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In an exciting twist in the Race to £10,000 challenge, our investing monkey has catapulted from fourth to first place after a remarkable stock investment surged over 1,000 percent in just two days.
In collaboration with Daily Mail, This is Money has provided £500 to five experts from various fields, along with our unique investing monkey, tasking them with the goal of transforming it into £10,000 as swiftly as possible.
This intriguing experiment aims to uncover how feasible it is to amass a substantial sum of money and identify the most effective strategies to achieve it.
By week three, the investing monkey, managed by the This is Money team and relying on randomly selected penny stocks, has taken the lead due to a fortunate streak in its investment choices.
This unexpected success has propelled it past antiques dealer Gordon Kennedy, who managed to double his investment by purchasing a granite pestle and mortar for £35 and selling it for £70 at the Norfolk Antiques Fair.
Meanwhile, curiosity abounds about the progress of our vintage clothes reseller, as well as the participants trading in cryptocurrencies and the stock market. How are they faring in this race?
Let’s catch up with our contestants.
Remember, this is not a guide to investing that we expect readers to copy. Trying to make quick money is never a smart way to invest. Any profits made will go to charity.
Investing Monkey
Cheap, high-risk stocks
Total: £647
Our stock market dabbling monkey had a tremendous week, making £155 in the past seven days. It started the week with a £7 loss at £492.83.
Operating on the blindfold principle, the Money Mail team used a random number generator website to choose ten penny stocks from a list of the top 100 most traded companies with shares below $5 on Yahoo Finance.
Shock lead: The investing monkey, run by Money Mail, invests in randomly picked penny stocks
Its biggest win came from a 1,000 per cent plus increase in shares in tech and AI company Xiao-i between Friday and yesterday. Shares in the artificial intelligence firm soared from $0.2 when markets opened on Monday to a peak of $2.35 on Tuesday afternoon – a staggering 1,074 pc increase.
This came after China’s Supreme People’s Court denied a petition from US tech giant Apple to invalidate Xiao I’s artificial intelligence patents. The ruling closes the door for Apple to challenge these patents through appeals in future, and marks a major win for Xiao I.
Over the past week, shares in the Nasdaq listed company have jumped 1,560 pc.
The Chinese company’s patents cover cognitive AI technologies, including natural language understanding, voice interaction systems, and machine learning algorithms. It had claimed that Apple used its part of its AI technology without permission.
Xiao I shares peaked at $68 in August 2023 shortly after it was listed on US tech market the Nasdaq. They then crashed down and have remained below $10 since May 2024, following a wave of regulatory pressures and a high debt burden.
But any prospective investors should proceed with caution. Penny stocks are hugely volatile and can make for dangerous investments because they are highly speculative. This means they can often lead to rapid losses.
As the companies tend to be much smaller, investors can lack public information.
Another winner in the monkey’s portfolio was aerospace and defence technology company Sidus Space. Its share price surged 76 pc over the past week, potentially buoyed by Nasa’s launch of Artemis II last Wednesday.
Antiques dealer Gordon Kennedy doubled his money on a pestle and mortar
Antiques dealer
Gordon Kennedy, antiques expert
Total: £595
Antiques dealer Gordon Kennedy has continued his run of sales this week.
The antiques expert picked up a granite pestle and mortar last Wednesday for £35 from a private seller. Gordon was able to double his money on the kitchen item, selling it on Friday for £70 at the Norfolk Antiques Fair.
He says: ‘The pestle and mortar was a nice green colour and had a good bit of age to it so I could get a good price for it.’
The sale takes his total profit to £95.
He currently has £325 in cash, which he plans to spend on more items, alongside £270 worth of antiques.
This includes two cast stone garden lion statues, a florist basket and an unusual Windsor chair.
Speaking about his strategy over the coming week, he says: ‘I would have liked to have sold some of these bits so I may swap them for other items when I see other antiques dealers. And I plan to use the cash and buy more items.’
Vintage fashion reseller Jess Morton is third – she has listed 25 items on online marketplaces
Fashion reseller
Jess Morton, vintage clothes reseller
Total: £562.50
In third is Jess Morton, vintage clothes reseller, who says she has been busy splitting her purchases into bundles to sell online over the coming weeks.
She says: ‘I’ve focused on photographing and listing my items this week. I’ve also been creating bundles that are ready to list.
‘When I manage to get stock really cheap and they’re items I know won’t sell at a large profit, I tend to bundle them up and sell them together. It’s a quick way of selling stock and generating cash.’
Jess says she has listed about 25 items on online marketplaces such as Vinted, eBay and Depop. In bundles, she will usually sell five to eight items together, all of which are roughly the same size.
Crypto trader
Will Nutting, NutStuff founder
Total: £495
Crypto currency trader Will Nutting, of investment newsletter Nutstuff, has lost £14 in the past seven days.
He says: ‘On the surface nothing has happened but in a fearful and volatile market £500 has become £495.’
Will started off with £100 in Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, which is up 5.3 pc so far.
However, his investments in digital tokens Helium and Acurast are down 15.2 pc and 14.9 pc, respectively.
These are known as ‘DePIN’, which stands for decentralised physical infrastructure networks. Will explains: ‘In simple terms, these are “people-powered networks”, where ordinary people contribute real-world resources, such as internet coverage, computer processing power or smartphone capacity and get paid for it in digital tokens.’
He adds: ‘These phases always feel uncomfortable just before they reverse, when what looks weak is actually about to do well and what looks strong is often already crowded.’
Simon Lambert bought Staffline and Capricorn Energy
Shares investor
Simon Lambert, publisher, This is Money
Total: £473.47
Investing in the stock market has yet to pay off for This is Money’s Simon Lambert. He gained £3 this week, but remains £26.53 down since the start of the contest.
A £100 investment in UK recruiting firm Staffline has dropped to £95.76, losing 4.24 pc.
His most recent buy UK oil firm Capricorn Energy, was up 2.19 pc on Tuesday. He says: ‘My hope is that it should benefit from the higher oil price.’
Sports bettor
Kevin Quigley, Sports content producer
Total: £262 Loss: £238
In last place is sports bettor Kevin Quigley, who has lost £238 in total. ‘At this point it feels like a joke, I lost every single bet. I’ve never lost so many in a row,’ he says.
‘England lost to Japan (the first Asian team to ever beat England) and Netherlands drew against Ecuador. I had four bets on the England game and all lost.’
Kevin’s luck went from bad to worse when it came to the boxing. He says: ‘I Had Pat Brown to win in round one or two versus Vasil Ducar and another bet for him to win in rounds five or six. He won in round eight.’
The sports bettor will be hoping his fortunes turn at the Grand National this week and will be putting money on Champions League and Premier League football matches.
He says: ‘This week I NEED my luck to change. I need to bet bigger now and get some wins.’
j.beard@dailymail.co.uk
