Stocks & Shares ISAs

Martinslovechild

jasdev wrote: »

What would be a good platform to transfer to, which would allow me to just sit on the account fee-free for a while until I get my act together? Is there even such a platform?
Or would I be better off selling my shares and getting out of the market altogether for the time being?

You haven't mentioned the value of your portfolio, but if we look purely at cost, then the answer really comes down to whether you choose a broker which levies a percentage-based fee or a fixed fee. Interactive Investor charge a fixed quarterly fee.

Hargreaves Lansdown, for example, charge a max fee of £3.75/month for investing in shares/investment trusts etc - but their fees for investing in unit trusts are horrendous (0.45% p.a.) compared to Interactive Investor for larger portfolios.

Have a look at the Broker Comparison on Monevator to determine if you might be financially better off elsewhere.

Always remember to complete a transfer form when porting your ISA elsewhere, otherwise you'll lose the tax-free ISA wrapper.

Alexland

jasdev wrote: »

Or would I be better off selling my shares and getting out of the market altogether for the time being?

Individual shares are risky and it's even more risky if you are not paying attention to them to understand any ongoing changes in risk profile. If you are not interested you are probably best coming up with an exit strategy.

If you want a low maintenance way to keep the money invested in the markets then consider a well diversified global low cost mixed asset fund such as Vanguard LifeStrategy, HSBC Global Strategy or Blackrock Consensus series - picking one in the series that matches your volatility tollerence and investment timeframe.

In terms of platform if it is really low value then maybe a percentage based platform otherwise if it is a static investment with no further contributions then Halifax iWeb will charge £25 setup and £5 to buy the fund and then no ongoing platform cost.

Alex

jasdev

Thank you! I didn't know about Monevator so I will go take a look.
It's under £1,000 in value, so the quarterly charge amounts to 3% of my portfolio value...

Thank you too, Alex! I guess I could say my willingness to take risk is high but my (present) ability to take risk is low, so I'm weighing up whether I should invest in a high-yielding easy-access savings account vs. a tracker fund, but I will look at those three fund providers also.

Alexland

jasdev wrote: »

Thank you! I didn't know about Monevator so I will go take a look.
It's under £1,000 in value, so the quarterly charge amounts to 3% of my portfolio value...

Aah in which case how about Vanguard LifeStrategy at 0.22% on the Vanguard Investor 0.15% platform with no trade fees. Total cost 0.37% = £3.70 per year?

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk

Maybe something balanced like VLS60?

Vanguard are even happy to sell down your investments at no charge to pay the platform fees. So you can invest it all and don't need to keep track of the cash balance. Ultra low maintenance. Also as Vanguard are not for profit even if you ignore their emails they are unlikely to screw you over.

Alternatively the Orbis Balanced fund with a £100 bonus if you act quick. No platform charge or cash balance to worry about but a variable percentage fund performance charge. See my other thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5775047

Alex.

jimjames

jasdev wrote: »

Thank you! I didn't know about Monevator so I will go take a look.
It's under £1,000 in value, so the quarterly charge amounts to 3% of my portfolio value....

For £1000 unless you've already used up your ISA allowance this year you could just close and open a new one with that sort of amount. As above diversification would be better option than one share for that sort of level

isotonic_uk

Hi All

I am currently looking to setup a JISA of some sort for my new born son. I am willing to take a bit more of a gamble and because the rates are just ok with a cash JISA I am tempted to looking at the stocks and shares JISA instead.

I am new to all this, I have looked through all the guides on the MSE site as well as other sites and want to understand more about what funds are out there and try to understand which ones are high risk or low risk and make a decision.

Like I said I want to take a bit more of a gamble and go for what they call a 'high risk' fund but with the hope that the gains are a lot more. In terms of funding it, we going to put all the money he has received from family and friends to get the account open and then we going to look at funding it with about £25 a month at a minimum and then just add any further monies he received in the future.

Any advice on this or further reading I should do or even recommending a book would be most appreciated. I really want to get involved this and see if we can get a good long term investment opportunity via JISA till he gets to his 18th birthday which is a long way.....

Thanks

Alexland

isotonic_uk wrote: »

Like I said I want to take a bit more of a gamble and go for what they call a 'high risk' fund but with the hope that the gains are a lot more. In terms of funding it, we going to put all the money he has received from family and friends to get the account open and then we going to look at funding it with about £25 a month at a minimum and then just add any further monies he received in the future.

My son's Junior ISA is with Orbis whose investment strategy has returned an average of about 12% per annum for over 25 years - see below thread. Despite this track record this is not a mainstream investment option as they are contrarians. Unfortunately you have just missed a £100 account opening bonus but they may run the offer again in March/April.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5775047

If you are going to invest money from others make sure they are happy with the risks you are taking. Any money from my parents has to go into premium bonds and any other gifts go into his 123 mini to earn 3% which almost keeps up with inflation.

Alex

RobStaffs

Is there anyway you can find out the transaction charges that are passed on to investors by fund managers and how they work? At the moment I can see the OCF and the HL Platform fee but I am trying to build up a true picture of the costs I am incurring. HL don't report the transaction costs on the fund information.

RobStaffs

In the last week I have tried very hard to locate the other ongoing charges such as transaction charges which are taken on an ongoing basis from my funds. It is almost an impossible task. I have looked at the fund prospectus and is not clear so I have taken to emailing the fund managers and the next step will be the legal ombudsman.

In terms of the OCF charges and transaction charges does anyone know how these charges are applied by fund managers. Are they taken from the fund once a year on monthly?

Alexland

RobStaffs wrote: »

In the last week I have tried very hard to locate the other ongoing charges such as transaction charges which are taken on an ongoing basis from my funds. It is almost an impossible task. I have looked at the fund prospectus and is not clear so I have taken to emailing the fund managers and the next step will be the legal ombudsman.

In terms of the OCF charges and transaction charges does anyone know how these charges are applied by fund managers. Are they taken from the fund once a year on monthly?

Sorry we missed your previous posts - it gets busy around here.

Have you tried looking at the Trustnet pages for your funds - in particular under the MIFID II section? Generally the OCF and investment costs will be spread across the year.