ISA Trade Share

harlanpollitt

Hi,

Im looking to start share trading but am a complete novice.

Im looking to put between £1k and £5k into an account to start trading with.

What would people recommend?

I was going to join Hargreaves Lansdown however was advised not to due to the trade costs, i read reviews on iii.co.uk but i just joined that and the format is terrible and offers no info on live prices etc.

A colleague at work uses HL and it looked easy to use and included all the info as well as advice.

Just wondering which company people would recommend for a beginner?

Cheers

H

bigfreddiel

harlanpollitt wrote: »

Hi,

Im looking to start share trading but am a complete novice.

Im looking to put between £1k and £5k into an account to start trading with.

What would people recommend?

I was going to join Hargreaves Lansdown however was advised not to due to the trade costs, i read reviews on iii.co.uk but i just joined that and the format is terrible and offers no info on live prices etc.

A colleague at work uses HL and it looked easy to use and included all the info as well as advice.

Just wondering which company people would recommend for a beginner?

Cheers

H

there's a big clue here - anyone spotted it yet - no? here goes then:

"...... but am a complete novice."

Don't do it -well not yet anyway, practice your strategies with a demo account - loads of them out there - just google.
BTW what is your strategy for your portfolio?
HYP
FTS100
AIM
ETFs

Sectors:
OIL&GAS
MINING
FINANCE
STORES
INDUSTRIALS

Why not just start with a funds based portfolio?

cheers

fj

harlanpollitt

I understand your point however im a strong believer of jumping in at the deep end!

My strategy is to make money! 40% low risk, 30% medium risk and 30% high risk! Oh and to stay away from the banking sector as its too volatile for my liking!

I say novice however i do have limited knowledge from my job and colleagues discussions over lunch!!

Does anyone have any advice on a more user friendly website than the HL one or does it come recommended? HL has the companies accounts that are downloadable which seems useful as well as simple yield profiles.

Cheers

H

ermine

I use iii and am perfectly happy with their service. It's just a platform, but you still want to get costs down. Things that make iii right for me are

no annual fees
no per-holding fees
trade costs on buying can be got down to £1.50 using their batching method

These are all good questions to ask of a S&S ISA and are a lot more relevant in the long run than the user interface

their charting is okay, good enough for me. It's probably not one for the day trader, if you want to feel like Gordon Gekko and get yourself Level 2 and all that then perhaps you might want to go elsewhere

My strategy is to make money! 40% low risk, 30% medium risk and 30% high risk! Oh and to stay away from the banking sector as its too volatile for my liking!

I say novice however i do have limited knowledge from my job and colleagues discussions over lunch!!

You, sir, are so going to get slaughtered. Consider your £5k as the price of learning. If you manage to calm yourself down a bit in the light of experience then it could be £5k well spent. You'll then be able to sit on your hands long enough to stand a chance of making money. The problem for the noob investor is to learn to do nothing most of the time and not churn needlessly. I consider my shocking losses in the early years as just that - an expensive training course. I agree with you absolutely that you have to use real money to get the visceral experience of learning.

harlanpollitt

Ermine! All good advice and im fully aware of a typical investors first 6 months of loosing money! Ive seen my friends do it for the past 5 years!!

And yes your comment RE churn is the key, after all patience is a virtue

Ok well i may stick with iii and do all my research elsewhere!!

Thanks for thehelp!!

sorcerer

What i would suggest before you go straight in, is to learn the basics, buy/sell prices, the spread, commision, cgt, stamp duty costs. And learn to understand some of the financials, P/E , EPS etc.

ermine

i may stick with iii

I believe Halifax offer similar facilities, including the Sharebuilder option letting you buy for £1.50 for batched purchases. Never seen their user interface, so I can't say if it's better than III. With £5k capital keeping costs down is key.

You want to definitely make sure you are only charged for buying and selling. I had a Schwab account that became Barclays S&S ISA where the cheeky blighters charged a quarterly fee for the number of holdings, they charged an annual account charge and what finally got me off my butt was they started to charge a quarterly 'inactivity fee' for quarters without transactions. Don't tolerate ISA platforms that do that, whatever their platform looks like!

typical investors first 6 months of loosing money!

I guess I was particularly incompetent at the start then It was a few years before I discovered the debilitating effect of charges.

And learn to understand some of the financials, P/E , EPS etc.

I second that. When I stopped being mesmerised by charts and lines and looked at what the heck I was buying and how much I was paying for the earnings, I stopped losing money on the whole The old duffer Warren Buffet had this to say

So there’s two types of assets to buy. One is where the asset itself delivers a return to you, such as, you know, rental properties, stocks, a farm. And then there’s assets that you buy where you hope somebody else pays you more later on, but the asset itself doesn’t produce anything. And those are two different games. I regard the second game as speculation. Now there’s nothing immoral or illegal or fattening about speculation, but it is an entirely different game to buy a lump of something and hope that somebody else pays you more for that lump two years from now than it is to buy something you expect to produce income for you over time. I bought a farm 30 years ago, not far from here. I’ve never had a quote on it since. What I do is I look at what it produces every year, and it produces a very satisfactory amount relative to what I paid for it.

If they closed the stock market for 10 years and we owned Coca-Cola and Wells Fargo and some other businesses, it wouldn’t bother me because I’m looking at what the business produces. If I buy a McDonald’s stand, I don’t get a quote on it every day. I look at how my business is every day. So those are the kind of assets I like to own, something that actually is going to deliver, and hopefully deliver to meet my expectations over time.

I started doing a lot better after I wised up and listened to what the old boy had to say there