How to buy shares

C_Mababejive

Perhaps OP might consider a more diversified investment such as an investment trust or fund? Maybe PLI/scottish mortgage/tactical bond funds?

bowlhead99

funkey_monkey wrote: »

How much work is involved in buying shares and putting them into an ISA?

Very little. Although the way it works in terms of logistics / timeline is you subscribe to an ISA in cash and then within that ISA account, you buy the shares. You can't generally put shares you already have, into an ISA (apart from in some specific instances when sharesave schemes mature). So, when buying shares to supplement your sharesave ones, you just open a S&S ISA account and buy within the account.

But once you've set up your account, it takes seconds to place a trade during dealing hours to buy the shares. Or you can even place an order outside dealing hours to buy shares when the market opens. As mentioned further up the thread, lots of brokers and investment platforms offer ISAs.

What is considered as small volume? I was thinking of buying maybe £15k of company shares.

That's fine - the most cash you can put into an ISA in one tax year is £15k. The warning that buying small volumes is expensive really relates to someone who only wants to buy £500 of shares, who pays £12 to buy the shares and £12 to sell the shares and £30 admin fee for a broker to hold them for a year in between. That person would need the shares to go up in value by more than 10% just to break even.

Are there any accounts to do this from

Yes, there are tens of them. http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

Of the ones mentioned up thread, I use TD Direct Investing as my main ISA provider. No annual admin fee if your account is valued at over about £5k (although they do have an account closure fee).

and can I put a sell marker on the shares?

It depends what you mean by a 'sell marker' but nearly all providers will let you set a stop loss order or a limit order (or both) where the broker will endeavour to sell the number of shares you specify once the share price goes below or above a certain level.