What plarform would you recommend?

bowlhead99

hehe, I guess you are not one of those people who thinks "given present conditions" that they "might consider 'safer' to be better", if you're considering crowdfunding to businesses or entrepreneurs.

But I do agree, invest in all kinds of things as part of a balanced portfolio. I'm sure crowdfunding £5k of a £300k pot is fine for a bit of fun. If you mean simple short duration peer to peer lending to individuals via established sites, rather than literally "crowd-funding some venture capital projects", probably a higher percentage is fine too. I wouldn't stick £5k of a £5k investment portfolio into crowdfunding, as that would be pretty reckless.

JBond007

hehe - completely agree bowlhead99!! - sorry I didn't make myself too clear did I!

any thoughts on p2p/ crowd-LENDING?

Nocto

iWeb could be good for you if you plan to buy hold investments for years. I think I’m correct that it’s £25 to open the account then £5 per trade - simples! No ongoing platform charges.

Cavendish Online are also good. From memory it’s free to open the account, no trading charges, but they have an ongoing “service fee” of 0.25%. So on a £5,000 investment that would cost you just £12.50 a year. They deduct the fee by selling a few units each month.

I haven’t used iWeb yet myself, but I did use Halifax Share Dealing for about 10 years, who as far as I know own iWeb, and it’s the same platform but with lower dealing charges (but an account opening fee). I had no issues with the service.

I used Cavendish for about 18 months. They too were good.

I’m now with Interactive Investor. Transferred my investments to them this spring, but so far I am disappointed with their service. They are very slow paying out dividends compared to Halifax & Cavendish.:(

(In case you’re wondering why I keep moving around - it’s to do with rebates on the charges of my old fund units. As a new investor this does NOT affect you. They’ve reduced the charges within the funds, you can only now buy the new cheaper style units.)

My first investment was in a “fund of funds”. I bought one fund, but within that was 10 to 15 other funds, split about 60% shares & 40% bonds. The managers charges for this type of fund are higher (not to be confused with platform charges), but the manager does all the work for you in choosing the underlying investments. Kind of a ready made portfolio created by a professional manager, who actively manages it for you. I found it a great investment for a novice - long since sold it at a nice profit.

Now I have a bit more experience (still learning though!), I have 10 funds, 7 are shares (UK, USA, global, asian, etc.), 2 bond funds and 1 mixed asset. But I wouldn’t bother with this to start off with.

I have found that a buy and hold for years investment strategy works well for me. Most of my current funds I’ve held for a long time, and they are all showing a profit.

If I’m planning on switching funds, or making a new investment I sometimes take months to do my research and decide. I find there’s no need to rush things, or buy to hastily because I feel I’m missing out. Or, for that matter panic sell. Most of my investments have at some point been worth less than I paid for them - I just sit tight and wait for them to come back up again.

Reinvesting your dividends can really boost your returns over time. The easiest and cheapest way to do this is to buy acc units, which do this automatically. I don’t because I need the income, but it does reduce my capital gain.

Take your time, don’t get greedy (If it looks too good to be true - it probably is!) and good luck.:)

One last thing. The platform charges I’ve quoted above are from memory and may not be accurate, and of course nothing I’ve said counts as advice. I am a private investor learning as I go..!

PenguinJim

Nocto wrote: »

iWeb could be good for you if you plan to buy hold investments for years. I think I’m correct that it’s £25 to open the account then £5 per trade - simples! No ongoing platform charges.

Cavendish Online are also good. From memory it’s free to open the account, no trading charges, but they have an ongoing “service fee” of 0.25%. So on a £5,000 investment that would cost you just £12.50 a year. They deduct the fee by selling a few units each month.

I haven’t used iWeb yet myself, but I did use Halifax Share Dealing for about 10 years, who as far as I know own iWeb, and it’s the same platform but with lower dealing charges (but an account opening fee). I had no issues with the service.

Are those the only charges for Cavendish (and Charles Stanley, as suggested by BLB53)? So buying one £5,000 fund, holding for five years, and then selling:

IWEB: £35 (£25 account opening, £5 one buying fee, £5 one selling fee)
Cavendish: £62.50 (0.25% per annum charge)
Charles Stanley Direct: £62.50 (0.25% per annum charge)

Move to ten years:

IWEB: £35
Cavendish: £125
Charles Stanley Direct: £125

Buying, say, three funds totalling £5,000 and holding for five years:

IWEB: £55
Cavendish: £62.50
Charles Stanley Direct: £62.50

Same again for ten years:

IWEB: £55
Cavendish: £125
Charles Stanley Direct: £125

That's assuming the value holds at around £5,000 - if it increases considerably, so do the fees for Cavendish and Charles Stanley. If it decreases, again, so do those fees. The IWEB fees are constant.

With these scenarios, ignoring total account value changes, the worst case is a difference of £90, which in an amount of £5,000 is perhaps enough to make a difference. However, IWEB is a bare-bones service - the benefits of the other platforms may make them worthwhile.

Of course, if you know exactly what you're buying based on advice here, you won't need to pay for your platform to give you advice, too.

edinburgher

I count myself as a new investor, Charles Stanley Direct has impressed so far with fairly low platform charges, a huge range of funds and decent customer service.

Nocto

PenguinJim wrote: »

Are those the only charges for Cavendish (and Charles Stanley, as suggested by BLB53)? So buying one £5,000 fund, holding for five years, and then selling:

IWEB: £35 (£25 account opening, £5 one buying fee, £5 one selling fee)
Cavendish: £62.50 (0.25% per annum charge)
Charles Stanley Direct: £62.50 (0.25% per annum charge)

Move to ten years:

IWEB: £35
Cavendish: £125
Charles Stanley Direct: £125

Buying, say, three funds totalling £5,000 and holding for five years:

IWEB: £55
Cavendish: £62.50
Charles Stanley Direct: £62.50

Same again for ten years:

IWEB: £55
Cavendish: £125
Charles Stanley Direct: £125

That's assuming the value holds at around £5,000 - if it increases considerably, so do the fees for Cavendish and Charles Stanley. If it decreases, again, so do those fees. The IWEB fees are constant.

With these scenarios, ignoring total account value changes, the worst case is a difference of £90, which in an amount of £5,000 is perhaps enough to make a difference. However, IWEB is a bare-bones service - the benefits of the other platforms may make them worthwhile.

Of course, if you know exactly what you're buying based on advice here, you won't need to pay for your platform to give you advice, too.

Ahh… If only life was that simple!!;)

Yes these are the main charges which you’ll have to pay. Possibly the only ones - so your calculations are correct.

But, like other financial institutions (think banks!) they all have a whole list of fees and charges too numerous to mention…

The rough figures I quoted are the basic ones for a trading account. Some brokers will charge you extra fees to hold your funds in an ISA - and some won’t. If you have the bad manners to die without selling your investments first, most brokers will take great pleasure in charging your next of kin a whole host of fees to sort things out! Etc. etc…

Oh yes, and for gods sake don’t be late paying any of the charges. Because, guess what - there’ll be another charge for that too!

It’s all listed for you on their websites.

As for the advice bit, no matter how fancy a sites “research tools” are, treat with caution. Just because they give a fund 5 stars, or diamond status, an A rating, or whatever, doesn’t mean it’s the right fund for you. Or that it’ll make you money. Usually it just means that it’s a well run fund, that’s done a bit better than other similar funds in the past. There’s no guarantee that it’ll outperform next year.

If someone suggests an investment here, treat with the same caution you’d give a gambling tip… It might be great, but do your own research before investing.

himalshelat

PenguinJim wrote: »

Are those the only charges for Cavendish (and Charles Stanley, as suggested by BLB53)? So buying one £5,000 fund, holding for five years, and then selling:

IWEB: £35 (£25 account opening, £5 one buying fee, £5 one selling fee)
Cavendish: £62.50 (0.25% per annum charge)
Charles Stanley Direct: £62.50 (0.25% per annum charge)

Charles Stanley Direct: £62.50

Thanks guys that's really useful.
What if I also want to invest 100pound per month in 1fund.
iWeb will charge 5pounds every month?

badger09

himalshelat wrote: »

Thanks guys that's really useful.
What if I also want to invest 100pound per month in 1fund.
iWeb will charge 5pounds every month?

iWeb charge £5 every time you buy or sell. Great for lump sum investors, but not if you want to invest small amounts each month.

Nocto

Investing a fixed sum each month can be a great way to invest. If the price goes up, then you’ve made a profit on the units / shares you’ve already bought. If it goes down, then you’re getting more units / shares for your money.

Google “Pound Cost Averaging”

Some brokers have cheaper dealing charges if you set up a monthly DD with them, and choose an investment you want it to buy. Once set up it just continues until you cancel it.

Even if you want to invest a lump sum you can use this method. Just set up the DD for £500pm, then cancel it after 10 months. Bingo! £5,000 invested, and you haven’t lost sleep worrying about the price falling the day after you invest. Of course it can still tank later on..!:D

Eco_Miser

Investing a fixed sum each month can be a terrible way to invest. If the price goes down, then you’ve made a loss on the units / shares you’ve already bought. If it goes up, then you’re getting less units / shares for your money. Plus, you're not invested for so long, so you get less dividends.