First stocks isa, £4k

twister2706

Hi,

I'm looking to invest £4000 in my first stocks and shares isa. I will be putting the money into 4 funds that I have picked out, as accumulator units. I am currently looking at places to do this, so far I've narrowed it down to cavendish online (seem unbelievably cheap?!) and rplan and hargreave lansdown. Which would you guys recommend?

My cash is currently in a cash isa with natwest [£5xxx] and I wish to only invest £4000 of it (leaving some cash for the future). The £5xxx was only put into the isa THIS tax year, I'm having trouble figuring out how to move only £4000 out of it into a stocks isa, please help with this too?!

Cheers guys

Archi_Bald

If you want to transfer this year's ISA funds, you have to move all of them, I'm afraid.

However, there seems little point in a proper ISA transfer in your case, so you could just withdraw the £4,000 yourself, and deposit it into whichever platform provider you are going for.

As to which platform is best for you - a lot could depend on the funds you are using, and what your future plans are. Plus, HL are yet to announce their post-RDR charging structure. Rumoured to happen on Jan 15.
In the meantime, the monevator broker comparison might be of some help: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

twister2706

Archi_Bald wrote: »

If you want to transfer this year's ISA funds, you have to move all of them, I'm afraid.

However, there seems little point in a proper ISA transfer in your case, so you could just withdraw the £4,000 yourself, and deposit it into whichever platform provider you are going for.

As to which platform is best for you - a lot could depend on the funds you are using, and what your future plans are. Plus, HL are yet to announce their post-RDR charging structure. Rumoured to happen on Jan 15.
In the meantime, the monevator broker comparison might be of some help: http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

The funds I'll be investing in are Marlborough Multi Cap Income
Unicorn UK Income
L&G UK Property Trust
M&G Strategic Corporate Bond

I really like the look and feel of rplan, but to me that doesnt seem like a reason to use them as the provider as I'm currently using their "virtual portfolio" to track the funds and view performance etc.
In terms of future plans, I'm just going to let this money sit and grow for the years to come [minimum 4/5], I assume I'll reassign the values of the portfolio so it matches up to the initial ratio of investment once a year (no idea what the word for this is so excuse the description!).
Currently in first year of uni and these are my savings. Not much need for the 4k at 19 in uni when I've got my maintenance loan etc.

Cavendish online just seems so cheap, what am I missing? Why are they willing to just take £5 per £10000 ISA?! Are they likely to fold at some point and I'll be left without any of my money (is this even possible)?

bigadaj

In investment terms this is a very small sum, so in percentage terms then fees aren't going to be partciulalry significant, flat rates charges and particulalry exit fees liks hl could hit you hard so shcoeck on these.

If you like rplan then that's a plus, and £1000 per fund is pretty small beer, so I might be tempted into one general fund.

In terms of reallocating value then this is rebalancing, would be worth checking there won't be any costs for this with your chosen provider.

Cavendish are pretty cheap but get generally good reviews, they are an incredibly small operation apparently which keeps costs down.

Probably best waiting a few weeks to see what the last couple of providers settle on before the deadline, but good luck.