General help needed on choosing a platform for shares/funds investment

mikecc

Hi guys and girls.

I'm looking to find out if the idea I have in my head is something that is possible with existing technology and service providers. I'd like to open an account with a single provider/broker that I can manage online, and have access to major stock markets, individual company shares, funds, etc.

I am currently working in the middle east but plan to hold my investment base primarily in the UK, purely because it's where I'm from and I'm familiar with it, plus I plan to retire there. That said, I'd like to be able to consider opportunities around the world for investment.

My situation:
• Currently working in Qatar, earning a tax-free salary with a lot of free time for research and discovery
• Most money is sat in standard savings account with one bank in UK, plus the bank in Qatar I get paid into
• I prefer to keep things as consolidated as possible for simplicity whilst working overseas
• No debt, approx. 40k liquid assets, no property etc.
• Planning on buying a small flat for my dad in around 12 months, though this will not be impacted


My preferences:
• A single sign-in platform that I can transfer money into from a main bank account/card and distribute across shares/stocks/funds of my choosing
• Multi-currency / international options
• Managed by myself only
• Allows an initial investment of 5-10k with monthly investment of around 500-1000gbp.
• Long term options, but real time buy/sell
• Easy to understand interface with monitoring and reports

I am looking for long term (5-10+ years) gain, and would like to invest in a few managed funds, as well as taking a speculative punt on stock market movements, risk understood. I would rather not have multiple different logins, platforms, providers etc. because frankly I’ll get sloppy and forget to log in or something.

Does this thing exist? I plan to research extensively before making any cash transactions of course, but I’d like to start with a particular platform then look at the specific products it has access to.

Thanks so much for your help in advance.

xylophone

https://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/choose-an-account/other-accounts/

might be worth a look?

Atreyu107

There are loads of exo platforms that do what you need. The big players are:

TD Waterhouse
Hargreaves Lansdown
AJ Bell Youinvest
Interactive Investor
IG Dealing

All have different fee schedules so DYOR, but pretty much all of them give access to the major European and US markets, as well as a huge range of Mutual Funds.

EdGasket

For most accounts you need to be UK resident. If you are not, you might be limited to something like the TD Direct international account where dealing rates and charges are generally higher than some of the low-cost UK providers like x-o which require UK residency to open an account.

tg99

Atreyu107 wrote: »

There are loads of exo platforms that do what you need. The big players are:

TD Waterhouse
Hargreaves Lansdown
AJ Bell Youinvest
Interactive Investor
IG Dealing

All have different fee schedules so DYOR, but pretty much all of them give access to the major European and US markets, as well as a huge range of Mutual Funds.

Note that IG do not offer mutual funds.

mikecc

Thanks for the help. Plenty to read up on.

I've been advised Cavendish elsewhere. Their fee structure seems decent for a sub 10k portfolio, I could re-assess in a year.

Is there anything missing from Cavendish's service offering that resulted in them not being suggested in the above lists? For example, can I buy shares in a specific company or am I limited to funds?

jimjames

You can't buy shares via Cavendish yet. That may change next year but for a sub £10k portfolio I don't think shares are best option anyway

mikecc

Oh I was told you can - just that they're held in a seperate ISA from the funds so you couldn't open both in a single FY. Time to read more.

Sounds like being overseas makes it even trickier anyway. I've sent an enquiry through asking if they can cater to me, otherwise TD might be the best option.

badger09

mikecc wrote: »

Oh I was told you can - just that they're held in a seperate ISA from the funds so you couldn't open both in a single FY. Time to read more.

Sounds like being overseas makes it even trickier anyway. I've sent an enquiry through asking if they can cater to me, otherwise TD might be the best option.

Do you really mean in a separate ISA? Or just in a separate account?

If you are not resident in UK for tax purposes, you can't subscribe to any ISA, either a new or an existing one.

panter

I am one of the fans on here of Hargreaves Lansdown. I think you'll find you can do whatever you want with them.

I have not done a line by line cost comparison of Hargreaves with other platforms. I really am not bothered that another platform might be a little bit cheaper. Because having experienced other platforms, none of those I have tried are anything like as useable as Hargreaves. Also, if you c*ck something up, or just have a question, the humans at Hargreaves are excellent.

I use Hargreaves for the same reason I drive a BMW. You get what you pay for.

grey_gym_sock

panter wrote: »

I use Hargreaves for the same reason I drive a BMW. You get what you pay for.

in terms of quality of service, you may have a point.

however, investing is a bit of a looking-glass world. in investing, you get what you don't pay for. in other words: paying higher charges directly reduces your net returns, and usually doesn't increase your raw (before charges) returns enough to compensate.

though this not only, or mainly, about platform charges. it's also about the TER (or OCF) of collective investments. and about the transaction costs you incur when holding direct investments. and about the internal transaction costs of collective investments (which aren't always properly disclosed).

you can reduce costs a lot more by mostly using passive funds instead of active, and (if you use direct investments) by not churning your portfolio excessively, than by your choice of platform.

there are also cheaper and more expensive ways to use the same platform. with hargreaves, this is mainly about when to use funds vs when to use ETFs/ITs/shares, allowing for account charges and dealing commissions. if you play this carefully, hargreaves will be at worst only slightly more expensive than the alternatives.

i only only use HL where they are relatively cheap. but then i'm a cheapskate. and i prefer to split my investments across several platforms, just in case. (i also own some shares in HL.)