can anyone recommend zero fee stocks and shares ISA provider?

xyz123

hi - i opened a stocks and shares isa with halifax last year. i invested about £600 in two different company stocks (listed in london).

My view was to start building a decent portfolio over time which gives good dividend and may be if i get lucky i can sell some in short time to make some profit.

i paid £3 per trade, as they have some special offers now and then when they reduce trading price from £12.50 to £3.

but Halifax charges me £2.50 or similar per month in management fee. considering my small investment and stock market volatility this charge is quite annoying to me at least. am i paying too much in fees?

is there any isa out there which doesnt charge me any management fee? if so, can i transfer existing shares holding to that one? ta

Lansdowne

Another question you might want to ask is whether the fee is higher because you have chosen an ISA specifically, rather than a plain dealing account. The tax advantages of an ISA for such a small amount are just about zero.

chris1

xyz123 wrote: »

is there any isa out there which doesnt charge me any management fee?

InvestDirect

Mr_Silks

You might find 'Fundsmith' an attractive proposition. There is a fee but just 1% pa. FUNDSMITH follows the Warren Buffet investment model, had you invested £100 in November 2010 you would have approx £126 now. You will not find many recommendations for it in the press but the facts speak for themselves. Terry Smith started the fund with £25m of his own money, it now has over £400m in the fund.
Just google 'fundsmith' the system will not permit me to insert a link.

snowcat53

Mr_Silks wrote: »

You might find 'Fundsmith' an attractive proposition. There is a fee but just 1% pa. FUNDSMITH follows the Warren Buffet investment model, had you invested £100 in November 2010 you would have approx £126 now. You will not find many recommendations for it in the press but the facts speak for themselves. Terry Smith started the fund with £25m of his own money, it now has over £400m in the fund.
Just google 'fundsmith' the system will not permit me to insert a link.

This is a specific fund not a platform. It appears to charge direct investors 1% pa, 1.5% if not direct.

Have you any interest to declare Mr Silks? - this looks like a plug.

Mr_Silks

I think I have pointed out that there is a 1% annual fee 1.5% if you do not go direct but are foolish enough to use an advisor. I realise that Fundsmith is not exactly what XYZ 123 asked for but in my mind it is a far superior product to what he has in mind.
I may be wrong but thought that the MSE forums were an opportunity for lay people to share good ideas/advice/warnings and best practice which is why I read them. So if you wish to call this a plug then so be it. I have absolutely no connection with Fundsmith, the investment business or anyone working for Fundsmith. I will claim that at its launch I thought that it seemed promising and recommended it to family and friends. The subsequent rise from £1 to £1.26 in under 2 years has been very satisfying and I think other MSE readers should be aware of this rare positive opportunity in otherwise very difficult times.

bigfreddiel

td direct investing - http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/choose-an-account/rates-and-charges/

no account management fees if you have £7,500+ in your account or trade in the quarter.

from their website:

This fee will be calculated on inactive TD Direct Investing Trading and Trading Plus Accounts, in arrears, on the last full weekend of March, June, September and December ("Quarter Dates"). An inactive TD Direct Investing Trading Account is defined as an account that, at the close of business on the relevant Quarter Date, has had no trades executed on it since the previous Quarter Date, and has a cash and / or portfolio valuation of £7,500 or less. Portfolio valuation will be based on the closing mid price on the Quarter Date. The Account Management fee does not apply to Certificated Accounts, Trading ISAs, Regular Investment Accounts, Regular Investment ISAs or SIPPs.


been using them for years -and you can trade fro £1.50 if you use the regular investment option.

cheers

fj

bowlhead99

FYI, the facts/fees that bigfreddiel quoted for TD are the ones for a normal non-ISA trading account.

For their normal S&S ISA, there's a fee of £36 a year (30+vat). This is the only fixed fee (other than dealing fees), but unlike the normal trading account mentioned, you won't avoid it by keeping the account active - you only avoid it by getting your balance over their minimum. The minimum is only £5100 (compared to the £7500 for normal trading accounts), but it sounds like you might still be a way off this by next May (which is the time of the year they check your balance and charge the fee or not)

If you can commit to monthly contributions, you can sign up to the "regular investing" version of either the normal trading account or the ISA account, which will then automatically spend your contributions on whatever you pre-planned, at only £1.50 a trade. They let you trade FTSE 350 shares and ETFs in this way (at the £1.50 rate), or funds (no charge, but minimum buy of £50 a go). Going this Regular route avoids the annual ISA fee on ISA accounts and the inactivity fees on non-ISA account

As mentioned by Lansdowne, you might not really need the ISA, given the amounts you're investing at the moment. Outside an ISA, you only have extra tax to pay on UK dividends if you're a higher rate taxpayer (and the dividends are not massive on £600 of shares). For any capital gains, you have a separate allowance of almost £11,000 profits in any one tax year which would be pretty difficult to hit with a pot of shares of only a few grand or less. So it would probably make sense to invest outside an ISA at the moment really, which gives you a wide range of brokers, several of whom don't have fixed / inactivity fees. You can put more than ten grand into an S&S ISA in a tax year, so no harm in doing one later when the costs would be relatively smaller (or perhaps non-existant)

So, with TD: you could either do the Regular Investing versions of the ISA account or normal shares account, or you could do the normal (non-Regular Investing) shares account and just do at least one buy or sell in a quarter to avoid their inactivity fees.

I'm with TD too, and the service has been pretty good, and the trading facilities are decent. So I'd recommend them, but you may find someone like X-O or Sippdeal to be best if you just want to do a few one-off trades.

Don't know how up to date this is, but this link might help if shopping around http://the-international-investor.com/comparison-tables/cheapest-uk-stock-brokers

bigfreddiel

bowlhead99 wrote: »

FYI, the facts/fees that bigfreddiel quoted for TD are the ones for a normal non-ISA trading account.

For their normal S&S ISA, there's a fee of £36 a year (30+vat).

thats odd - i've been wih them for 20+ years and never paid an annual fee!

from their site:

"TD Trading ISA Benefits

• No yearly account administration fee for accounts valued at £5,100 or over (terms apply†)

http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/choose-an-account/trading-isa/our-trading-isa/

cheers

fj

bowlhead99

Yes exactly, you don't pay a fee if you have 5k in it, which makes it one of the better ones for someone like us who can fill up an entire non-cash ISA allowance - but as the OP was looking at an alternative to Halifax for his 600 quid, it's not the obvious choice.

He/she could avoid the fee by going on a monthly plan, or build up a pot of cash outside the ISA wrapper and see what the going rate for ISA products is in a couple of years.

Brokers don't have loyalty to existing customers over new ones, quite the opposite, so there's no point in paying for something you don't need until you need it.

jimjames

Cavendish online have no fees. HL have no fees unless you buy shares or trackers