Top ten retail investor buys & sells for week ending 15 December 2006

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse, commented: Investors who bought into newly listed silicon wafers maker Renesola will be thanking their lucky stars after the stock almost doubled in value over the last month.

The company listed back in August at 89.50p a share, and saw only minor growth in the following months. More recently, news that it has been in talks with a number of major US institutional investors was digested well by the market and the company has attracted a great deal of attention.

Investment house Merrill Lynch was prompted to slap a “buy” rating on the stock and a bullish price target as the shares soared up to highs of 477p in early December. Currently the stock is trading some way off this level at around the 430p mark, but it remains popular with retail investors this week.

Elsewhere on the market, shares in small-cap stem cell pioneer ReNeuron have soared on news of new drug trials - it filed an Investigational New Drug Application with the US Food and Drug Administration to initiate clinical trials for its stem cell therapy for stroke.

The pharmaceuticals and biotech sector are often popular with retail investors, offering the chance of potentially lucrative gains as new drugs and products can have an immediate impact on the performance of the stock.

Until this latest news ReNeuron’s share price was only gradually picking up from year lows of 5.5p reached in September. It subsequently gained over 100% to reach highs of 38.75p as five directors bought significant numbers of shares in the company, before falling back to around the 28p mark at time of writing.

ReNeuron’s recent interim figures showed a net loss of £3.2m after exceptional charges of £1.2m – but investors are hoping that more is to come from the stock given the recent news and the groundbreaking nature of its research.

Top 10 Buys
1 PartyGaming
2 BHP Billiton
3 Gold Oil
4 HSBC Hldgs
5 Reneuron Group
6 Barclays
7 Renesola
8 Lloyds TSB Group
9 Tesco
10 Vedanta Resources

Top 10 Sells
1 Royal Bank of Scotland
2 Vodafone
3 Barclays
4 Renesola
5 Lloyds TSB Group
6 PartyGaming
7 Corus Group
8 BP
9 Isoft
10 Gold Oil