cheapest ftse 100 tracker

mark55man

Thanks everyone - back from work now and pleased to see some good choices.


I was planning to do this inside an ISA, but I can arrange it otherwise as it is advice for 18 year old DD who has no CGT to worry about, and is under her personal allowance from her pre uni job

gadgetmind

westy22 wrote: »

Y though that may change next Wednesday when they announce their new prices.

Unless they kick they can down the road yet again.

If I was confident that they'd be publishing their suicide note on Wednesday then I'd be shorting them like crazy.

mark55man

would be nice if you could short HL on the HL platform - but strangely they don't support that

Marazan

JohnRo wrote: »

With CS you pay 0.25% up to the account hard cap of £150 for stocks and shares or if you trade 6 times every 6 months, which costs £120pa with regular £10 dealing charges, there are no further charges at all.

Wow, I totally misread the CS documentation as requiring 6 trades a month rather than 6 trades every 6 months.

Porcupine

mark88man wrote: »

would be nice if you could short HL on the HL platform - but strangely they don't support that

What platforms can you short on, out of curiosity? Had a quick look around and the best I can do is a Put Option on Liffe (with a non-UK platform), which doesn't really work out if you don't own the shares in the first place. There's CFD too, but not sure I want to go there.

mark55man

more of a joke than a serious point. I do not currently engage in any of them although I have played with (ie lost money on) options - but more for education and as a release for poor behaviour so that it doesn't impact serious money
I think shorting (or an equivalent effect) can be achieved by
a. options (better to use US sites as much more liquid)
b. CFD as you state
c. Spread betting

bowlhead99

Spread betting's advantage over CFD is lack of capital gains tax though the prices/dealing costs could be more expensive depending on amounts involved.

IG.com are easy enough to use, below is Friday's prices for HL



If you'd been shorting them the last couple of weeks you would have lost out. Also if they announce new fee scales this week they are bound to accompany it with plenty of marketing spin about how they expect to mostly maintain margins, keep or grow customer base, and benefit from the US and UK markets pushing towards higher highs, increasing assets under management.

The time to short, if you don't believe they will be able to do this in reality, is probably just before the earnings release/ management statement in a quarter or two where they explain how many active customer accounts they have won or lost since bringing in their new rates, compared to rivals.