Cash From Waste

Sometimes you need to get right into the minds of potential customers to spot an opportunity. On the face of it, there’s not a lot of value or potential in old tents left behind by festival goers. But that’s before you factor in the environmentally conscious nature of a lot of the young people who attend such events.

WiTHiNTENT salvages the fabric from the leftover tents and then turns them into rainproof clothing and accessories for the festival market.

It seems to me there are three advantages here:

1. Free materials

2. An environmentally friendly business

3. An interesting PR story

Is there some discarded material or product you could recycle into something desirable, and if so, could you set up a business with similar benefits and advantages? The environmental movement isn’t going to go away any time soon, so now could be a good time to start thinking about this.

Specialist Trading

When economic times are tough, most sensible folk look out for an opportunity which is immune to the downturn. The really smart ones look for an opportunity which flourishes BECAUSE of the downturn.

Ordinary financial trading falls into the ‘immune’ category, whereas a specific kind of specialist trading is booming BECAUSE of the downturn.

Money Matters

Picking up on some past share winners, Tom Winnifrith is again tipping Telecom Plus at 357p. Those of you who have been with us a while may recall we tipped this two years ago when the share price was 187.25p so, if you'd invested back then, you are currently sitting on gains of 90 per cent or so. Well done! Even so, with solid fundamentals and strong growth prospects, Tom believes this stock still has much further to go so, at up to 425p, he rates it a buy and expects the share to reach 600p in 18 months. More on this if you are interested; email me back.

We've been tipping gold for a while now and we're about due an update. According to The World Gold Council's latest Gold Demand Trends Report for Q2 2010, demand will remain strong with demand from China and India driving prices. The long-term outlook is equally promising with demand for gold in China expected to grow and grow. As always, we have a how to invest piece available on request.

The Telegraph has an interesting story - if you have a pension that you took out more than 10 years ago, you may be losing as much as one-third in charges! Here's what they say, 'Many pension providers take annual charges of 2 per cent a year off their older customers. By switching from a 2pc annual management charge (AMC) to one charging 1pc would save someone with a fund of £25,000 a total of £24,590 over a 25-year saving period, assuming returns of 7pc a year.' This is serious money so take professional advice if this applies to you. You could save £1,000's by switching. For example, Hargreaves Lansdown's Vantage Sipp has an AMC of just 0.25 per cent a year!