very wary of making any investment decision on any of the advice posted on these forums as there is an awful lot of crap posted by people with hidden agendas.

Once you find a company you want to invest in you can request an online quote from your share dealing service provider which then appears on screen and you have 15 seconds to decide if you want to proceed. If you like the quote you can take it, if you don't like it you just ignore it. A bit like deal or no deal

Each time you make a deal (buy or sell) you will be charged a fee for the service (typically around £10/£12 for each deal).

The company I tipped above (OTC) at 0.93p has since dropped to 0.73p Investments can go up as well as down!