This extra space and the continued roll-out of new stores ought to keep the company growing throughout any consumer downturn. Hold.ARENAArena Leisure is the owner of six of the country's busiest racecourses, accounting for 25 per cent of all UK fixtures. It has slimmed down its At The Races digital channel, which ought to break even in 2006, and with regulators demanding more professionalism in racing, Arena is well positioned for the long-term. Its shares are still a gamble, but they are an odds-on favourite.Local papers look like bad newsTHEY SAY that today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper. Buy the shares, too.HALFORDSHalfords, the car accessories and cycles retailer with 397 stores, has been introducing mezzanine floors in its warehouses, adding anything up to an extra 33 per cent of selling space.

The must-have "Roxannes" in coconut matte glove (that's a big white handbag to you and me) have been flying off the shelves so fast this spring that sales have overshot expectations. Worth a punt.BURREN ENERGYThe oil company that focuses on the Caspian region and West Africa has released a set of highly impressive maiden results, delivered thanks to an increase in production of 74 per cent to 14,200 barrels of oil per day. It has no plans to stop there - Burren wants to drive production to 24,000 barrels by the end of the year to take advantage of rocketing oil prices. Buy.MULBERRYNo self-respecting fashionista has to think twice about whether to bag the latest leather offering from Mulberry. Intermediate specialises in mezzanine finance, a mixture of debt and equity for buy-out vehicles. Hold.CENES PHARMACEUTICALSThis has one of the thinner pipelines of potential products in the UK biotech sector: just two drugs in human trials Its most advanced, M6G, is a new version of morphine The science will speak for itself in the end.

Investors must not put more on CeNeS shares than they can afford to lose.DAT GROUPShares in this mobile telecoms software provider have more than tripled since the company floated in December. Its great hope for growth lies in the success of Tabella, a new platform designed to rival the successful Blackberry system, which gives users remote access to e-mail, internet and other data systems DAT owns an 80 per cent stake in Tabella. Buy.SEVERN TRENTWith more than 75 per cent of the group's profits coming from the highly regulated water industry, Severn Trent's performance has been solid. New, higher prices can be introduced this year so the industry can invest in the country's water infrastructure.

A vigorous new management team at Severn ought to be able to make these improvements efficiently in order to return as much as possible to shareholders. Buy.INTERMEDIATE CAPITALIt has been a busy year for this finance house. It provided £85m for the £1.75bn buy-out of the AA from Centrica, and a similar amount to back the acquisition of Saga. Meanwhile, it cashed in its stakes in Pinewood Studios and Halfords, which both floated in 2004. Natural disasters have helped to reinforce premium rates, and Kiln promised a dividend of 3p (a fivefold increase on last year) for the remainder of the insurance cycle. An average of 1,800 people a day signed up to NETeller last year, and it made £45m from its cut of transactions.

We tipped the stock after its flotation last April and it has more than tripled.Nervous investors will want to make sure the company is keeping control of administrative costs, but the opportunities continue to outweigh risks for investors with a bit of gambling money available. NETeller has just made an acquisition of a payments company in the Far East that will allow it to expand into gambling-mad China, where its expertise in cross-currency transactions puts it ahead of the local banks. Keep buying.KILNAn insurance underwriter specialising in marine, aviation and special-risk insurance lines, Kiln was badly stung by last year's US hurricanes, but its profitability is still one of the best in its sector. Others are run on the judgement of a single manager, and some use computer-driven programmed trades that, once set up, work without human intervention..