Opening stock and shares ISA info

makey1976

Hi I am looking for a little help and info.
I am looking to open a s & s isa starting £500 then £50 per month at present looking to increase in future.
Looking into long term investment.
I have seen a few funds like vanguard life stategy etc.
Not looking for high risk, something about medium risk.
How easy are these to set up and what are cost fee etc.
We're the best place to open the isa. And any help or info before I set this up.

grizzly1911

makey1976 wrote: »

Hi I am looking for a little help and info.
I am looking to open a s & s isa starting £500 then £50 per month at present looking to increase in future.
Looking into long term investment.
I have seen a few funds like vanguard life stategy etc.
Not looking for high risk, something about medium risk.
How easy are these to set up and what are cost fee etc.
We're the best place to open the isa. And any help or info before I set this up.

Cavendishonline is worth a look as a cost effective broker for funds. It uses Fundsnetwork as the platform provided by Fidelity.

Have a look at Monevator.com and consider reading Tima Hale's - Smarter Investor for backround on investing.

ChopperST

What timescale will you need to draw down the funds?

makey1976

10-20 years

Archi_Bald

monevator.com is definitely a good resource:

- passive investing
- low cost index trackers
- Broker comparison


Also, for cheapest S&S ISA providers: first few posts of https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3153942

ChopperST

10 - 20 years is a vague timescale in the investment world.

If it is 10 then your risk profile will need to be lower to minimise loses.

If it is 20 then you can afford to take greater risk in your early years as your portfolio will have time to recover.

Perhaps you could give us a bit more of an idea about yourself and what the money is for. Perhaps it is you need some funds in 10 years and some in 20 in which case you could have two investment pots, one for the 10 year timescale and one for the 20...

bigadaj

I'm not sure if there woud be a radical difference in investments between a ten And twenty year timescale.

I don't think cavendish carry vanguard funds, I hold mine on charles stanley direct and they are pretty good.

As well as monevator candid money website is worth a look, including compare fund platforms which indicates costs on different platforms for different funds.

The vanguard lifestrategy funds are a good basis for a protfolio, perhaps looking for some doversification after the amount saved has grown to the high thousands or low tens of thousands.

As ever do your own research, but please come back with more thoughts and people will no doubt be able to provide further comment on your proposals.

System

Impossible to recommend actual fund/share choices as it's a very personal decision. I personally prefer active (managed) funds, but other people swear by passive (tracker) funds such as Vanguard Life Strategy and some prefer a combination. As I said it's very personal!

However good places to start looking at funds are:

Morningstar
Trustnet
Best Invest
Hargreaves Lansdown

Charles Stanley Direct or Cavendish Online are good places to hold your ISA as have low charges.

innovate

teepee83 wrote: »

Charles Stanley Direct or Cavendish Online are good places to hold your ISA as have low charges.

Yes and no- it is not that simple. For example:

You hold £6,000 worth of Vanguard LS at CS - costs £15 a year. The same at HL costs £48 a year.

You hold £100,000 worth of Vanguard LS at CS - costs £250 a year. The same at HL still costs £48 a year.

The break point is £20K, which is less than 2 years ISA allowance. It may or may not make sense to start out with the cheapest and review / move later. Moving will undoubtedly incur some costs and might involve being out of the market for a while - might be good or bad.

It seems pretty obvious though that the likes of CS are hoping people won't move once they get to £20K.

The above are the present charges - HL will soon have to publish their post-RDR charges and things might look different then.

Marazan

innovate wrote: »

The above are the present charges - HL will soon have to publish their post-RDR charges and things might look different then.

Yeah, I don't think it's fair to compare pre and post-RDR brokers in terms of fees. But even amongst the post-RDR brokers there are big differences the key one being whether they make the money from holding your funds (like Charles Staley Direct) or from you buying/selling funds (like Alliance Trust).

The first are good for low value holdings that you are constantly adding to, the latter for high value holdings that are static.

ChopperST

bigadaj wrote: »

I'm not sure if there woud be a radical difference in investments between a ten And twenty year timescale.

I don't think cavendish carry vanguard funds, I hold mine on charles stanley direct and they are pretty good.

As well as monevator candid money website is worth a look, including compare fund platforms which indicates costs on different platforms for different funds.

The vanguard lifestrategy funds are a good basis for a protfolio, perhaps looking for some doversification after the amount saved has grown to the high thousands or low tens of thousands.

As ever do your own research, but please come back with more thoughts and people will no doubt be able to provide further comment on your proposals.

What if the op holds 100% equity at year 9 and the market crashes 50%?