Alpesh Patel, trader, columnist, author and all-round expert, answers your questions about shares. You'll finds links to websites he mentions on the right-hand side of the page.

Peter Woodcock from Northampton says: "I would like to sell some shares without the hassle of starting up an account, because I will not be dealing in any shares once I've sold them. Does anybody do no-nonsense selling?"

Opening an account is about as no-nonsense as you can get.

If you're selling shares you still have to find a buyer, there needs to be a legal transfer of the title and that's what a stockbroker does for you.

What he really wants is a broker who is not going to charge an account opening fee, annual fee and is going to be very cheap.

The internet is the best place for something like this - someone like Idealing will do the transaction for about �10.

Some brokers say the minimum account has to be �2,000, but you'll find some of the cheapest brokers might say just open the account, you don't even need to put any money in.

Alex Russell has his eye an a couple of companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

He wants to invest a small amount in them - hundreds of pounds, not thousands. How should go about it?

Commission will eat into your investment, so if you are only going to invest a relatively small amount you have to invest it for a fairly long time to reduce the trading costs.

I'd say the minimum should be between �1,000 and �2,000. The smaller the amount the longer you've got to look at investing it.

There are some excellent websites - Yahoo Finance lists Australian stockbrokers and what the costs are so you can do a direct comparison.

And there are some Australian versions of names you'll recognise, like TD Waterhouse and E*Trade.

Once you get on to those broker sites, they'll give you information and data about how those stocks are doing, how the Australian All Ordinaries stock index is doing and things like that.

Ellen Jackson's mother has �600 in TSB shares. She's lost all her documents connected to them and wants to know how to go about getting new paperwork to prove she owns them.

This is a problem that many investors have when they have paper stock.

The good news is that all companies will have investor relations sections on their websites.

If you're not on the internet you can call up the company and ask to speak to the investor relations department.

They will help you with lost certificates, change of address, or if you want to transfer stocks to a relative.

There is a cost. If you've lost the certificate there is something called an indemnity certificate you'll have to sign which might cost �25 - �30.

You'll also need to provide insurance which might cost another �30.

But if you've got �600 worth of stock it's worth doing.

Investor relations, whichever company it is, is the best place to go for problems like these.

Dave Lane from Staffordshire is interested in penny shares. He wants to know the best place to find information about them?

Private investors generally take penny shares to mean anything between 1p and 20p.

There are lots of websites which give you this kind of information.

But beware, because while the stock can triple and quadruple in value, you might also get a Telewest, which fell from 100p to 2p.

Mrs Rowe from Sandy in Bedfordshire has a few shares in Anglian Water, British Gas and BT. She wants to know how she can find out the total number of shares in each company?

There are various websites which will tell you this. Or she could call up the company and ask the total number of shares they have issued and work out what proportion of that she holds.

She might find that she owns 0.0001% of Anglian Water or whatever.

Tony Watson from Kent asks if you can buy shares in a particular company just before the dividend is paid out, encash the said dividend then sell the shares straight away? Are there any rules about time periods etc?

Nice try, but somebody has thought about this already.

You've got to own the shares on a particular date at close of business to be eligible for the dividend. The next day they go ex-dividend.

If you sell them the next day, which is the earliest opportunity you would have, the share price has declined by the amount of the dividend you would have received so you'd be all square.

Unfortunately, there isn't a way round it.

James Ayres is a 15-year-old business studies student and is interested in investing in shares and the stock market. He wants to know if there is a minimum age to buy shares?

There is and for most brokers it should be 18. You do have your own Capital Gains Tax allowance, which is good news.

But some brokers will say your parents have to open an account and run it for you.

So on the whole, it tends to be 18, but some brokers will look at you if you are under that age.

It's good to get experience when you're young, starting with small amounts, and then you'll have lots of experience when you're in your 20s and 30s and doing it seriously.

Syed Zaidi says: "I have some shares in an American company, Medtronic, registered to my UK address. Could you please advise me the best, least costly, and safest way to sell them?

The good news is that there are a lot of American brokers based in the UK - TD Waterhouse, E*Trade, Imiweb.

You go to one of those, say you want to sell US stocks, open an account with them and commissions are relatively low and there's no stamp duty.

Raj Katechia has recently been on a seminar to get some knowledge about being a day trader. Is it worth him paying for a two-day course taking into account the market trends and the current climate?

Where has he been for the last three years?

I've seen quite of a few of these adverts. They give you three hours free then charge you �2,000 - �3,000 for two days of training.

The problem is that 90% of day traders lose money. Are you really going to spend every minute of your day in front of your computer screen? Don't you have a day job?

If you haven't got a day job and are going to be in front of your computer, you'll still need a lot of money to get a return you can live off.

Julia Revell from Surrey has some shares in Chelsea Village.

"In view of recent reports it seems that the new Russian owner ultimately wants to increase his holding from just over 50% to 100%," she writes.

"Do I have to sell my shares to him?"

This is the company which owns Chelsea Football Club - a lot of clubs are owned by holding companies.

The wonderful things about free market capitalism is that yes, she will have to sell.

If he acquires above a certain number of shares - I think it's 90% - then he can compulsorily purchase her shares at whatever the relevant price is.

If he's going to acquire 90% he'll probably be paying a good price for those shares, but yes, he can force her to sell to him.

Roy Butterworth wants to know what the difference is between a recommendation to buy a share and a recommendation to accumulate.

Banking analysts look at stocks and have a whole range of recommendations from buy, accumulate and hold down to sell.

The optimist would say he's not confident about the stock, but the cynic in me says he's just hedging his bets, he's not that sure.

There's a saying in the market that if you're not bearish and you're not bullish, it probably means you're rubbish.

There are thousand of stocks out there. If it's an accumulated stock, why go near it? Find one that's a buy.

Brian Huckle from Flintshire wants to know which tends to perform better managed funds or tracker funds ? Do the fees the differ between the two?

There is a group of people who believe you should always invest with a fund manager - that group is fund managers, oddly enough.

My personal view is the problem private investors face is they go for a fund manager based on the past three or five years' performance.

Immediately afterwards they tend to underperform and go back to the average, so just as you pick them they underperform.

I think you're far better off with trackers - not the traditional trackers; there are exchange traded funds which are a lot safer, I think.

Richard Timson wants to know what's happened to his shares in Energis. Since they were taken over by a company called Chelys he hasn't heard anything?

There are several shareholder lawsuits which are imminent against Chelys.

It was an investment vehicle headed by Archie Norman, the MP and former Asda boss, to buy out Energis because it was debt-laden and had been performing very poorly.

What it means is he will get a return if Chelys floats or sells Energis in the next seven years and they get more than �1.8bn.

There are a lot of ifs and buts - he might end up with nothing, he might get something.

There is a shareholder action group - have a look at its website for more details. There are something like 1,800 Energis shareholders who are part of that.

Andrew Hall from Windsor wants to know how the mid share price is calculated - he's often seen it quoted on various stock market charts.

It's halfway between the bid and the offer price - the price at which you buy and the price at which you sell; it's the halfway point.