I've been thinking about dabbling in this for a while, deposit accounts are returning nowt and it seems a good idea to try some low value deals to see if I can do better. Anyone used any online services for share trading, any interest in an "investments" thread (obviously not advice, just shared experiences?)

Don't bother unless you have serious money to invest (/lose) or you've got insider information. Standard dealing fee is about £15 from what I've seen, times that by two to get in and out of your position and you need to make £30 profit just to cover your costs (ignoring use of funds, ie. interest foregone which will admittedly be low). To put that in to context, if you put £500 into something right now you need it to move by 6% just to cover your costs. Don't bother - may as well start matched betting with it instead which is vastly safer and offers a good return early on.

I have used / use Self-Trade. But as was said, the time you have taken account of the £15 in and out the bid offer spread you need to get good returns if investing small amounts. You could stock pick and get great results - but for each 200% return you'll no doubt lose just as much on others! Investing is a zero sum game (actually less due to transaction costs), so if you win someone else loses. Or, put another way, to dabbble succesfully requires alot of research and alot of luck. If you want stock-market exposure the cheapest tracker fund may be a simple but prudent idea? But, markets, like individual shares, tend to go down suddenly and quickly and so you can lose significant percentages overnight.

I've got various stock market trackers, I was looking for recommendations (or otherwise) as to online services I can use, for example, I want to get some Thomas Cook shares today if I can, and it all depends what people mean by "small amounts", the bank offerings at the moment are pretty much flat lining.

Put it in a box under the bed, it'll still be there in the morning.

Open up something with rl Hargreaves Lansdownrl, I don't personally think there's a better alternative for what you want to do. And not that I hope it will happen again, but I was able to sell stuff without any bother twice now as markets started to plunge, whereas I heard some real horror stories of people with other dealers who couldn't get rid, or couldn't get through.

One example of what they do is a Fund and Share account, a share deal can be as low as £5.95 and fund deals are free, and apart from that they get discounts on a lot of funds due to their size. I've had some great fun with their Vantage Stocks and Shares ISA, and made some very decent gains, for example I made over 70% on a Chinese fund in less than 3 months. Also you can deal on web, post, phone, or smartphone app.

I would say the advice about not bothering unless you have serious money to invest is frankly just patronising rubbish. You only need to really understand that prices can and do go down as well as up but I would think you already get that.

I suggest you Keep well away from Thomas Cook shares over the next couple of weeks.

thanks FA, I'll have a look.

Investing in Thomas Cook? Hope that's not based on insider information!!?? If it's not - good luck!

Why, the profit forecast is for £320 million, (down from £360 million). so hardly on their uppers.

and the component parts of the group are attractive in their own right, if they hive off the loss making French bit then they could see £1.20 a share by this time next year.

The big risk is the coming Ski season, so far it's not looking good weather wise (or should I say the weather is looking too good), it's certainly one of the less risky investments I've been looking at in recent weeks.

It had also merged its high street travel business with the Co-operative Travel - and there were reports at the weekend that the company plans to shut 200 shops, putting 1,000 jobs at risk.

Adding to the dismal year, Thomas Cook is expected to report a 31% slide in underlying profits to £191.1m.

not buying the shares for the dividend though.

If you are looking at investing in shares you must think long term, some companies have some great shareprices for trade at the moment, LTSB for example at 22.86p from £11.52 odd 4 years ago.

The way to look at it is if you have money you can afford to lose and don't mind waiting 10-15 years for a return I would suggest banks being a great option.

The are few short term wins presently, unless you get wind of something special about to happen to a company, lots of share prices are moving up and down a few pence presently on a downward trend.

remember, only throw in what you could afford to throw away and do it long term.

already have LTSB and Barclays shares for longer term investment, likewise BP, M&S, all bought at roughly the "bottom" of their respective markets,every penny I invest in shares is seen as "gone" from the moment I invest it, means I am rarely that disappointed with things. The only real cast iron investment I have is my premium bonds, and I can safely say that it doesn't matter if you've got small amounts or your full allocation, the £1m prize is as elusive as bigfoot!