So you have got your First Active shares - both free and through the qualifying members' allocation. What should you do if you haven't sold the shares already and taken advantage of the handy early premium?

Unless you badly need the money and are not under any immediate compulsion to repay the bank a loan you took out to buy additional shares, then the best advice is sit tight.

Once the early fizz goes out of the early trading in First Active shares, they are likely to trade in line with the rest of the market. That does not make them a short-term investment, as the prognosis for stock markets over the next few months is hardly promising.

But at some stage the markets will settle and when that happens quality financial stocks - and First Active whatever about the poor pricing of the flotation is a quality stock with little downside risk - will be the first to benefit from an upswing. Hold!