Anybody have experience in investing in virtual world banks/businesses/markets (such as those in SecondLife.com etc)? Do they provide a serious way of making a sensible risk/reward on five or six figure investments? I have found discussion of investing in virtual worlds in this article for example which concludes its very high risk but maybe someone has heard of a viable diversification strategy out there?

How would a private UK citizen, living and working in the UK, with no financial connection to the US, go about buying a few thousand dollars of shares in a NASDAQ-listed company? Talk to my broker, right? Where should my broker be? In the US or the UK? Any specific broker recommendations? Any tax/duty issues of which I need to be aware? Any other advice?

UKSharesFilter: Some of my relatives have had a small selection of the shares in an inherited portfolio disappear over time from their online tracker, so my question is what has happened to the following stocks: CHB.L; GAA.L; MFBUEUGI.L and MFBUTRU.L, and should they have received any notification, documents or even cheques, (and what can be done about finding out more)? (I should clarify that they still have the certificates and haven't sold, traded or otherwise physically disposed of them, it's the listing themselves that now come up as 'No Such Symbol' on the internet listing of the portfo