Shares ISA - managed or DIY

bitstreams

Hello,
I had a meeting with a pensions advisor last week. We talked a lot but the general gist was for me to use a Shares ISA as a vehicle to save, putting money (around £300/month) in to a couple of managed funds from St James's Place.

I already do a little bit of share dealing through Selftrade and they offer me the option of creating and trading my own portfolio, but I'm not even an enthusiastic amateur.

Should I go managed with a fund or do it myself?

S

dunstonh

Should I go managed with a fund or do it myself?

If you have the time and knowledge to DIY then go DIY. If you don't then use an IFA. Don't use a tied sales rep like SJP though.

DIY in financial services is like DIY in any other area. If you know what you are doing then you can end up doing a reasonable job cheaper. However, if you don't know what you are doing then you can end up doing a cheap job that costs you a lot more if you make a pigs ear of it.

jamesd

If you're going with funds your first stop should be a fund supermarket like Hargreaves Lansdown, not a tied salesforce like SJP. You'll get a far broader range of investments, at lower cost.

bitstreams

jamesd wrote: »

If ynot a tied salesforce like SJP.

That all seems very sensible, but is there a good way of finding a local IFA rather than someone tied to a particular fund, given that I thought I was dealing with an IFA.

dunstonh

bitstreams wrote: »

That all seems very sensible, but is there a good way of finding a local IFA rather than someone tied to a particular fund, given that I thought I was dealing with an IFA.

Research has found that over half of those seeing tied agents think they are seeing an IFA. Its a pain as tied agents are where most of the problems are in financial services and we dont need them giving the impression they are IFAs.

For a local IFA look up https://www.unbiased.co.uk. Unselect the option to show only paying IFAs (those that pay to have an advert on the site - non paying IFAs will then show as smaller grey entries but at least you then get 99% coverage).

artha

bitstreams wrote: »

Hello,
I had a meeting with a pensions advisor last week. We talked a lot but the general gist was for me to use a Shares ISA as a vehicle to save, putting money (around £300/month) in to a couple of managed funds from St James's Place.

I already do a little bit of share dealing through Selftrade and they offer me the option of creating and trading my own portfolio, but I'm not even an enthusiastic amateur.

Should I go managed with a fund or do it myself?

S

I may be getting it wrong but I've seen a number of posts from people like yourself (in the sense that they trade shares but are looking for advice on funds). I would say that as someone who has the ability/confidence to trade shares you should find funds easy. I would like to trade shares but have started with funds as (in my opinion) it's a good entry point to the markets.

I'm puzzled/confused by people like yourself but that doesn't help you. I would certainly say that fund DIY is a good option fro someone who already has the confidence and capability to deal in individual shares. My starting point was Hargreaves Lansdown as I find it the most user friendly site for a novice in funds. With 12 months of experience behind me now I would now be a bit wary of the Wealth 150 reccomendations, particularly in relation to UK funds

bitstreams

I thinks that's a fair comment. I opened an account with Selftrade towards the end of last year to have a dabble in shares. I'm still pretty nervous of it and bought some bank and construction shares, which thus far have done pretty well (I'm about 23% up to date).

But I don't have a pension and I'm looking at a shares ISA, but I don't want to choose individual companies to invest in because I've probably just been lucky to date. If anything, I'd like to be able to choose funds based upon their risk, so I could put 2/3rds of my monthly spend in low risk and 1/3rd in medium risk.

I did look at the HL site - am I right in thinking this is like using Selftrade, albeit a slightly cheaper way? Selftrade will let me set up a shares ISA but I cant see a way of assessing the riskyness of different funds.

Thanks

S

artha

bitstreams wrote: »

I thinks that's a fair comment. I opened an account with Selftrade towards the end of last year to have a dabble in shares. I'm still pretty nervous of it and bought some bank and construction shares, which thus far have done pretty well (I'm about 23% up to date).

But I don't have a pension and I'm looking at a shares ISA, but I don't want to choose individual companies to invest in because I've probably just been lucky to date. If anything, I'd like to be able to choose funds based upon their risk, so I could put 2/3rds of my monthly spend in low risk and 1/3rd in medium risk.

I did look at the HL site - am I right in thinking this is like using Selftrade, albeit a slightly cheaper way? Selftrade will let me set up a shares ISA but I cant see a way of assessing the riskyness of different funds.

Thanks

S

Although I,m no expert I would have to agree that selecting a portfolio of individual shares for pension savings requires a great deal of confidence and experience. It would not have been for me had I needed to arrange my own pension.

AS for comparing HL with Selftrade I'm no help but I assume that it is like H_L in giving similar discounts. I'm sure someone else will comment.

Overall I wold suggest that for something as important as a pension you should make sure that you know what you are doing with self selected investments and take the time to learn before taking that route

QuietDragon

bitstreams wrote: »

Hello,

bitstreams wrote: »

I had a meeting with a pensions advisor last week. We talked a lot but the general gist was for me to use a Shares ISA as a vehicle to save, putting money (around £300/month) in to a couple of managed funds from St James's Place.

I already do a little bit of share dealing through Selftrade and they offer me the option of creating and trading my own portfolio, but I'm not even an enthusiastic amateur.

Should I go managed with a fund or do it myself?

S

Hi Bitstreams,

I felt almost obliged to give you the following. I have also been with SJP for a BUPA policy and mortgage deals, and have had a good experience with them thus far (over the past 12 years or so). However, on the issue of S&S ISAs the opinion of myself and my advisor differed noteably.

The cut-and-paste of the e-mail I wrote to the advisor might indicate why I went my own way with S&S ISA a little while back.

(Just to note, while I use FundChoice, other reputable and capable fund supermarkets exist.)

Hi Xxxxx,
Scrounging around on www.fundchoice.co.uk/fund-toolbox/fund-filter, I’ve turned up the information I alluded to last night, the comparison of the fees charged by St. James Place and www.fundchoice.co.uk for their services:

SJP Init chg Fundchoice Init chg SJP Ann chg Fundchoice Ann chg

Invesco Perpetual Corporate Bond (p. 3) 3.75% 1.00% 1.37% 1.00%

Schroeder IM Equity Income (p. 5) 5.00% 1.00% 1.50% 1.50%

Invesco Perpetual UK High Income (p. 7) 5.00% 1.00% 1.65% 1.50%

Aberdeen AM Ethical (p. 9) 5.00% 1.25% 1.50% 1.50%

Aberdeen AM Far East (p. 11) 5.00% 1.25% 1.50% 1.75%

Newton IM Global (p. 13) 5.00% 1.00% 1.60% 1.50%

I just started through the St. James’s Place portfolio document, and I have located the first six funds through Fundchoice, always at a lower initial charge, and usually at a lower or equal annual charge. I didn’t bother looking any further.
The issue with this is that I can buy exactly what St. James’s Place is offering through Fundchoice, but cheaper, accessible 24-hours a day, valued in real-time whenever I want, and Excel-exportable datasheets on my portfolio.
The web has, in this case, made it possible for those who are prepared to pick and choose their own funds to do so without a financial intermediary. The funds themselves do not need managing by the buyer, just their quantities and proportions, but the buyer would do that anyway in the pen-and-paper world, but wouldn’t be able to review them or track their performance in real-time. Instead they would get a quarterly, half-yearly or annual statement and no measure of control.


I haven't for one single instant regretted my move to running my own portfolio. The learning side of it is fascinating, the research fun, and the results - good or bad - are all your own.

Hope this helps.

jamesd

Yes, Hargreaves Lansdown works like Selftrade. You can own shares there as well but since they charge a 0.5% a year fee, capped at £200, it's usually better to hold them somewhere else. For funds they are inexpensive except perhaps in their SIPP. Trustnet provides volatility/risk measures in the upper right part of its details for funds.

blinko

im with HL and they do have a good online platform