Diary of a Dumb Investor: my potentially reckless investment in China

China Med.

Not at all a dumb investment I'd say.

Slater Investments are well into it & they are far from dumb.

And if you were looking for a London listed non aim company you might care to give FTO a look. It's making money and paying dividends at least....and growing quite quickly.

I made the mistake of, having bought CPP at 9p, and having seen thme climb to almost +30p, bough a shed load mare, as they looked to be past the worst with the mis selling fine agreed at £4m in in stalments, having a decent cash balance, I thought they would go back eventually to at least £1.00 or somewhere near their high of £1.50.

Result, they have floundered arounf .14p -.15p......still, lets hold on and wait... Does anyone have a take on HiWave , Ruspetro or Lonmin, my latest gambles??????

Fortune Oil... these were left to me.. shall I sell or keep?

Money Week says that the China property bubble will burst sometime soon and not to invest in China (see history of countries that built office skyscrapers at this rate). But who knows in the current maestrom?

what a dustbin of a portfolio;no structure,direction,unit size or theme.Just a random collection of disparate holdings.Checked your beta and deviations?

Best of luck to you DI. This column is always entertaining. More so the comments it raises.

Go for it! There are a bunch of cheap Chinese consumer stocks listed in Hong Kong also - Mengiu dairy, China Resources. Cheap high yielding shares - this BS about China slowdown, banks, property etc is old hat (tell us something we don't know, not to avoid Chinese stocks when the market has already fallen drastically!). The smart money left ages ago and now the smart investors are coming back

Ruth,

I'd hang on for the time being, but keep an eye on it.

Can I apply for the role of Dummer? (Dum & Dummer)

After many months of reading, researching, decision taking and mind changing, I have constructed a portfolio of around 150K

Part common sense, tiny bit of gut, a chunk of research, and probably an element of luck....then wait and see.

Good Luck with China.....

It's only money.....

The Chinese are some of the hardiest and longest lived people on earth, even though until recently they had poor sanitation and toiled longer hours than fat, immobile westerners would tolerate.

They are alcohol-intolerant and prefer a frugal style of eating. They smoke like chimneys but that does not seem to kill a lot of them in middle life.

Why would prospering Chinese go overboard for foreign devils' medicine when they can get results by sticking needles in the right places?

Typical cultural arrogance of a society fit to be overtaken by Asia-- to assume our system of medicine is the only scientifically valid one, and will conquer the planet. But I cannot help noticing how many British folk who are forced to pay for the disease-manufacturing hospitals and lazy, grafting GPs or incompetent imported doctors of that absurd sacred cow, the NHS, are sneaking off to oriental practitioners when the drugs don't work.

General investment principle: don't think China will become top dog by apeing all the West did from c. 1500 to 2000. They had and have their own values and habits and they usually assume theirs is better. The last 20 years have immensely reinforced that faith, and the Chinese did it their way.

A grand. Hardly worth the bother.