When maths wizard Jake Waddington has finished his school work for the day he likes nothing more than to catch up on the latest movements in the stock market.

The nine-year-old, of Clayton Heights, is a self-confessed number cruncher, who would rather read the Financial Times than a comic.

And when he's not looking at the latest share listings he's brushing up on his maths skills, or picking out Lottery numbers for his parents.

His mum Janet, who runs Ye Olde Paper Shoppe in Queensbury with husband Jim, said: "He's a big Newcastle United fan, so he looks to see how their shares are doing. But he also keeps up to date with Bradford companies - he's been following Pace Micro for the last couple of months.

"He's a very special boy, a little number cruncher who just seems to have a talent for figures. We let him pick our Lottery numbers one week and four of them came up. Now all our customers want him to pick theirs, they say they want a bit of his magic too."

His dad Jim added: "He loves school, especially maths lessons. Some little boys pick up comics, Jake prefers to read a newspaper. If we ever decided to put our money into stocks and shares I'm sure he'd be willing to give us some advice."

The Hill Top First School pupil certainly seems to have the Midas touch. His latest achievement has been to win a new computer for the school by entering a competition in the Telegraph & Argus.

The youngster said: "I'm a member of the T&A's Press Gang. I saw the competition to win school computer vouchers and all you had to do was solve a word puzzle, so I decided to enter. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't think I would win."

The competition was organised in association with Tesco. And representatives from the supermarket chain were at Hill Top First School yesterday to present headteacher Steve Hannam with 2,500 computer vouchers.

Mr Hannam said: "Parents and staff have been saving the vouchers for some time and we have managed to collect 4,800. Thanks to Jake we now have enough to buy a new lap top.''

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.