Is H-L really the best choice for fund investing?

LongTermLurker

sajets wrote: »

Originally Posted by soulsaver
There is a 0.25% switch fee with Chartwell that makes them less competitive than HL (where I have a SIPP & where switch is free) if you trade in and out of funds. I'm about £400 worse off over the last year as I have a 6 figure s&s ISA with them which I rebalance from time to time.
Chartwell share trail commission inside an ISA; cant remember if HL do. Also you have to check the Chartwell discounts before you trade as they don't 100% quite a few (unless their offer has improved); HL you can easily check on line the spread & discount - CW has a b*llache pdf , slow to open & appears sideways so is difficult to read.

Appears sideways? CNTRL+SHIFT + "+" or "-" helps rotate pdfs!

Or buy a ball joint for your monitor

jimjames

piglet2 wrote: »

There seems to be confusion with ATS - they rebate ALL fund manager rebates to the customer on funds as well as offering discounted AMCs. If you are investing monthly online they have just introduced a £1.50 dealing fee which is so much cheaper than HL.........worth having another look I think.

They also have a £12.50 dealing charge that applies to all transactions even UT not just shares. Plus accounts opened after a certain point have annual charges as well.

I use them for one of my old share ISAs but their complete lack of transparency on charges - well hidden in various places on their website does put me off using them for future investments. Its a shame as they may be competitive when compared in total but not being able to do that makes it very hard to actually know.

noh

jimjames wrote: »

They also have a £12.50 dealing charge that applies to all transactions even UT not just shares. Plus accounts opened after a certain point have annual charges as well.

I use them for one of my old share ISAs but their complete lack of transparency on charges - well hidden in various places on their website does put me off using them for future investments. Its a shame as they may be competitive when compared in total but not being able to do that makes it very hard to actually know.

I use ATS for my ISA.
I don't see any problem with transparency of charges. They are plainly stated as far as I am concerned.
Because of the £12.50 dealing charge they are competitive for funds only if you trade fairly large amounts and do not trade often. Although, having said that, they have just introduced a regular monthly investment option at £1.50.
I moved to them from Selftrade and am getting round about £500 a year in fee rebates which I didn't receive before.

peterg1965

I really rate HL, great customer service and a good selection of funds/investment options.

My only gripe is that they do not offer their 'Active Share Trader' option on an ISA, they only allow it on the Vantage Fund and Share account. That means it is too expensive to frequently trade shares in an ISA with HL.

JacquiM21

Not sure whether this is the best place to ask this question, but hopefully someone may have had a similiar experience. I transferred to Cavendish online a couple of months ago and continue to invest in my Fidelity ISA, however I've noticed that various features of the Fidelity site which were accessible to me previously have now disappeared - prior to Cavendish becoming my broker I could see the percentage increase in my portfolio over time and today I've logged into Fidelity and am no longer able to view a transaction history, only a valuation for each fund. I can understand why Fidelity would want someone who is ostensibly now a non-paying customer from accessing the more sophisticated portfolio management tools, but not being able to see a list of transactions showing how many units of each fund my money has bought each month seems to be going a bit far.

dunstonh

I can understand why Fidelity would want someone who is ostensibly now a non-paying customer from accessing the more sophisticated portfolio management tools, but not being able to see a list of transactions showing how many units of each fund my money has bought each month seems to be going a bit far.

Fidelity are not deciding that. Your contract has changed and the features and options you get on the new version are different to the old one. Cutting back on costs will cut back on features a lot of the time.

talexuser

I do my own research so don't need advice. Previously I was with a broker who paid back 0.25% annual commission by sending a cheque through the post each year.

I moved to Chartwell after an occasional revamp of the portfolio with everything inside CoFunds. The 0.5% rebate makes a real difference on 15 years worth of pep/isas and has the advantage of being inside the isa for topping up various funds every couple of months when it's put in the cash reserve.

The disadvantage is the CoFunds 0.25% for switching (which can be a lot on a large fund), but I invest for the long term at the moment so choose good long term performers and give them a fair chance to perform. So far I've invested twice (2x£25 one off fee) and switched once which new fund recouped relatively quickly so am happier.

No problems with Cavendish so far, investing is easy, use debit card for CoFunds and debit card for £25 fee. This years allowance was in online some days ago in 10 minutes and next day units worked out to a value of exactly £10680.

If I regularly switched funds every 3 or 6 months or so trying to bet on climbers then I suspect you would be better off with HL and their reduced annual commission rebates but cheaper switching??