I secretly love the sort of declines we've seen in the market over the last few weeks. Obviously, portfolios take a battering, which is never a nice feeling - but it's from the wreckage that the best bargains are often found, and while I've no idea which direction the market may go in the coming few months, I am willing to wager I can find some fallen stars in the investing landscape right now. I don't indulge my curiosity in guessing which direction the market in general will move - there are far more experienced people attempting that sort of thing (and their success is debatable!) - and so I tend to disregard the level of the indices when looking at individual stocks. Sure, the prices may continue to tumble in the next couple of weeks. But equally, they may well start to rise - meaning I've missed the boat. If you're able to tell me with any certainty which it is, I advise you to stop reading blogs and start printing money! While it'd be great to look at all the potential investments in the market, it just isn't a feasible prospect; particularly at the moment. Hence, I scan down my screens and look for a few specifics to analyse. Usually I discard the ones I don't have time for, or stick them on a watchlist to see if they decline further and become even more interesting - but that always seemed a little wasteful. So, assuming I manage to keep this up, I'll aim to semi-regularly (read: at least monthly, sooner if the stocks are changing rapidly!) publish a list with a few that are particularly interesting to me at the moment - ones which I'm considering writing about. The list will be compiled completely unscientifically - I don't look at my screens and pick the top 10%, for instance. It's simply a case of looking for numbers which seem to glue together for an interesting story and keeping some sectoral diversity - it's when one really interests me that I start looking at its competitors and their valuations, and hence it makes sense for me to cast my net wide at this point. I should stress the list will be a tiny proportion of the great number of stocks which look interesting; once again, it's just a case of picking a few. Without further ado, here's…

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