The first to go will be IBNet, Smartlogik, Parthus, Marconi, Enterprise Asia and Wescol. Some of them are still good companies but we don't want to wait around. We're also dumping AEA Technology, a much larger holding, because we don't believe much is going to happen to its shares in the medium term The same can be said for IS Solutions. What remains of our portfolio will be split into two distinct parts.The first will be the aggressive fund targeting high-growth stocks with huge potential and huge risks. This will comprise 55 per cent of our total holding and will be split fairly evenly between technology stocks, life sciences and the whole services sector, including consultants and business services.
The other part will comprise solid old-economy stocks yielding at least 3.5 per cent in dividends. Here, too, we're targeting certain sectors, notably property-based firms, builders, and utilities looking to transform themselves into growth businesses.Turning to the aggressive portfolio, we're focusing on sectors undergoing revolutionary change, where customer demand is strong and margins are healthy, such as alternative energy, digital images and video, new life sciences and specialist software firms. We've already identified a number of key targets including the US digital content firm Adobe (a buy below $30, or £20) whose shares are, we think, beginning to feel cheap.We're also very keen on another US-based software firm, the financial risk-analysis specialist Barra. It has loads of cash on the balance sheet, an exemplary growth record, and all the benefits of having been the leading supplier of risk data over 20 years. We're waiting for the shares to fall back below $46.Serono is one of the few genuinely profitable biotech firms in the world to specialise in reproductive sciences. It has cornered the market in therapies used in IVF and has a reasonable P/E ratio for the sector.
We're avid buyers below $20 a share.Last but not least there's BioProgress, a firm that makes organic gelatin substitutes for use in capsules, vitamin pills and drugs. Its technology is now being sold on a licensing basis to big companies, and while at the moment these sales are pretty negligible, in a world full of vegetarians, we think there's a lucrative niche market there for the taking.. Moneynetmortgagessearch With mortgage rates now at their lowest for over 40 years, your existing home loan might be losing its lustre. It hasn't taken long for mortgage lenders to respond to the Bank of England's recent cut in interest rates. Thousands of home owners on standard variable rates (SVRs) will soon notice the effect as their monthly payments decrease. However, many of these people could make further savings by switching to a different product.
