Would you invest in your favourite sports team? What about backing a mobile phone app or your favourite TV chef in an attempt to earn some extra interest on your cash? New breeds of investment have captured the imagination and allow you to take a punt on trendy, aspirational British businesses, as well as more established names.

The company is focused on supplying the lucrative commercial and industrial part of the energy market and dedicated to generating strong returns for shareholders. At 102½p, the stock should produce decent returns over the next few years. India desperately needs more electricity. Demand is growing and state-owned energy companies cannot keep up. There are routine power cuts, hitting businesses and consumers daily.

The junior market has given us big names such as ASOS and Majestic Wines, but overall its performance leaves little to celebrate - the whole index has lost 18 per cent over the past two decades. We take a look at AIM's history and highlight five funds to gain exposure to the risky but rewarding world of fledgling firms.

The Alternative Investment Market - also known as AIM - celebrates its 20th birthday on Friday. And while the stock market for small companies has come on leaps and bounds since 1995 investing in it is still as risky as ever. AIM is home to 1,100 fledgling companies. For them, it's a great first step in to the stock market. It allows them to sell shares to raise vital funding to grow their business further. Listing on AIM, rather than on the FTSE, is also easier - there is no requirement to have been trading for three years, or to issue a minimum number of shares, and the disclosure rules are less stringent.

Of course, with investors cottoning on to the allure of Asia, stock markets in countries like India and China have raced ahead leading to inevitable questions about rising valuations and bubbles brewing. Here are four key things you need to know about investing for income in Asia.

A clear strategy is a key element of active fund investing but sometimes an alternative route is also necessary. Fund managers need to be savvy to navigate potential problems brewing and that's where some different contrarian thinking can pay off. We reveal six fund manager's unusual thoughts.

In the latest episode of The Investing Show, we're joined by fund manager Chris White, of Premier Asset Management, to take a look at how to spot a good income investment. Also up for discussion is how to spot a share that's on the move and some income investment trust bargains.

Pre-tax profit rose to £600m for the 52 weeks to March 28, from £580m, on group sales of £10.3bn. But earnings still fell short of rival Next, and are half the £1bn M&S; posted in 2007. As a consequence, Britain's biggest clothing retailer was able to announce plans this week to return £150m to investors through a share buyback programme. It also increased the final dividend by 7.4 per cent to 11.6p, taking the full year pay-out up 5.9 per cent to 18p. That is some reward for long-suffering shareholders - but the key questions are how Marks was able to do this and whether the performance is sustainable.

'Sell in May and go away, stay away till St Leger Day' is a timeworn piece of advice to investors, but no financial pundit has ever proved whether it's true or not. Instead of engaging in this dusty debate, we prefer to focus on which shares are likely to do well this summer and beyond, however the wider market performs. Ian Forrest, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, suggests five stocks that look a good buy right now and recaps how our summer share tips from last year performed.

There are 465 solar farms in Britain, and 184 of these sprung up last year. As a result, investing in renewable energy has become increasingly popular - particularly as they pay a reliable income of around 6 per cent a year. That far outstrips anything you can get from a bank savings account and is double what a ten-year UK government bond pays.

In the latest episode of The Investing Show, we take a look at what's actually in the FTSE 100 and whether investors should buy in. We also discuss the best UK bank shares and their prospects and take a look at whether there is any wisdom in the old Sell in May adage.

In today's mad world, negative yields mean that investors are buying bonds guaranteed to lose them money if held to maturity. Here, they pay for the privilege of lending money. That's prompted bond king Bill Gross to rail again at 'the less than commonsensical notion that a global debt crisis can be cured with more and more debt.' We would be wise to at least consider his words.

China is firmly gripped by stock market fever. The country's mainland index, the Shanghai Composite has been on a tear, up more than 120 per cent in the last year and hitting its highest level for seven years. Some say this is just a preview of things to come, others warn of an impending bubble. Maike Currie takes a look.

Bonds are attracting masses of savers' cash - trade body the Investment Association reported that £130million flooded into these funds in February alone. But their popularity is making these precarious investments ever more risky. Jon Mawby, manager of the GLG Strategic Bond fund, is looking at countries such as Australia and Canada because they haven't had bouts of monetary stimulus skewing valuations.

Deryn and Derek Hemment were told by Capita they must buy an 'indemnity' against their lost Compass share certificates being used fraudulently - though they are innocent of mislaying the documents or of any wrongdoing. The pair can't trade their shares in the FTSE 100-listed catering giant until they get replacement share certificates, but they are being refused them until the indemnity issue is sorted. The Hemments insist Capita should foot the indemnity bill, because the loss of their certificates was down to the firm posting such valuable documents second class.

Higher volatility is thought to indicate greater uncertainty about performance, and all funds have to use a standard measure to help investors grasp the risks. This ranks funds from band one for the lowest risk to band seven for the highest - but research by Rplan has found some 40 per cent or 1,016 of the funds available in the UK are bunched up together in band six. A further 50 per cent or 1,275 of funds are split almost exactly between bands five and four.

Why are there half a dozen or more versions of the same fund listed on the performance tables, followed with abbreviations like Acc, Inc, No Trail, R, I, and Z? What do these all mean? How do I know which version of a fund I want to buy?

Some popular investment funds are so big that providers are actively obstructing keen investors from putting in more money. Why do managers 'soft close' their funds, and which are most likely to shut in future?

Investors have the opportunity for higher returns with commission-free 'clean funds', which are mostly cheaper than the old kind. But fund providers have given their clean funds a baffling array of new names - so how do you track them down?

Financial advisers warn so-called 'closet trackers' are all too common, and investors need to stay alert to avoid shelling out high fees for passive performance. We look at how to spot these index-huggers masquerading as active funds - and whether you're better off just buying a real tracker fund anyway.

For more than 20 years, Mr Woodford has been a renowned investor in big FTSE 100 firms, but now he is turning his attention to a fund for smaller companies. Based in Oxfordshire, the Patient Capital Trust will help finance early-stage firms, many of which will have a science and medical bias. This makes the trust quite a risky punt since many start-up firms fail.

The UK has produced some of the world's most powerful companies and best-known brands. But are the glory days of the FTSE 100 stalwarts a thing of the past? From Rolls-Royce to Centrica to Burberry, we look at some iconic names for investors to watch.

How can you tell where the best investment opportunities lie amid all this controversial deal-making in the pharma sector? Stock experts explain the main issues that potential investors need to know about the industry and offer their share tips. For those lured by the money-making prospects of pharma but who prefer not to invest directly in stocks, we also profile a specialist healthcare investment trust.

The tobacco industry is as controversial as ever, with rows raging about plain packaging and these new-fangled 'e-cigarettes'. The shares of British giants BAT and Imperial have struggled over the past year or so, but is there now a case to invest - and which one should you buy?

Freedoms introduced in April to give pension savers more choice over where they put their money at retirement have resulted in several asset managers claiming they now offer investment funds perfect for the new landscape. And wealth manager Brooks Macdonald is keen to emphasise the pension friendliness of its Defensive Capital Fund, which aims to increase clients' capital by investing in a mix of bonds and low-risk assets.