H+L - Does min investment amount include existing funds?

pledgeX

I've been trawling through the Hargreaves and Lansdown website but have been unable to find an answer to this.

I started my S+S ISA a few months ago. I've got ~£800 invested solely into an HSBC tracker fund. I want to stop investing into that tracker (due to platform charges) and start investing into two new trackers.

I would like to split the £800 between the two new trackers, and continue to invest a monthly amount (as I do currently) into both funds.

I noticed that both of the trackers have a minimum investment amount of £1000. Does that mean I can't do what I have outlined above, or does that only apply if you're investing money from outside my S+S ISA so to speak?

Thanks for any help.

Lokolo

I think it has to be a minimum of £1000.

They have a thing where when you trade you can "switch to another fund", have you tried this?

So go to your account, press the trade next to your HSBC holding and there should be an option to "Switch into another fund" and you can set by units, so set half of them to another fund.

pledgeX

Thanks for the quick response lokolo. I've just tried it and it seems to have gone through ok. It's at the pending stage at the moment so I'll update this post if it all goes through successfully.

Lokolo

It'll take a good few days. Might not be done til Monday. I have found some funds process within a day (which I would expect) but some a couple of days.

MrMalkin

With HL I've found that if you have regular monthly contributions set up for a fund, the minimum lump sum you can put into that fund drops to £250. So you could set up the monthly payment, put £250 in, then cancel the monthly payment.

The sell-switch method also works for small amounts, I once switched out my entire investment of less than £50 from one fund to another.

Totton

I'm currently running a HL fund account with just 1p in it, they have proven very good at using their minimum amount figures as guidance rather than anything set in stone.

Regards,
Mickey

Micky_Mouse

MrMalkin wrote: »

The sell-switch method also works for small amounts, I once switched out my entire investment of less than £50 from one fund to another.

Yes. I currently invest £50 monthly but have just moved £50 profits from 3 existing funds into a completely new fund.

Very helpful if you are trying to build a reasonably diverse portfolio on a tight budget.

jimjames

The minimum holding in one fund is £50. You can setup a DD for that one month and then switch to another fund.

The £1000 refers to the amount you have to invest as a lump sum if you don't already hold the fund. If you already hold then the minimum lump sum top up is £250 but you can also do smaller top ups from £50 by doing it as a monthly investment.

I've got a couple of funds that are under £1000 and this has been no issue. Do remember that the loyalty bonus is only payable on holdings above a certain level which I believe is also £1000.

pledgeX

[FONT=&quot]Thanks for all your replies. Just to let you know the transfer went through fine. I did exactly as Lokolo said in the first response.

Is there any charges when transferring? I invested in two trackers:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]- BlackRock Pacific ex Japan Equity Tracker Class A Accumulation[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]- BlackRock UK Equity Tracker Class A Accumulation [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In my portfolio history it shows that I sold my previous tracker on the 23rd, and bought the two above funds today. Looking at my stocks summary, it shows the Pacific tracker is down 0.72% and the UK tracker 0.96% since buying the funds, yet looking at today's (and yesterday's) chart, neither has dropped by this amount. Any ideas what's happened?

Thanks again.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

middlepuss

pledgeX wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]Thanks for all your replies. Just to let you know the transfer went through fine. I did exactly as Lokolo said in the first response.

Is there any charges when transferring? I invested in two trackers:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]- BlackRock Pacific ex Japan Equity Tracker Class A Accumulation[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]- BlackRock UK Equity Tracker Class A Accumulation [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In my portfolio history it shows that I sold my previous tracker on the 23rd, and bought the two above funds today. Looking at my stocks summary, it shows the Pacific tracker is down 0.72% and the UK tracker 0.96% since buying the funds, yet looking at today's (and yesterday's) chart, neither has dropped by this amount. Any ideas what's happened?

Thanks again.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

Some trackers, eg HSBC FTSE All Share, have a buying and selling price which is the same. Other unit trusts have a higher buying price than selling price. I'm guessing the funds you bought have different buying and selling prices and your valuation is based on the lower, selling price.

psychic_teabag

Yes, on the page at http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/index-tracker-funds/view-index-tracker-funds there's a column 'bid/offer' spread which indicates this.

IMHO HL don't make it abundantly clear what it's actually going to cost. They show the (most recent) buy and sell prices on the at-a-glance page for the fund. The buy price is (was) the "real" buy price plus the initial charge (eg 5%). HL say they discount the initial charge by the full 5%, showing a net initial charge of 0%, but in fact there's still a spread.

eg right now, Blackrock UK tracker shows sell=134.50, buy = 142

buy/sell is 1.0557
the "real" buy was 142 / 1.05 = 135.24

Leaving a spread of 135.24 / 134.50 = 0.55%

(I think that's the correct way to work it out...)

So the summary shows that you paid (say) £400 for each fund, but in fact you only now own,say, £398 worth of fund, and so they're showing it as a small loss.

Would be nice if they showed the "real" buy after the discount, rather than the (published) buy which includes the extra initial charge. But maybe they just have to show the same prices as all the other companies.

I think OEICs always have a single price. UTs tend to be dual priced, though I think there are some that don't actually have a spread (once the initial charge is taken off).