ALL right, election over...it's safe to come out now.

Members of the Ridings investment Club Holdings re-emerged to survey the scene after little pre-election direction from them and what do you know? The value of the RICH unit progressed over the month, from £2.59 in April to £2.82 - as usual, staying ahead of the FTSE.

Good performers included Great Universal Stores bought at £3.54 and now £6.22 as well as Minmet, though in the "very speculative" basket rising from its original price tag of 14p to 18p.

The main loser was Railtrack, bought at £4.68, and at the time of the RICH meeting this month worth £3.54. Now they've instigated a stop loss to avoid a rout if the sceptics are right and the price drops further.

But the members - mostly canny ex-managers of Nestl in York - completely ditched Slough Estates which they had bought in at £3.79 in May 2000 but now dipped below the trigger-line of £3.90 and so was sold at £3.83, preserving a small profit.

New stop-losses to trigger sale of stock were set for Royal Bank of Scotland at £15.50; Vodafone £1.60; Tesco £2.30; BAe £2.80; Morrison £1.80; Turbo Genset £4; Matalan £3.50; Jarvis £3.50; Protherics 30p; Medisys 75p; Slough Estates £3.90; Arcadia £2.50; GUS £5.50; MMI £1; Dixon Motor Group £1.70; ARM £2; Minmet 12p; and Railtrack £3.

Investments? It was agreed to split about 60 per cent of available cash into Moss Bros and Express Dairies in the full knowledge that share values can go down as well as up.

So why Moss Bros, when it has recently posted a loss of about £17 million? Because Shami Ahamed, the entrepreneur behind Joe Bloggs Jeans had been buying its shares through his own investment company - just the man to turn Moss Bros's misfortune into fortune.

And they picked Express Dairies, convinced that the foot and mouth disease crisis which had put it in the doldrums was now past its worst...