Stocks & Shares ISAs

innovate

hwindsor wrote: »

To my knowledge, at the moment you can only invest in one cash and one stocks ISA in one tax year. I'm hoping that restriction will go too.

You are correct, it is max 1 cash and S&S ISA each per financial year per person, as long as you do not max your ISA allowance with either (some finer nuances between now and July 1, too). And no, that restriction will not go this financial year.

You can transfer previous years' ISA to your hearts content come July, and you have lots of transfers options between now and then. As has been the case for years, transfers do not count towards your ISA allowance. Transfers may involve charges by the providers that make transfers no financially viable, but that doesn't make them illegal.

Brand

mikebeaches wrote: »

. . . .The Share Centre charges a modest FIXED monthly administration fee, rather than outrageous 'ad valorem' charges (ie a percentage of the value of your total investments), . . ..

Thanks Mike. Although not the bare cheapest stockbroker isa, it could be a big positive of Share Centre particularly for unsure or new investors in that if offers a free telephone advice line which, though not strictly "advice" in the full FA sense for your particular circumstances, can be a guiding hand with your ideas and andhandholding through market set backs. Clever clogs who find investing so easymight not need such help of course, but we more modest people might think it is worth signing with Share Centre. (Normally advisory stockbroking is a premium service.) I'd be interested to know if you have used that and found it any good.

mikebeaches

Brand wrote: »

Thanks Mike. Although not the bare cheapest stockbroker isa, it could be a big positive of Share Centre particularly for unsure or new investors in that if offers a free telephone advice line which, though not strictly "advice" in the full FA sense for your particular circumstances, can be a guiding hand with your ideas and andhandholding through market set backs. Clever clogs who find investing so easymight not need such help of course, but we more modest people might think it is worth signing with Share Centre. (Normally advisory stockbroking is a premium service.) I'd be interested to know if you have used that and found it any good.

My wife and I recently registered for the free advice service, but so far haven't used it.

But, we have been clients of The Share Centre for some 20-odd years and find them excellent and very helpful. I call them frequently for technical and administrative advice (as opposed to pure financial advice about selecting specific investments). Additionally, we find they are generally efficient and professional in the way they operate.

One thing we particularly like is that they re-invest individual share dividends for just 0.5% commission, regardless of how large or small the dividend is. We think this is competitive compared to most (all?) other brokers.

When we first retired a year or so ago, we started having dividends paid into our bank account to supplement our income. However, after about 18 months we discovered we didn't really need the additional income to live day-to-day, so asked if the accounts could be set to re-invest the dividends again, so we'd compound the growth in the ISAs once more. Absolutely no problem - simple request on the phone and all done. Same with most other requests; if they can they'll do things from a telephone instruction. Also good at responding to email too.

[I'm starting to sound like a salesman now!]

Mike

SnowMan

The Share Centre is an expensive option to go for see this thread.

mikebeaches

SnowMan wrote: »

The Share Centre is an expensive option to go for see this thread.

Thanks! - Hadn't seen that thread. Afraid, even after reading it, I'm not convinced that they are expensive for our needs. May not be the out and out cheapest (?), but good value in our opinion. Damn sight better than Hargreaves Lansdown's new fees - I know to my cost!

I've just posted a note on the other thread about two ways to cap dealing costs at The Share Centre.

We only trade infrequently, and it works well for us.

Mike

SnowMan

mikebeaches wrote: »

Thanks! - Hadn't seen that thread. Afraid, even after reading it, I'm not convinced that they are expensive for our needs. May not be the out and out cheapest (?), but good value in our opinion. Damn site better than Hargreaves Lansdown's new fees - I know to my cost!

I've just posted a note on the other thread about two ways to cap dealing costs at The Share Centre.

We only trade infrequently, and it works well for us.

Mike

I like your workaround to keep costs down, of switching to frequent trader as required, that you suggest on the Share Centre thread. That is certainly an interesting way to keep costs down. Flipping the charging structure, in a calculated way could make them relatively inexpensive, depending on individual circumstances.

This sort of thing is where sharing knowledge through these forums is particularly useful. It isn't immediately obvious from their website that flipping too and fro as often as you want (albeit on a quarterly basis) is possible.

Without the flipping I think they are expensive.

mikebeaches

SnowMan wrote: »

I like your workaround to keep costs down, of switching to frequent trader as required, that you suggest on the Share Centre thread. That is certainly an interesting way to keep costs down. Flipping the charging structure, in a calculated way could make them relatively inexpensive, depending on individual circumstances.

This sort of thing is where sharing knowledge through these forums is particularly useful. It isn't immediately obvious from their website that flipping too and fro as often as you want (albeit on a quarterly basis) is possible.

Without the flipping I think they are expensive.

Yes, because we're (wife and I) mostly buy-and-hold investors, we do the majority of our share buying during the first quarter of the financial year. And, as I said - it works for us. We don't have very much in funds in our ISAs, compared to our respective share portfolios.

Oh, and for funds they work with Cofunds (which of course is part of Legal & General) - so any buying or selling might take 24-48 hours to implement. Obviously, shares are immediate and appear in your account pretty much instantly.

We get lots of USEFUL (as opposed to junk) email communication from them. And always receive notification and contract notes for buying, selling, divident re-investments etc by email too. From our perspective it feels a pretty slick operation.

In summary, to date, we've found The Share Centre are fair in how they handle things, especially compared to others.

Mike

gavin7094

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can see HL still work out cheaper than most as they frequently offer a saving on the AMC. On the range of funds that I own this is between 0.05-0.75%, which more than makes up for the fact that their fee is 0.45%. Am I missing something here? I am about to switch funds from Cavendish online into HL as they work out about 0.3% per year cheaper on average. Even if iWeb or AXA offered my funds (which they don't) I would still be paying the full AMC which would make me worse off.

innovate

What your best / cheapest platform is all depends on what you invest in, how much you have invested and are going to invest, and how frequently you trade if the trades are chargeable. You also need to look at other charges that might be levied, such as transfer or withdrawal charges.

There is no one size fits all because rarely will two investors have exactly the same portfolio and investment approach.

masonic

gavin7094 wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can see HL still work out cheaper than most as they frequently offer a saving on the AMC. On the range of funds that I own this is between 0.05-0.75%, which more than makes up for the fact that their fee is 0.45%. Am I missing something here?

I had a quick look through their Wealth 150+ because I couldn't quite believe that they discounted so much. I found one fund with a discount of 0.4%, a few with 0.2% and most of the other discounted funds were between 0.05% and 0.1% (and of course, the vast majority have no discount). Are you sure you weren't looking at dirty ("inclusive") classes, where all platforms must now rebate the trail commission - these tend to rebate up to 0.75%, but will have the same rebate regardless of platform?