Please can you help with a good UK Share/ETF trading platform?

rockitup

For a few years I have been using a Spread betting platform with IG Index and am very happy with both the speed and ease of using both the dealing and chart side of things.

Now I also have just started using a TD Waterhouse platform for making lump sum purchases of UK shares and also ETF's. It might be me but I a finding this platform a bit slow at times and also when checking my portfolio it shows the 15 minute delayed price and the real-time price can be got by clicking on the button at the bottom of the portfolio page.

I have really got used to day trading and being able to have all my real time prices displayed and not having to wait around for pages to load to close a position. Our internet connection is Broadband but out here we just get a speed of around 1.3 megabits.

Can anyone suggest a different platform for me to try that will make life a bit easier and allow faster use when day trading or should I go down the CFD route instead staying with IG Markets?

If I was doing swing or position trading I would think that TD Waterhouse would probably be fine....

Thanks

rockitup

Bump

Anyone got any ideas please?

turbobob

I use TD Waterhouse but its not really suitable for day trading IMO. They have some optional "Pro Trader" package and I've no idea what it's like but its "free" if you do over 75 trades a quarter. "Free" in inverted comma's as you will be paying at least £750 in commission per quarter. I know others have recommended Interactive Brokers as a good platform for that sort of thing, and it looks good if you want to trade US shares. Probably a better place to research this would be a specialised forum like Trade2Win.

Incidentally if you day trade UK shares (as opposed to CFD's) you have to pay stamp duty, is this not an issue?

rockitup

Thanks TurboBob

Yeah Interactive Brokers had crossed my mind as they are low on trading costs and I had looked at them before a couple of years ago before opening an account with TD Ameritrade when they offered me $5 commission per trade on US Stocks and ETF's. I was trading the leveraged ETF's 2x and 3x roughly doing 4 to 6 round trips a day.

I would mainly be day trading ETF's and probably holding UK Shares for periods of a few days to a few weeks. Still considering CFD's with IG Markets but I have to work out whether it is worth it when adding the commissions to the interest charge if holding positions on the shares for a week or more.

I noticed the protrader platform info on TD Waterhouse but think that it should be free when holding a decent amount of equity and/or cash in the portfolio. TD Ameritrade in the US give a Command Centre 2.0 trading platform anyway and then offer FREE level 2 with $25,000 (£16k) of stocks/cash held.

Maybe the US has better deals for customers as always...lol

Jonbvn

OP,

I think you would be better posting this question over on Motley Fool. A much more investment minded website than this one.

rockrat

for what you are proposing to do, i cant see any real point in buying the physical shares, and instead would continue to use the spreadbet platforms.
i use pretty much all of them, and IG wins hands down for speed and range.

physical shares are to to sit and hold for a long term investment plan really