Stocks and shares ISAs

Archi_Bald

Brokers are to do with investing. MSE has nothing to do with investing.

jimjames

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Brokers are to do with investing. MSE has nothing to do with investing.

That's not strictly true. There are lots of forum posts about investing and lots of people here with lots of investment experience that are able to answer newbie type questions.

scomjak wrote: »

INVESTORS using one of Britain’s most successful fund supermarkets may be paying thousands of pounds more in charges than those at smaller rivals.
However, analysis by candidmoney.com, the personal finance website, shows that Hargreaves customers are losing out.
.

Rather a sensationalist and misleading headline there. Bearing in mind the commission payments of 0.5% on investments in order to be "paying thousands" you'd need to have over £200,000 of investments and that would be if you paid the entire commission with no rebate. As a majority of people have no savings at all I'd imagine the percentage with over £200,000 as investments would be very small indeed.

While HL are not the cheapest they are still cheaper than going direct. What might have been a more appropriate story would be showing how much investors going direct to fund houses are being ripped off. Paying full initial charges and full annual commission when there is no IFA and the fund house therefore pockets the total. In those situations you would lose at least 5% of your investment and 0.5% per year paying for no service at all.