drip feeding

bowlhead99

brendon wrote: »

Doesn't that work out rather expensive. Don't use HL, but it looks they would charge £1.50 per purchase

Many platforms (HL included) don't charge transaction fees for regular investments into "Funds" such as OEICs and Unit Trusts, but only for investments into stock-market real-time traded investments like shares, investment trusts and ETFs. You can invest in funds that sit on the fund platform simply by paying an annual platform fee.

HL's annual platform fee is quite high (0.45%) versus someone like Youinvest who would charge only 0.2% for funds, but the latter would charge a £1.50 transaction fee on the side, like you suggest - in which case yes you would do better to rotate the purchases or just purchase less frequently in larger amounts.

wisey2

Is there anyone that does cheaper fess for monthly isa investments into ETFs ? I use iii at present who charge £1.50 each , cant seem to find any cheaper value ? Guess as above its best to invest higher value less frequently ?

bowlhead99

£1.50 seems to be round about the lowest going rate for regular bulk purchases.

That's the regular monthly rate for FTSE 350 shares, some former-350 shares, ETFs, some popular investment trusts and most Funds at Youinvest.

TD Direct are also £1.50 but they are only for FTSE 350 and a restricted set of ETFs which I don't think I've seen a list for (Funds are free -but higher annual percentage platform fee than funds on Youinvest - and ITs not included)

Halifax are £2 I think, and again I'm not sure I have seen a full list of what that covers but I no longer use them. HL are £1.50 but according to their charge sheet it covered the 350 plus some investment trusts and not ETFs - also they have an annual percentage platform fee on the first £x of investment trust and ETF holdings so they're not exactly a bargain basement solution.

Some providers give you a choice of dates to set your monthly investments up for, while others just bulk together everyone onto one date. It probably isn't worth moving to get a better choice of dates if it's only the price point you are looking to improve.

What I have done with Youinvest occasionally in the past if I really wanted to keep the £1.50s low, is simply to automate your 'higher value less frequently' thing by setting a monthly purchase level higher than my direct contributions would actually buy.

So for example, if I'm contributing £250 to the plan each month I can set up my regular purchase for £300. I'll get my £1.50 fee whenever it makes a purchase. But in a month where I only have £250 in the account, the regular purchase simply won't exercise because of insufficient funds. If I have more cash lying around from a previous month's surplus, or from dividends or tax refunds, then it will execute at £300 and then my £1.50 charge is only a 0.5% "entry fee". If there's not enough cash on hand it will simply fail and roll over to the next month.

I've only really done this a few times as a 'proof of concept' and don't know if they would get annoyed or say something if the fund orders were bouncing every other month (e.g. £200 contribution but a £400 order set up); probably not as I guess it's all automated.

masonic

wisey2 wrote: »

Is there anyone that does cheaper fess for monthly isa investments into ETFs ? I use iii at present who charge £1.50 each , cant seem to find any cheaper value ? Guess as above its best to invest higher value less frequently ?

It depends how picky you are as to which ETFs you would want to invest in. For example, there was some discussion recently around Fidelity, who offer a limited set of ETFs (from iShares and HSBC) via JP Morgan for a 0.1% transaction fee, which might be cheaper for small value investments. You also need to consider the platform fee, though and the fact that you'll be getting quarterly trading credit through II. With those factors added in, it won't be very attractive unless the value of your existing investments is also quite small.

collingbone614

Jaguar_Skills wrote: »

If I reinvested more money into the same company or fund how do I track the profit again??

I believe HL shows the increase/decrease on a daily basis, starting from base level each day..

I.e. if you have £100 and go up by 1% then it shows £101. But then if it goes down 2% the next day, it shows the value as £98.

So, it looks like it "resets" every day.. I don't know how you would actually track your gains on HL.. can anyone else advise?

MadMat

The HL account summary screen clearly shows the profit / loss for each line of stock/fund in both absolute £xx.xx and percentage formats.

I've closely monitored all my nice green numbers turn red over the last few days

Mat

collingbone614

MadMat wrote: »

The HL account summary screen clearly shows the profit / loss for each line of stock/fund in both absolute £xx.xx and percentage formats.

I've closely monitored all my nice green numbers turn red over the last few days

Mat

Yes, but how can you tell what you've lost/earned on your investments over the previous, say, 12 months? I realise this is a newbie question. But there must be a part of the site which can tell you this information. The info on the account summary screen appears to update daily.. but surely there is somewhere you can get +/- info on your specific investments for longer periods. Daily information is fine but it is not very meaningful..

MadMat

There is no simple way to do it, you'd have to go back through the transaction history and compare the price you paid with the current price.

For example I can see that last month I paid 104.1p per share for CF woodford, and this month got them at a bargain price of 100.4p

Jaguar_Skills

Seems a bit silly that they haven't thought of that already to show what profit you ate in real time rather than having to do all the maths.

MadMat

Jaguar_Skills wrote: »

Seems a bit silly that they haven't thought of that already to show what profit you ate in real time rather than having to do all the maths.

it does show the profit/loss in real time, but over the entire time you have held that stock/fund.

if you are drip feeding into a fund it will tell you the total you have paid in and the current value of your holding, along with a +/- figure for your total profit/loss on that stock.

seems more than adequate to me

for example I can see on one line of my SIPP account

Code BLRZQC8
CF Woodford Equity Income Class Z - Accumulation (GBP) Wealth 150+ fund

Units held 109.056
Price (pence) 99.90
Value (£) 108.95

Cost (£) 110.00
Gain/loss
£-1.05
%-0.9