Aim is the small cap market of the London Stock Exchange and, after a hesitant start, has become a flourishing market,” explains Clem Chambers, chief executive of European stocks and shares website ADVFN.Aim was launched in 1995 to allow new and growing companies to float without the tight restrictions of a full Stock Exchange listing. The question is where to look.”According to research, small companies outperform large companies over the long term. It does happen, but hardly ever with any company that qualifies as a household name. The spectacular gains come from small unknown companies.
This boils down to simple mathematics. If I have a £100 holding of shares worth £1 each and they rise in value by 1p, my portfolio is worth £101. If, instead, my £100 goes into shares worth 5p each and they rise by 1p, my investment is worth £120.

Of course the flipside is that a 1p fall in the value of those cheap shares will create a far bigger dent in my finances.Despite the obvious risks many investors are attracted by the chance of making spectacular gains and, with a balanced portfolio of generally safe stocks, there may be room for something a little more speculative. Every investor dreams of making a killing with shares that double or treble their value over a very short period. Any economic slowdown would hit BSkyB’s business quite badly, especially when the company seems intent on putting its prices up with such apparent frequency. On the other hand it has also amazed me that there are people out there willing to pay hundreds of pounds a year for television shows when they can get the same sort of stuff (OK not the premiership) from ITV and the BBC for nothing.

In fact, around 7 million BSkyB subscribers spend about £400 on the average, figures that will probably grow in the long term.Still, makes the licence fee seem very good value.s.o’grady independent.co.uk. There have been one or two bits of negative news lately, but I cannot really see why it’s in the doldrums. It certainly isn’t an ideal backdrop for Richard Branson’s proposed flotation of Virgin Mobile.BSkyB is equally becalmed, and here I can see more point to it. Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse at M&S, we are treated to this. I do not know how the poor staff in the shops can cope with this level of uncertainty, but I admire their bravery. If Philip Green doesn’t put us out of misery, I hope someone will soon.Elsewhere, I am pleased to see other components of the portfolio making steady progress.

Rolls-Royce at over 250p and Tesco at over 260p are making good unobtrusive gains, while BT, at around 200p, justifies the purchase I made on the back of its broadband claims a few weeks back. I notice that the company has pledged to cut its broadband prices by a quarter and, assuming there isn’t some self-defeating sort of catch involved, is another piece of evidence that there may be a little more life in this old dog yet.Equally, I am displeased to witness the unobtrusive decline of Vodafone and BSkyB, two shares which also form part of my core portfolio, with its bias towards TMT stocks Vodafone looks like slumping back below 120p. What has the world come to when we have to rely on the press? I’m being facetious. Mr Kennedy made a valid point.I don’t suppose there is a way that the body of private investors as a whole can be allowed the sort of briefings that the big pension funds receive as a matter of course, but then again perhaps that is an argument for these large institutions not being offered privi- leged information ahead of other investors.