The Japanese stock market, for instance, was tipped to be one of 1996's 053107 action htm star performers, which prompted a flurry of bonds investing in that part of the world. NatWest Life's Guaranteed Growth Plus Bond offers a similar minimum return of 125 foxnews per media2 foxnews com cent, but a maximum return of 170 053107 per cent, over five and a half years.Recently we foxnews have seen the htm launch of guaranteed-growth bonds investing in other markets. "It's aimed at people who want to com get into the stock market htm but who don't htm want to lose their shirts," said Ian Harper of GA Life. "The safety net means that investors never get less than action their money back as long as they invest for five years."Buyers of these products should com note that it is your capital that is "guaranteed", not the growth!One aspect of equity investment that holders of these bonds miss media2 out on are the dividends paid by many stocks but, then again, 053107 action htm the holders are not risking their money media2 (unlike those in income bonds linked to stock market performance).Another potential drawback is the fact that many media2 053107 of these "growth" bonds only com pay out a percentage of any growth in the stock market, in effect putting a cap on how much money investors can have.For instance, Black Horse Life's Premier Bond, which is available to new action investors until 16 May, offers the greater of either 125 per cent of the original investment or 60 per cent of any growth in the media2 foxnews com FT-SE 100 Index over the six-year term of the bond. However, if the stock foxnews market action falls, 053107 there will be no growth, just the return of the original capital.GA Life's Guaranteed Security Portfolio is a typical stock market-linked guaranteed growth bond.

Three-quarters of the fund is invested in equities, with the remaining 25 per cent in fixed-interest investments such as gilts. These offer investors the guarantee of their capital back, plus a percentage of growth according to how much the stock market has risen. "They are of most interest to those people who want to invest capital for a specific term in a low-risk environment such as those who are just approaching retirement and who, at the end of the term, plan to draw an income from their cash when they subsequently reinvest it into, say, an income bond or a corporate bond PEP."Guaranteed-growth bonds that offer a fixed gain at maturity should not be confused with guaranteed-growth bonds linked to the performance of the stock market. That means you must be prepared to sit out the full length of the bond's term to get the benefits.Locking in at the wrong fixed rate could also be a mistake if rates subsquently rise, leaving your return looking paltry. Despite that, the bonds issued this year have proven to be very popular."Guaranteed or low-risk investments are of interest to the majority of our customers, who are generally risk-averse," said Paul Stott of NatWest Life. Generally, you will forfeit any of the guarantees offered by the bonds if you are forced to cash them in early.

It will take products of rather more clout than Backbeat and The Neon Bible for its successor, Scala Productions, to win over backers contemplating a lesson obvious to every reader of The Egos Have Landed except its author.. Every so often Finney lambasts Channel 4's failure to invest in one mooted production or other, but there are times when one must wonder whether its funding of a movie - even the prospect of it - is in fact baleful. That small screen only exacerbates the British inability to think in terms of a movie proper.The crash of Palace need not vex posterity. After the twist in the plot and Forrest Whittaker's bravura performance, there is nothing in it that requires a large screen. On the one hand we have the likes of Blood Simple, Paris Texas and When Harry Met Sally; on the other, there is that clunker Absolute Beginners, which anybody could have seen was a no-no from the start, and movie after movie rooted in television - indeed, so many of them demanded a six-pack within easy reach that Adrian Turner was understating the case with his celebrated remark that a typical Palace movie comprises "fast cars, loud music and blow jobs".The initial lack of interest here in The Crying Game was surely the right one.