If you’d invested in: Flowgroup and Mothercare

published 29 April 2016

I wish I had bought

Eco-boilers:

Flowgroup PLC (LSE: FLOW)

But after some redesigns the product relaunched in January this year. If bought along with Flow's domestic energy tariff, consumers effectively get a boiler for free, with Flow recouping the costs over five years from the electricity generated via feed-in tariffs. The share price is up 45% this year.

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I wish I had sold

Baby clothes:

Mothercare (LSE: MTC)

The UK operation halved its losses last year, and the international stores provided £21m of profits. But in the first quarter of this year, sales fell in Europe, the Middle East, China and Latin America. While full-year profits are still set to meet expectations, "international markets are likely to remain challenging", as the firm puts it. The shares have taken a battering down by more than 40% this year.

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Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin.

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.