Stocks & Shares Platforms to Invest

Open up an ISA (now NISA) and invest in stocks and shares within it.

You need to watch out for fees though. I signed up with HL.co.uk with a charge of £11.95 per deal (quite high) but it's payable both on purchase and sale of shares, so it's really £24. Find one with a low dealing charge and no ongoing fees (or very little fees).

If you're just interested in building a portfolio then you can open a share builder account which charges £2 a trade, but only buys on 4 days a month (ish).

I thought if you put money into a stocks and shares ISA, you have no control over where your money is invested, rather the company that offers the ISA uses your money themselves?

Nope, that is completely wrong.

The Stocks & Shares ISA is just a tax wrapper. You put your money into the wrapper and then decide where that money then gets invested. You could in theory leave all your money as cash within the wrapper, or you could invest it (or a combination thereof).

Check out: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Nope, that is completely wrong.

The Stocks & Shares ISA is just a tax wrapper. You put your money into the wrapper and then decide where that money then gets invested. You could in theory leave all your money as cash within the wrapper, or you could invest it (or a combination thereof).

Check out: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

So with the stocks & shares ISA are there fees involved when purchasing/choosing where your money is invested at all? If not, why would people go elsewhere and pay a commission (i.e. £10 per execution)?

Which stocks & shares ISA have you used and reccommend?

Spread betting is tax free here anyway, so no real need to waste your ISA allowance in the majority of places.

Some platforms charge an execution fee, some a commission fee on the amount stored within and some a monthly fee.

If a platform has no commision/monthly fee.. the execution fee is likely to be higher, and visa-versa.

Personally I use Hargreaves Lansdown. Its one of the more expensive platforms but is far more user friendly and the customer service has consistently been praised, perfect for beginner investors.

I also like it because it charges no execution fee for buying funds (perfect for monthly saving/investing) and charges a commission of the fund value instead (About £1 per month for every £2500 invested in my experience).

There are cheaper platforms, and it all depends how much customer service you want, and whether you will be saving/investing a small amount each month or buying in a large lump sum.

That monthly commission is next to nothing! I'll check them out, I've always liked the idea of day trading, earning a few percent and then closing the position, but the reality is that I don't think I have enough capital to invest as the fees seem to cancel out any small gains that are made. I guess that's the problem with learning from practice accounts and the "$100,000" they give you from the off

Thanks for your help, much appreciated!

Hi,

I've been meaning to invest a few thousand into the market for a while, although I have always had the trouble of being picky on the platform I wish to use.

I've had practice trading accounts on sites such as Investopedia for a few years, and have recently finished a trading challenge a company setup in my university, both of which I have had good experiences in.

Now is the time that I have time on my hands, and money in my pockets, and I want to know if anyone here has been there and done that and could give advice.

I have looked at platforms such as plus500, and eToro, although after looking at these, they do not seem to offer a wide variety of shares/stocks to invest in, and with eToro they only have a select few big brand public firms and even these are CFD's (Contracts for Difference) meaning that you only make profit from the difference in the buy and sell price.

What I'm really looking for is a platform where the whole market is available to me, whether it be a large firm or a small firm. I'm not really interested in FOREX, just stocks and commodities.

So any help would be hugely appreciated,

Cheers!

I thought if you put money into a stocks and shares ISA, you have no control over where your money is invested, rather the company that offers the ISA uses your money themselves?

Yeah I have noticed that there are various fees involved. I've looked at the share builder accounts and due to the fact that you can only buy (and assuming sell) on certain dates, it would be more useful for a long term investment/portfolio rather than day trading.

And is the only difference between the share builder account and platforms like HL.co.uk the fact that you can buy and sell immediately on the latter?

Personally I use Hargreaves Lansdown. Its one of the more expensive platforms but is far more user friendly and the customer service has consistently been praised, perfect for beginner investors.

I also like it because it charges no execution fee for buying funds (perfect for monthly saving/investing) and charges a commission of the fund value instead (About £1 per month for every £2500 invested in my experience).

There are cheaper platforms, and it all depends how much customer service you want, and whether you will be saving/investing a small amount each month or buying in a large lump sum.

Just out of curiosity, and don't answer if you don't want to, what returns have you yielded to date with Hargreaves Lansdown?

Why would that be relevant at all? It would entirely depend on which shares/funds/whatever you'd invested in.. not which platform you'd used.

I worded that wrong, just interested in the differences in returns yielded from a stocks & shares ISA in comparison with a standard cash ISA. And yes I know the differences can vary due to your decisions within the former, just wanted to see the differences in both your experiences.

That's great, going to spend a fair amount of time researching all this!

Just out of curiosity, and don't answer if you don't want to, what returns have you yielded to date with Hargreaves Lansdown?

It has nothing to do with the broker, it has everything to do with how you invest and in what. Personally I consider ISAs to be a waste of time, the majority of dealings you can do through an ISA can be done through an offshore business at similar costs and deductions, you still owe tax were applicable on international shares and UK shares are tax free up to a certain threshold that you can't hit in an ISA anyway.

Personally I do the majority of trading through my Dubai Holding Company with offshoots in Singapore and the UK for tax efficiency, then again I'm dealing with larger trades with more money at stake than those playing with ISAs.

Once again I must recommend Barclays Stockbrokers for the UK and all major exchanges as it's the most cost effective within the UK from what I can tell especially if you intend to day trade, Mubasher Trade for all Middle Eastern exchanges as it's the only way to get direct access to them and Standard Chartered Singapore for Asian markets as there are no fees bar a flat 0.20% commission, it may also be useful to trade UK stocks through Standard Chartered Singapore as the flat rate commission works out a lot cheaper than the £11.95 Hargreaves Lansdown charge per trade, likewise it's cheaper than Barclays Stockbrokers, the main differences are international market access of which it's less with Standard Chartered Singapore.