Whats the best medium risk way for a smallish investor to (around 拢20k) to have a flutter on the stock exchang

looked at unit trusts

First of all, sign up to Virtual Trader on MSN or a few of the other "virtual" trader games on the net.

Spend a couple of months playin around, doing research into companies (which is crtitical if you are to make profits) and see how you do.

Needless to say, do NOT rush into it, or you are guaranteed to fail.

As someone has said, don't bother investing at the moment. The entire years GAINS were wiped out in a day earlier on last week.

I play MSN Virtual trader, and I lost 10k (of a 60k profit) within hours!

Don't get over confident. Hardly anyone - at least on MSN Trader - makes a profit. It has been through a bit of research, a LOT of trial and error and a bit of luck with me making (at my very best) a 75k profit on top of an initial 100k (imaginary) investment.

Don't be blinded by what you hear in the papers - anyone who makes a huge amount of money on the stockmarket is either very lucky or is using a supercomputer (which obviously only the investment companies have access to) to work the markets out for them.

For your information, the mining industry has seen a boom in the price of their shares for well over a year now. Up until last week, I had made a 拢7000 profit on around 拢50,000 shares in Rio Tinto (mining company).

Otherwise, if a company is being bought out, the shares generally rise quite sharply.

My best investment so far was with Corus steel - I made a mint when it was taken over.

My advice? Shove your money in a high interest savings account for the time being, read a few books about trading and give one of the virtual trader games on the net a go. After a few months, and so long as you are confident to risk your cash, go and make a careful investment on the stockmarket.

Also note that most brokers charge around 拢15 per transaction/sale you make (i.e. buying/selling shares) plus a small amount of commission (about 0.005%) and some charge annual fees, etc so do your research on this as well.

Hope this helps.

unit trusts.........try Fidelity and M&G

At the moment stick your money in the bank and wait for the market to stabilize............ You will have seen the huge drops that have occurred over the last few days..............It will go up again and it will go down again as well................ It is just too risky for a new investor at the moment. I suggest you start watching the market regularly......... Start picking stocks and researching them and only look at making a real investment around October of November when it is clear how the markets are moving.

we have a bond with abbey nat ,a lump sum tied up for 5 years guaranteed 21% int. it is linked to the stock exch and if that performs over the 5 years you are likely to get 55% on your capital.it is a risk because in other investments you would get more than 21% over 5 years.but your capital is safe.

other banks must do this its worth asking.if you put your money in stocks completely you run the risk of not even getting your investment back fully

hope this helps

Wait a couple of days for things to settle down in the markets. I personally would recommend forex market hands down. This strategy uses hedge concepts in the forex market. You can expect double digit returns a month. Its the reason the company is growing in members by 40% a month. Past results don't predict future results...but the program made investors 220% percent returns last year and we are up 60 percent so far this year. Of course there is risk in investing in forex but since the strategy uses a certain unique characteristics in the forex market the risk goes way down. The link below has a video in the upper right corner that explains the process. I always recommened doing the free demo with play money until your see the profits then go live with the account. I know the whole thing might seem intimidating but I am a representative and I can walk you through the whole process. Let me know how you like it.
www.demofreedomrocks.com

Investment Trusts/Unit Trusts, because your investment is spread amongst many companies, so you are not gambling all your money on one horse, so to speak. Putting all 20K in as a lump sum means timing is more crucial. Drip-feeding is a less risky way. Even within these types of investment, some funds are higher risk than others.

Wait for the FSTE100 to really fall and just as it starts to creep back up, invest 拢7k in an Equity ISA Tracker Fund, then another 拢7k in a Unit Trust Tracker Fund or another Unit Trust fund of your choice. In the next financial year you can switch the other 拢7k from the Unit Trust to an Equity ISA to maintain full tax efficiency.

Ask lots of questions and try to understand the background plus T&C's of any investment.