Low cost Stocks & Shares (Investment) ISAs: The Best Currently Available List!

westy22

Special-Saver2. Thanks - I hadn't really spotted that point as when you look at a particular fund, for an example see here https://www.barclaysstockbrokers.co.uk/Investment-Choices/Funds/pages/Cash-Loyalty-bonus.aspx it shows the Loyalty Bonus as p.a. which I took to read as 'per annum' i.e. ongoing.

It is also interesting from the page I referenced above that all Invesco funds are listed as having an AMC of 1.25% (I hold IPHI on other platforms at an AMC of 1.5%, so are they discounting by 0.25% on the regular AMC as well as an additional 0.20% for 2012?

Special_Saver2

Hi Folks,

Okay, it has taken me some time to compile but here is the March update for this thread:

- Commfreefunds have changed their charges from a flat £5 per month (£60 per year) to 0.2% per year capped at £5 per month and they now work with Fidelity Fundsnetwork (as well as Cofunds)

- JPJshare has increased the cost of frequent trader dealing from £4.25 to £4.75 per transaction and their telephone transactions have increased from £7.50 to £8 (except for t1ps subscribers who can still trade for £7.50)

- iii have reduced their international share dealing rate from £15 to £10 (which is pretty competitive - iDealing undercuts them by 10p per transaction but iDealing have a £20 per year account fee)

- TD Waterhouse have increased the cost of telephone dealing (they now charge £40 on top of the corresponding online dealing rate)

- TD Waterhouse have introduced a service which allows nominee account holders to receive shareholder information and vote

- Traders Own online and telephone dealing rate decreased from £9 to £6 per transaction; if not for their dividend collection fee, I would have promoted them to the top third of post 3

- I have looked at Barclays and Santander Stockbrokers and I have not added them to the list for the moment given that they do not offer anything special and they have terrible charges, e.g. they charge an annual fee for holding shares (Barclays charge £30-£50 + VAT and Santander charge 0.5%, min £40, max £200)

- I am considering removing the accounts that charge an annual fee (post 4) as I do not want to have to list all the S&S ISAs that charge a fee; if I do not remove them then I will only list ones that have something very special

- I have explicitly listed the sharedealing online and telephone charges for all the accounts in posts 3 and 4; I have also moved the information on which items can be traded into a separate line to de-clutter the charges lines where possible

SS2

P.S. westy22, I do not know the answer to your question above but does it matter? Given that Barclays' partial trail commission rebate is pretty poor and short-term, I think you would be better off with one of the discount brokers that will give you a better long-term trail commission rebate.

Froggitt

Cavendish got a good writeup in ThisIsMoney this week http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-2115882/The-cheapest-fund-supermarket-just-got-cheaper-Cavendish-slashes-ISA-costs-further.html

I understand that you cant do a straight transfer to them from HL, but need to get them to cash in and re-invest. Is that right? Do I get stung on the buy/sell spread doing this?

Do Cavs also take single company shares in an ISA?

Im thinking about consolidating my HL, Share Centre and Fidelity all into Cavs.....any reason why not to?

And if its costing HL money to administrate the ISA such that they charge £2 per month per holding, how can Cavs do it for *free*?

Special_Saver2

Froggitt wrote: »

Cavendish got a good writeup in ThisIsMoney this week http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-2115882/The-cheapest-fund-supermarket-just-got-cheaper-Cavendish-slashes-ISA-costs-further.html

It is good to see that the article also mentions Alliance Trust. Some people, especially those that "buy and hold" and have a large amount of money may be better off with them.

I understand that you cant do a straight transfer to them from HL, but need to get them to cash in and re-invest. Is that right? Do I get stung on the buy/sell spread doing this?

Yes to both questions.

Do Cavs also take single company shares in an ISA?

No.

Im thinking about consolidating my HL, Share Centre and Fidelity all into Cavs.....any reason why not to?

For funds currently with Fidelity it is definitely worth it. You are just "changing your agent" which means you do not need to sell and repurchase the funds and it will not cost you anything. For H-L, you should consider the costs of moving your account and you will be out of the market during the time of the transfer.

And if its costing HL money to administrate the ISA such that they charge £2 per month per holding, how can Cavs do it for *free*?

Cavendish and Fidelity Fundsnetwork are both still making money out of you (from platform fees that you cannot see), it is just that they are keeping less than H-L in order to win your custom.

SS2

Froggitt

Special_Saver2 wrote: »

For funds currently with Fidelity it is definitely worth it. You are just "changing your agent" which means you do not need to sell and repurchase the funds and it will not cost you anything. For H-L, you should consider the costs of moving your account and you will be out of the market during the time of the transfer.

Ive just looked, and like a fool, I transferred by Fidelity to HL last year. Grrrrrrrr. Would that have been a sell and repurchase?

Ive got about £5k in each of 4 funds at HL. What sort of of sell/buy spread will I incur, and how long approx will it take to recoup at Cavendish?

Thanks

Special_Saver2

Hi Froggitt,

The Fidelity to H-L transfer might not have been a bad move - you have probably been receiving a commission rebate with H-L and if the price of the units dropped between the sale and the repurchase then that would have been to your benefit - so don't get upset about it. I don't know if the transfer involved a sale and repurchase but it does not matter now, that is all in the past. What matters is what you choose to do now.

To answer your calculation questions...

Go to the H-L page for each fund that you own.

You will see the sell and buy price, e.g. on this page they are currently 57.67 and 58.03 respectively. You can use this information to calculate the buy-sell (bid-offer) spread. Use the method described on this page to calculate the bid-offer spread as a percentage. Multiply that percentage by the amount you have in that fund (e.g. £5,000) to work out the current cost of selling and repurchasing that fund. Do this for each fund in turn.

On the H-L page for each fund, on the "At a glance" page, in the overview section, look for the "H-L annual saving" on the 8th line. For the fund that I used above as an example, this is 0%. Multiply this annual saving by the amount of money you have in that fund to work out how much per year you are receiving as a commission rebate.

On this Cavendish Online page, you can find the commission rebate percentage for each fund you own. You can use this to work out what your annual commission rebate with Cavendish would be.

By comparing the annual commission rebates with H-L and Cavendish, you should be able to work out how long it will take you to recoup the costs of selling and repurchasing.

Hopefully I have given you enough information in this post. If you have trouble doing the calculation, then I would suggest that you start a new thread (we are starting to go off-topic for this thread) and give us the information for one of your funds to use as an example and we can help you out.

SS2

psychic_teabag

Froggitt wrote: »

Ive just looked, and like a fool, I transferred by Fidelity to HL last year. Grrrrrrrr. Would that have been a sell and repurchase?

For a Fund Supermarket to HL transfer, I believe that (most of) Fidelity's own funds can be re-registered (transferred as stock) but non-Fidelity funds had to be sold and rebought.

GTG

Hi Special Saver2,

Thanks for starting and maintaining this useful thread. Very altruistic of you.

I just arrived here after needing to review my S&S ISA arrangements. I noticed your comment on Traders Own in connection with the excessive dividend charge. Their website states that it's limited to £1 here?

Special_Saver2

GTG wrote: »

Hi Special Saver2,

Thanks for starting and maintaining this useful thread. Very altruistic of you.

I just arrived here after needing to review my S&S ISA arrangements. I noticed your comment on Traders Own in connection with the excessive dividend charge. Their website states that it's limited to £1 here?

Hi GTG,

I am glad this thread is of use to you. This thread has also been to my benefit as other people have pitched in with options that I was not aware of and it helped me to decide what to do with my own S&S ISAs.

Looking back at my Traders Own entry in post 3, I have tried to make it clear that the corporate action and dividend charges have a minimum of 25p and a maximum of £1. Personally, I would be annoyed to lose 25p to £1 of each and every dividend that I received. If you look at the first 3 providers in the same post, they all charge less than £6 per transaction and they do not charge for receiving dividends. (Edit: In fact, none of the other providers on this thread charge for receiving dividends. I know that some high-end stockbrokers make these charges but I am surprised to see a cheap online provider trying to make these charges. The only charge that is common is for reinvesting dividends, and I escape these charges by combining the dividend money with my own monthly contributions to purchase new shares.)

By the way, I ended up going with two different providers last tax year - one from post 2 for unit trusts / OEICs and one from post 3 for shares / ITs / ETFs. I did this by subscribing for one provider for my S&S ISA and then when the Cavendish Fidelity offer came along, I could not resist and switched my cash ISA money into that S&S ISA.

SS2

GTG

Special_Saver2 wrote: »

Hi GTG,

I am glad this thread is of use to you. This thread has also been to my benefit as other people have pitched in with options that I was not aware of and it helped me to decide what to do with my own S&S ISAs.

Looking back at my Traders Own entry in post 3, I have tried to make it clear that the corporate action and dividend charges have a minimum of 25p and a maximum of £1. Personally, I would be annoyed to lose 25p to £1 of each and every dividend that I received. If you look at the first 3 providers in the same post, they all charge less than £6 per transaction and they do not charge for receiving dividends. (Edit: In fact, none of the other providers on this thread charge for receiving dividends. I know that some high-end stockbrokers make these charges but I am surprised to see a cheap online provider trying to make these charges. The only charge that is common is for reinvesting dividends, and I escape these charges by combining the dividend money with my own monthly contributions to purchase new shares.)

By the way, I ended up going with two different providers last tax year - one from post 2 for unit trusts / OEICs and one from post 3 for shares / ITs / ETFs. I did this by subscribing for one provider for my S&S ISA and then when the Cavendish Fidelity offer came along, I could not resist and switched my cash ISA money into that S&S ISA.

SS2

Thanks for the reply. Yes you did state this clearly in your listing. My apologies, I should have went back to look after seeing your comment.