If you dont wanna risk the money then I'd consider premium bonds for the £2000, can take it out whenever you want and you might also win a prize. I think with current interest rates the amount being paid out isn't too good.

If you can't afford to lose the money then an ISA is the obvious choice IMO, only put some money into shares if you really feel strongly about the company and don't just go off the backs of posts here, as the risk is great. CYAN is doing well again at the moment but it's been at a low point for some time and could all still come crashing down.

I'm up £400 at the moment, I don't think I've ever been below my purchase price too. The actual gain % would be higher if I hadn't topped up at higher rates.

Hehe, I just remembered about 7 years ago I opened a fantasy trading account  -

Your open positions


STOCK QUANTITY PAID CURRENT POSITION P/L
AXU 21,890 4.50p 3.50p £766.15 £-218.90 
ACU 1,515 65.00p 1.25p £18.94 £-965.81 
ALBA 10,103 9.75p 0.15p £15.15 £-969.89 
BP. 808 614.50p 457.40p £3,695.79 £-1,269.37  
GGG 6,254 15.75p 24.50p £1,532.23 £547.23 
DGO 2,942 168.75p 605.00p £17,799.10 £12,834.48 
ERE 6,769 29.25p 12.25p £829.20 £-1,150.73 
EUM 2,189 45.00p 45.00p £985.05 £0.00 
EVE 15,154 6.50p 1.00p £151.54 £-833.47  
GETM 10,945 9.00p 140.00p £15,323.00 £14,337.95 
HSBA 1,000 946.50p 683.20p £6,832.00 £-2,633.00 
ISAT 1,419 349.75p 630.50p £8,946.80 £3,983.84 
MDS 5,472 18.00p 19.00p £1,039.68 £54.72 
MWLM 424 232.25p 232.25p £984.74 £0.00 
NLG 757 130.00p 121.00p £915.97 £-68.13 
PMCI 9,610 10.25p 12.00p £1,153.20 £168.18 
QQ. 567 173.50p 182.60p £1,035.34 £51.60 
SLI 3,664 135.50p 56.25p £2,061.00 £-2,903.72 
TXO 50,924 9.75p 0.15p £76.39 £-4,888.70 
TCU 228,089 1.30p 1.00p £2,280.89 £-684.27 
UBR 3,321 149.50p 128.25p £4,259.18 £-705.71 
ULVR 83 1,175.00p 2,625.00p £2,178.75 £1,203.50 
VEL 6,620 75.00p 1,000.00p £66,200.00 £61,235.00 
VOD 4,289 115.75p 191.70p £8,222.01 £3,257.50 

VEL is an error - think the price is around .33 at the moment.

That's impressive. I guess as well if I'd bought cyan when people first said, the price would have been about a 1/4 less than I paid. I bought in when they were near one of their peaks from last year

EDIT:

Just looked at  ASOS's price.

If I'd have kept that initial investment 10 years ago, £300 would have paid off £300 000 !

Price has doubled since this time last year also. Should have just bought back into ASOS instead of CYAN!

In the time you've all been dreaming about Cyan going to $1000 a share, every other "proper" share on the market has rising more.

Lets go back a year since that's when it seems Cyan were "about to release an RNS". If you had put 1000 pound into an index tracker, you'd be up 25% with zero risk.

So yeah, nice going on the penny stocks.

But that's the point isn't it, you can't tell what's going to happen. If you could you'd be rich too. You can either invest in riskier stocks or play it safe with the big multinationals.

I don't get what you're saying back to me.

What I'm saying is, any gains in Cyan (that may happen as early as tomorrow or might never happen at all) will be what you could have had in things that are about as risk free as you can get. You can sit about for a year or 10 waiting for a penny stock to explode, when generally they won't despite what someone's uncle's best friend told them at the pub about their secret oil field, or you can invest in JNJ and watch it gain 10% every year on average with dividends.

When you're 30 you're in it for the long haul. Buffet started with nothing. He didn't get 50bn by gambling on oil fields and such. (I actually think Cyan is ok tbh, it's all these daft penny oil stocks that make me laugh).

Whats the spread typically on CYAN?

I'm just wondering because if you were holding in anticipation of a particular event happening at some particular point in time (this announcement that was supposed to be due a few months ago) then I'd be inclined to say that (if feasible) I'd want to buy before the event and either cash out if it happened or sell and move the money into something else if it didn't. I think there are always going to be positive rumours for most penny stocks on bulletin boards etc... as a lot of the people out there holding them are going to be reading any news reports with rose tinted glasses and disseminating all the positive information they can find in order to reassure themselves. The issue is that people are holding them and continually waiting for this next thing that is going to occur in a few weeks time... if they go up in price then that's a great thing whoo will be even more money when the thing occurs... if they fall XX% then omg I can't believe it they're a bargain now... maybe I should add to my position... they're going to fly regardless when the thing occurs....

Its probably better to invest in a few AIM companies if taking that approach (though this isn't as feasible if investing tiny amounts due to costs)...

As far as taking a punt on CYAN is concerned I'd be inclined to not get emotional about it - if you think X is going to happen on Y date... I'd speculate on it on that basis... if nothing happens at that date then I'd be inclined to sell and look at something else... obviously keeping an eye on it still and appreciating that it might still fly to some ridiculous price after you've sold but so will other penny stocks you're not invested in.