No investor should forget "comet stocks" like Poseidon, Polly Peck and Bre-X. If you want rocket-propelled excitement, growth shares are probably your bag. Technology stocks like Misys, Admiral and Eidos would have given you a run for your money in the past year, having comfortably doubled in that time.But remember the wealth warning from the regulator clearly displayed on every investment wrapper: "Past performance is not necessarily a guide to the future." Shares that shoot up one minute, or even for years, can crash down again in short order. Better still, test the water with a collective fund like an investment or unit trust which spreads the risk for a modest investment.More adventurous types will quickly become bored with this. How much can we afford to lose? The resulting figure should represent our pot for speculation.Then ask: "How big a gambler am I really?" If you are still uncertain, safe blue chips like Marks & Spencer or Barclays may be the biggest risk you should take. The stock market rewards the patient, the committed and the steely-nerved.

There are ways to get rich quick through shares and their racier derivatives, but don't think you can just invest and forget. Penny shares, warrants, options and the like require a semi-professional approach and constant vigilance. They are not for the faint hearted.The rest of us - prepared to put some effort into picking shares, but not to spend every waking hour worrying about it - need to do some soul- searching. October itself probably gave investors the biggest rollercoaster ride since that infamous October of 1987 and its Black Monday meltdown. Madge's pounds 5,000 invested on 6 October in that nice Mr Branson's Virgin tracker fund would have been looking a rather deflated pounds 4,627 by the end of the month - a heart-stopping pounds 373 loss in 29 days. If you had been desperate for cash in early November you would probably have been put off equity investment for life.Which brings us to lesson two.

I hope it has whetted your appetite, or added to your knowledge At least a few lessons should be clear. The first is that stocks and shares remain one of the best ways to enhance your savings. In the six months this column has run, the stock market, as measured by the FT-SE All Share index, has risen by over 9 per cent. Had you popped that pounds 5,000 inheritance from Auntie Madge into a fund that mirrors the market, like Virgin Direct's UK Index Tracking unit trust, back in October you would now be pounds 490 richer, before charges. The safety-first approach of stuffing the cash in a bank or building society account would have left you with a little over pounds 180 in interest. Even in these economically prudent times, inflation would have eaten up around half of that modest sum.Of course, the stock market has had its ups and downs since we began. Meanwhile, there seems no advantage in rushing to start a new Tessa now.. Capital from a maturing Tessa can be switched into an ISA, but money put into a new Tessa now will be tied in for the full five years.This should mean ISA cash accounts will offer slightly lower interest rates than a Tessa to compensate for the greater flexibility.

AFTER 24 weeks of unravelling the mysteries of the stock market for the novice investor, it is time for this column to call it a day. Providers might also offer a choice of fixed-rate and variable-rate cash ISAs That remains to be seen, however. By contrast, investors will be able to put pounds 3,000 into a new ISA deposit account in 1999-2000, and a further pounds 1,000 a year for the next nine years, to make a total of pounds 12,000.Crucially, investors will also be able to take their money out of a cash ISA account whenever they need it, without forfeiting the tax-free advantages. After April 2000 the annual limit for investing in an ISA will still be pounds 5,000, including pounds 1,000 in a cash account, and the whole ISA programme will run for 10 years.Meanwhile, what should Tessa investors be doing? Tessas were born in 1991, four years later than PEPs. Even fixed-rate Tessas, which turned out to be more attractive than their variable rate versions, have lost their charms.After April 1999 no new Tessas will be allowed, although any Tessa started before then can continue to attract up to pounds 1,800 a year and a maximum of pounds 9,000 over a full five-year term. But Tessas were immediate stars and raked in pounds 25bn in little more than a year, while PEPs had to wait for a stock market boom to become really glamorous.In recent years, however, Tessas have been neglected and unloved as rates of interest dwindled and investors found themselves locked in by the Treasury rules which force holders to keep their Tessas for five years or forfeit their tax-free status.

Whether this is a wise moment to invest only time will tell. Gordon Brown has also sweetened the start of the Individual Savings Accounts by allowing investors to put up to pounds 7,000 into an ISA in year one, from April 1999 to April 2000, including up to pounds 3,000 in a tax-free deposit account. According to some estimates three-quarters of a million people who have been waiting to see whether the Witch would win will now push up to pounds 1bn into PEPs in the next two weeks, keeping PEP providers burning the midnight oil to get applications processed in time. Savers will now be able cheerfully to put their full entitlements of up to pounds 9,000 into PEPs for the current financial year and next, safe in the knowledge that it will not affect their ability to invest in an Individual Savings Account. With a wave of his wand Gordon Brown protected all existing PEPs from tax for ever, and banished the Witch's threat of retrospective taxation on holdings in excess of pounds 50,000.