workplace pension scheme

I really don't trust them - there's far too much evidence of frauds and fraudsters are far too inventive. All you need is a bonus scheme that's based on results, and someone will find some way of rigging it. As for the provider being fined, well that just makes matters worse - your manager has rigged the system, pocketed his bonuses, and left. Then the provider gets fined and, well, where's he going to get the money to pay the fine from? Chances are it WILL end up coming out of *your* pocket. Just look at all the money the mutual insurers paid out to policy holders in the wake of the endowment crash? Where did that money come from? The only place it *could* come from - the policyholders' deferred bonuses!

Problem is, you really need to start with a decent amount of money, because charges really do eat into your returns, but IFF you're prepared to put in a little bit of effort (and it really is only a little) you can make a lot of money fairly easily. Just remember Warren Buffet - "investing is a long term commitment" - day-trading will burn your profits in charges very easily. And only invest in *value* that you *understand*.

I'd look for shares at about the 40, or 110, 260 position in the FTSE that looked undervalued, buy them, and then sell them when they go above the 30, 100, or 250 position for a very nice profit.

Oh - and as for the dot-com crash? Apart from the bubble stocks (which you should have been riding as a gamble, not an investment), pretty much ALL the NYSE or FTSE stocks bounced back and in only a couple of months were higher than before the crash. The typical buy-and-hold investor didn't even make a year-on-year loss! It's only the day traders and johnny-come-latelies piling into stocks they didn't understand that got burned - oh, AND the trackers, who were heavily invested in bubble stocks because they dominated the indices ...

Cheers,
Wol