Apparently I am not the only client who has postponed the evil moment.* MY PREDICTION last week that in these uncertain times unfashionable sectors such as Building and Construction will begin to find favour produced a flurry of e-mails, mostly agreeing with the premiss. Here’s a typical comment from reader Noel Ashworth:”You confirm my view that stock markets are for the insane! Over 12 months ago I looked at Sage and Henderson Technology but decided not to invest because their share prices had almost doubled in the previous six weeks. On the basis that if you see a bandwagon you have missed it, I bought Beazer and Redrow instead. In the following months the techs doubled or trebled again while the builders sank by 25 per cent. I have hung on in spite of everything and wake up this week to see builders being chased up and you tipping the sector as if it were the lost ark.”If these share movements were caused by mug punters I could understand it but presumably the volume which caused these swings comes from smart suits What are they thinking about?”Put it another way.

An investment manager looked at his screen last Wednesday and saw that he had £1m in Matalan and was happy to leave it invested. Twenty-four hours later he was desperate to get out for £500,000 This can’t make sense. I have wiser sheep flocking around in the fields that surround me. You are all mad! But not as mad , perhaps, as the managers and actuaries at Equitable Life!”You are absolutely right Noel, as Matalan shareholders now realise one day can be a very long time in stock market terms. In this rock ‘n’ roll era it is more than ever important never to try to beat the market Your investment philosophy should be simple. Buy shares with a good track record and prestige products that are difficult to copy.

Make sure the company’s profits are rising steadily, buy for the long term and ignore overall market fluctuations.Incidentally, if you were a 14 year old girl at a rather posh private school in Surrey, a fair interpretation of Noel’s opinion would be the following: “The stock market is pants. It bites.” I am indebted to Tiwi Urquhart Stewart, daughter of Barclays Stockbrokers dynamo Justin, for the translation.* terry.bond hemscott . Railway workers will be prosecuted for negligence after this week’s publication by the Health and Safety Executive of its report into the causes of the Hatfield train crash in which four people died last October. Railway workers will be prosecuted for negligence after this week’s publication by the Health and Safety Executive of its report into the causes of the Hatfield train crash in which four people died last October.
A 20-strong team of British Transport Police has been examining the circumstances which led to the disaster and has identified a series of mistakes which will be highlighted in the executive’s report.

Staff from Railtrack and its contractor, Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance, are expected to face charges of negligence.Balfour Beatty has lost the contract to maintain the East Coast line, on which the Hatfield crash occurred, it was announced last week. Instead, Railtrack named a rival company, Jarvis Facilities, as preferred bidder for the line.The executive will conclude that the defect in the track was first discovered in November 1999 and reported to the local maintenance engineer for Balfour Beatty The information was passed to Railtrack a few days later. However, neither Balfour Beatty nor Railtrack imposed a temporary speed restriction. It is this decision that will attract most criticism from the executive.The work to repair the track was supposed to have been carried out last May during a scheduled closure of the line, but the task was left half done because a machine that would have speeded up the work never arrived on site.Another fundamental mistake was made when the line was tested by ultrasound in June.