ftbinthewaiting

I'd also like to know this ... currently have about £140K towards a deposit, and will be looking at properties around £175K. There's a strong chance that when I come to buy, I'll be looking for a £20-50K mortgage. If there's an average / standard minimum it will impact on my investment decisions.

I have an i-phone, and would comment that it is by far the best piece of technology I've ever owned. Well designed, and above all, very user-friendly. I'd recommend one to anyone, and pay just over £40/mth for mine over 2 years for a great bundle of calls (1200 or 1500 minutes), unlimited texts and web browsing. The quality of the camera and video camera mean there's a couple of extra products I don't need to buy. I don't need any music storage via an ipod. So far, it's saving me money over my other phone contract and offers me a world of connectivity I didn't think I needed. I'm sure there are other phones that do all the above, and I never saw the benefits till I actually got the I-phone, but having upgraded it's a tool I can not do without.

Did anybody read this? Someone asked me to post from anotherr thread. Weatherly is up by nearly 100% since time of posting, plus AAAM up 15% or so.

IMO, a very cautious investor should spread their risk by investing in lots of companies across different sectors. Large cap defensives are probably lowest risk but offer the lowest return. However, anything can happen as illustrated by BP earlier in the year. Once you grasp that there is risk of devaluation via inflation by leaving your cash in the bank, the decision to invest becomes a much easier one. Agree that solid dividend payers with a decent yield are a good play for the cautious. On a personal note, I invest in the junior mining sector where much greater returns are possible with some solid research and a large dose of patience.

There will be a steep learning curve when you first start investing in shares. I've been invested for just over 2 years, but I'd say it took 12 months plus to understand a bit about what I'm doing, and another 12 months to feel half way confident in my decision making. I treat it like a second job, but fortunately have the time to put in. advfn.com is worth a look as a website about shares - some excellent posters there, but also a lot of folks "ramping" various shares. My advice with £2k would be to make not more than 2 investments. Investing less is not probably not worthwhile due to the dealing charges etc, e spread (buy price versus sell price), but starting with £1k in 2 companies might be a way to go. Having said that, investing in 4 companies might be better from a learning perspective, but be prepared to be 3-8% down on your investment straight away. As for stock picking, it really is a case of doing your own research, doing a lot of reading, visiting the website and viewing presentations online, reading the bulletin boards, reading the financial results, canvassing the views of others etc. Try to take the time to compare the market capitalisation of any given company versus that of its peers. It can take a LOT OF TIME to research investments properly. And it will take many months to understand how the markets work if you're completely new to it. I'd recommend that you make a decision and stick with it for more than a few days. The temptation is to buy and then sell at a loss, or buy a sharply rising share only to see it fall back as traders take profits. An alternative would be to set up a virtual portfolio, and "pretend invest" for a few weeks and see how it goes. Remember to account for a £8-13 charge for each trade and for the spread in doing this. If I were to give one piece of advise it would be: research > decide > buy > hold unless your reasons for investing change due to company news or world events Hope this is of some help.

Thanks for your replies - much appreciated. I'm just watching the market at the moment, and will make initial offers at around 15% below asking when I'm ready to buy.

I'm keeping a firm eye on the housing market at the moment, looking at the possibility of buying at some stage maybe late next year or the following year. However, trying to gauge the market is tricky from sites like Rightmove, as I'm pretty confident that completing sales will be at a fairly significant discount to asking prices. My question - what % discount might I use to derive a realistic 'actual' selling price from those advertised? 5% 10% 15%? Does anybody have an inside track here? Websites like nethouseprices etc are lagging the market, so it's tricky to know what's happening now. PS - looking in the Ipswich area.

The FTSE100 is weighted hevaily towards miners/oil & gas companies, whose shareprices are linked directly to earnings that are based on revenues from commodity sales. Weakness in the £ is generally positive for the FTSE. Printy printy = higher commodity prices, weaker ££ = higher FTSE. 6,000 by year end looking likely IMO.

+1 ... this is my approach. I'll continue save and invest in well-researched shares until till house prices look reasonable and I can buy outright with cash to spare. On the subject of living with parents. At 34, I can not think of anything worse than losing the sense of independence that comes with having your own space. At the moment for me, that''s a rented room in a shared house, and I hate it. Soon to move back to my home town, somewhere with cheaper renting costs, so CAN NOT WAIT to have a rented place of my own again. I can see the comforts that come with living with the folks, my brother does it, but for me it' would damage my sense of "independent self". And it must be a rubbish state of affairs as far as the love life goes.

Good call.

The UK must be the only country in the world that seems to think mining its natural resources is somehow beneath us (pardon the pun), and not a valid contributor to a robust economy. If Polish miners (or any other nationality) want to come and contribute to our economy in a such positive fashion, I'd personally welcome it with open arms. I'd rather we removed hundreds of thousands from benefits, but can you really see that happening whilst many live so comfortably on benefits and our national debt continues to grow. Bring back mining in the UK. Canada & Australia, to name just two 'Western' economies that are much more successful than ours, do very well out of it. PS. I've a lot of time for the Polish. Much more than many of our homegrown I hate to say.

The earths resources (oil/metals/minerals) are finite - potential to debase currencies is infinte. More money chasing limited and depleting resources = commodity price rises in nominal terms.

I'm very interested in TA, but invest on analysis of the fundamentals alone these days. Of all the approaches, it''s an understandinf of price channels / supporting trend lines and major resistances that are most useful to me. Price versus value now and future projected value. That's my approach. Peer group comparison is also valid, particularly in the mining sector. MACD crossovers can be a good indicator of a change in trend to time a buy, but MACD and RSI are useless for predicting when might be a good point to sell IMO. Technically overbought shares can continue to rise strongly if sentiment is behind them and the company's market cap is a crazy reflection of true value.

Precisely. I'm in the process of relocating away from a particularly expensive southern town precisely because living like a student on a 'good' salary in your 30s is sh*te to the point of starting to get depressing! Certainly affected my motivation at work too.