Neil_P2PBlog
P2P Blogger
Use @p2pblog to tag me :-)
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Post by Neil_P2PBlog on Aug 23, 2016 19:18:50 GMT
Sorry to drag up an old topic, but i'm currently looking down the route of a stocks/shares ISA. Initially I am looking at stocks, but as my knowledge increases it is likely I may look at other products also if I feel the risk/return balance is in line with my expectations. If you were starting fresh, who would you use? I've been with TD Direct Investing for a stocks and shares ISA for more than 5 years. They have a regular investment option that lets you buy shares for I think £2.50 rather than £12.50 or so as usual. When you have to sell shares it is still £12.50. Over time and some big individual losses I've moved just to invest just in funds with low charges. For this TD investing have a flat fee of 0.3% pa but often no buying/selling charges. In my initial dealings 5 years ago with TD they had seemed to be quite helpful and knowledgeable. However recently I've been in touch with them to try to understand some things within their fund information system (morningstar) and they were hopeless. Individual people told me contradictory things on the phones/emails and it took a long time to get a simple answer (what is the actual total management fee for each of my funds). Looking for an alternative I've found Cavendish, who have lower charges (0.25% pa for funds) and were able to quickly respond to my same questions via email. I didn't move over yet as I am hoping to use this year's ISA for the IF ISA. I recommend you to look at the best buys here for an idea of charges depending on what you plan to do. I notice AXA have no fees for the first year so perhaps you could start with them and then swap provider after a year.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Aug 23, 2016 19:58:43 GMT
I'd probably still use HL .. yes, they are far from the cheapest, but they (and their systems) are delightfully easy to deal with. I could wish for slightly less marketing bumf, but apart from that I have no issues. Now where is their promised P2P offering .. ?
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fp
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Post by fp on Aug 24, 2016 7:12:57 GMT
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SteveT
Member of DD Central
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Post by SteveT on Aug 24, 2016 7:50:37 GMT
If you're happy to choose what to buy by yourself, I find Interactive Investor (or Trustnet Direct, which uses II's back office platform but with a useful Trustnet analytics front end) to be efficient and very cheap for larger portfolios, where charges are capped at max £200 per year.
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fp
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Post by fp on Aug 24, 2016 14:26:01 GMT
Thanks SteveT and paul123, I have plumped for HL for the time being and will look further into other platforms if/when I feel it may be time to move to a better one to suit my needs |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2016 14:40:50 GMT
If I was starting again, I'd plump for Halifax as the software is pretty good, the research area exceptional for zero cost. I might also look at III. Their research is less impresive and their software not exciting but their costs are low.
I would not go into HL with more than one account as I would want to keep their high costs under control. NB ISA/SIPP/£ all count as seperate accounts in HL unlike most of the main competition so you pay 0.45% rather than sub 2% for a lot longer.
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fp
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Post by fp on Aug 24, 2016 15:51:22 GMT
If I was starting again, I'd plump for Halifax as the software is pretty good, the research area exceptional for zero cost. I might also look at III. Their research is less impresive and their software not exciting but their costs are low. I would not go into HL with more than one account as I would want to keep their high costs under control. NB ISA/SIPP/£ all count as seperate accounts in HL unlike most of the main competition so you pay 0.45% rather than sub 2% for a lot longer. I already have a standard share dealing account at the Halifax with a reasonable sized portfolio, and which i don't particularly want to sell due to one or two being in the red, but more importantly the CGT implications of the ones that aren't, i'm pretty certain when I opened it that I could only have one or the other type account with them so haven't ventured any further with them, otherwise I am fairly happy with Halifax to be honest.
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bigfoot12
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Post by bigfoot12 on Aug 25, 2016 11:50:09 GMT
i don't particularly want to sell due to one or two being in the red, but more importantly the CGT implications of the ones that aren't, i'm pretty certain when I opened it that I could only have one or the other type account with them so haven't ventured any further with them, otherwise I am fairly happy with Halifax to be honest. a) I don't know Halifix but I'd be amazed if you couldn't have an ISA as well as an ordinary account. b) If you have some shares in the red and some in the black, now might be a great time to sell both (and buy something else). And then you net the losses on one with the gains on the other. (Assuming that all are CGTable.) It will obviously depend on the the size of your holding and the transaction costs.
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fp
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Post by fp on Aug 25, 2016 12:09:55 GMT
i don't particularly want to sell due to one or two being in the red, but more importantly the CGT implications of the ones that aren't, i'm pretty certain when I opened it that I could only have one or the other type account with them so haven't ventured any further with them, otherwise I am fairly happy with Halifax to be honest. a) I don't know Halifix but I'd be amazed if you couldn't have an ISA as well as an ordinary account. b) If you have some shares in the red and some in the black, now might be a great time to sell both (and buy something else). And then you net the losses on one with the gains on the other. (Assuming that all are CGTable.) It will obviously depend on the the size of your holding and the transaction costs.I know and fully understand the logic behind this, but I work on a strict "never sell anything at a loss" principle, unless I either A) desperately need the money (I don't) or B) can guarantee to make double the loss back in a short period of time by reinvesting in something else, if I could guarantee that, i'd be more likely to borrow the money and ride out my dip anyway!
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bigfoot12
Member of DD Central
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Post by bigfoot12 on Dec 5, 2016 21:22:16 GMT
I moved my ISA and trading accounts from Selftrade to Interactive Investor and despite the transfer process being a bit long winded I've not been disappointed with the result. I also moved an ISA from Selftrade to II and it took over 5 months, and for about 6 weeks the money seemed to be lost as Selftrade marked it as gone, but II claimed it hadn't arrived. I found the customer service at II very frustrating during this transfer. For example there was no acknowledgement of receipt of documents. I had intended to transfer another ISA to II, but more than a year later I haven't done so. The fees are low. My recent transfer from Selftrade to iii was a nightmare but I am convinced that the whole fault was with Selftrade , I chased this up to Director level and am convinced that SelfTrade lost complete control of their business in the spring of 2015 and is only just getting back on top of it. iii has been pretty good, H-L takes up to 3 days to do its deals (which is not a big issue but worth noting) Fidelity is pretty much on top of it but their website is creaking a bit. I thought I'd update this as I finally decided to move two more (neither from Selftrade) ISAs to III. I posted both forms on the 16th November and one completed after two weeks and the other today. (Much of the delay in both cases was waiting for the cheque to clear as both of these involved selling all existing investments and moving cash.) The whole process was painless. III acknowledged receipt of my request as did the existing holders in turn. I had no other need to contact support. An interesting footnote is that on the same day I transferred my final Selftrade holding (none-ISA) in-specie to another broker. Nothing has happened yet, the shares are still in my Selftrade account. It looking like @bobo is correct.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2016 9:21:15 GMT
I recently had a bizarre discussion with Selftrade when I pointed out an error in their software, after a number of stranger and stranger emails I finally got a resolution with an apology for their behaviour. As a result I am now closing out the last part of my Selftrade ISA. Moving to AJ Bell as a change.
Just how long Selftrade take will be interesting. I note that Selftrade get 1/5 under the quality score system. Equiniti (the owner) is a terrible organisation.
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littonowl
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Post by littonowl on Dec 6, 2016 14:27:52 GMT
I found idealing.com one of the most woeful, incompetent & arrogant companies I've ever had the misfortune to deal with, and I have a selftrade account too!  |
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david42
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Post by david42 on Dec 7, 2016 9:28:18 GMT
I found idealing.com one of the most woeful, incompetent & arrogant companies I've ever had the misfortune to deal with, and I have a selftrade account too! I had the same disappointment with iDealing. They failed to even complete the account opening process after taking my money. After several weeks of waiting I eventually got my money back and gave up.
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littonowl
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Post by littonowl on Dec 7, 2016 10:03:09 GMT
I found idealing.com one of the most woeful, incompetent & arrogant companies I've ever had the misfortune to deal with, and I have a selftrade account too! I had the same disappointment with iDealing. They failed to even complete the account opening process after taking my money. After several weeks of waiting I eventually got my money back and gave up. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest. They were incorrectly deducting tax from dividends paid on a couple of shares held in an ISA (Ranger Direct Lending & Ediston Property Investment) and when I told them they bluntly informed me they do not operate a tax reclaim business and I should speak to HMRC. When I advised them that HMRC said I couldn't claim back any tax on shares held in ISA's (as they are by definition a tax-free wrapper!) iDealing simply started ignoring my emails, and this despite the fact I had been a customer of theirs for over 10 years! In the end I transferred my ISA to AJBell / YouInvest (idealing dragged their heels here too for 3 months and even tried to pay my cash balance to my bank - which would have meant me losing my tax-free status on that segment!) Anyway, surprise, surprise my first dividend payments on both shares once with AJBell came in on time (something idealing also often failed to achieve!) and in full, with no tax deducted...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2016 10:28:37 GMT
That is reassuring, in my transfer process out of Selftrade, they now consider "communication" to be writing to the internal email address held within the account, so basically a dead letter box drop. This morning the move hit a snag and AJ Bell wrote to my email account (both companies have this address but only one has the brains to use it) asking for a decision, Selftrade wrote to the dead letter box drop.....
Good news the problem has been overcome and for once Selftrade used a survey to find out how I was feeling about their service....
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