It's my dads 50th in a few months and one of our ideas is to buy him shares in these two companies.

I'm pretty clueless when it comes to shares etc, so can anybody give me an idea how's the best way to do this given the fact that they're both American companies?
Are they even stock listed??

We're looking at buying £500 worth of shares for each company.

Andy.

Just out of curiosity but why these companies?

Starbuck has long since reached saturation point........I can onlysee it going one way..down IMHO of course

Would not invest in any coffee shop companies.... their time has come.

Saturation point?? Saturation point?????

Just wait till we launch our new range of coffee-infused clothing, a bit like scratch and sniff with the additional benefit of a caffeine fix. It's our latest plan in the quest for world domination!! :D

Got to agree with the suprise about buying shares in coffee shops. Whilst I have no doubt that Starbucks have a long future, mainly due to their size, I expect to see consolidation in the industry, and less rather than more coffee shops on the High Street. However I have been wrong in the past!

We chose these two due to the fact that my dad always spends his free time in either one or the other.

Any advice on how I can buy the shares?

Andy.

Charles Schwab let you open a US dealing account.

Andy,

I spend bucket loads of money in Marks & Spencers. So i bought their shares at £3.58 each about six months ago. Today's price? £2.73.

Equities are *not* the way forward, even if they are your "pet" companies. In fact, buying into a company just because you happen to "like" it is perhaps one of the more irrational reasons, imo.

True, it was just one of our ideas for a present and I wanted to see how easy it would be to buy the shares.

Having said that, if the prices keep going down we may even be able to buy both companies for £500 ;) :D

Andy.