Is there a news site for shares?

Lots of them. Google and take your pick Start, if you have to, with finance.yahoo.co.uk (no www prefix)

Tiddy Ogg.

carries news from the official London Stock Exchange (LSE) Regulated News Service (RNS)

Some sites such as DigitalLook - which is regarded as one of the best

- also carries it.

Daytona

Thanks to Tiddy and Daytona for your replies I'm afraid I expressed what I was after very badly. What I am looking for is a 'news group' which deals with the subject of shares Blair

This, and the moribund uk.finance.stockmarket are the only news groups.

Most activity seems to go on at

but I could never manage to drive it when I tried several years ago.

Tiddy Ogg.

If you start here I'm sure some of use will join in..

That's a good suggestion. My question is concerned with getting advice on selling shares when they are depressed. I have a number of shares which have lost me a lot of money after the IT crash and I have hung on to them but there is little signs of a recovery. Should I sell now and take the loss and then reinvest? Perhaps I should have done it ages ago? Blair Blair

That really depends on two things.

1) What are the companies prospects for recovery ? 2) What would you do with the money if you did cash them in ?

It is always tempting to think that you weren't wrong and a bad choice will come good. But you need to disassociate yourself with the past and ask if they are now a good investment.

Do you want to share the name of the company ?

Thanks for your help The Companies are; BTG, Logica/CMG,Salveson,Avis, Vodophone and C&W These are the shares I have lost most money Losses are BTG 885, Logica/CMG 869, Avis 427, Vodophone 634, C&W 609 I could probably raise about 1500 by selling I would invest in Alliance Trust,Glaxo,Scottish Southern Power or Weir as I already have reasonable holdings in each Blair

For the amounts involved I would sell up and buy something new.

You are of course sitting on a capital loss that could be useful for wiping out any capital gains over the annual limit - if you are in or close to that situation (or will/might be next year)

As to your choice of a new stock to buy - none of those are on my list of what to think of buying next.

Actually Vodafone is on my possible buy list (assuming there isnt really a vodophone) as it is now paying a healthy dividend and is really a stable utility company. Maybe sell the rest and stick it all in Vodafone ?

Thanks for your advice. I felt that having such a loss I wanted to wait until the price recovers but I now realise that I should have sold right away. As far as buying is concerned these shares that I quoted have made me the most money in the past. It is interesting that I once used a professional adviser and the result was in my opinion no better than I could have done myself. Of course I make mistakes as he did but at least I could only blame myself. I have a system of checking my shares every month for gains or losses. I include the Capital Gain as well as the dividends and have it as a percentage of the original cost. Blair

Which some people might take to be a sign that it is time to sell. Or maybe sell 50% of your holdings and bank some profit Or sell the value of your original stake and let the profit ride a little longer.

When you buy do you set a target price at which you will sell ?

A monkey, a pin and a copy of the FT is also a good technique :-)

No - you should blame the management of the companies you have invested in :-)

So what was you best purchase in the last two years, and what do you think is the best buy today ?

You need an investment philosophy as it sounds as if you are fixated on the share price. This is OK if you are into technical analysis, but it's a hard way to make money - most people fail. See How do you choose shares ?

The most successful philosophy is value investing which is investing when as many as the following conditions are met -

forecast P/E is a third less than the market as a whole (15) price to tangible book value is low < 1.5 forecast yield is 30% higher than the market as a whole (3.75%) forecast dividend cover is > 1.2

See and

To do this is best if you have some filtering software, I use and can recommend for £47pa.

I use value philosophy in conjunction with moving averages - to give me an idea of the sum total of investor sentiment. I use DigitalLook charts with an SMA of 253 days (ie 1 year). As the FTSE All Share Index is significantly higher than the yearly average I'm not investing unless something shows extremely good value. Nothing does at present. It's a time for selling rather than buying imo.

The only remotely interesting share is BP of which I already have a fair holding so I'm disinterested in buying more.

Daytona

Can you see this Mr Blair ?

And this....