Which Share/Fund dealing platform?

Reckless_Saving

masonic wrote: »

iDealing has been mentioned here before, but they have very confusing information regarding their charges (I couldn't work out if the trading fee was £9.90, £2.10 or £1.65 - all three were listed). [/URL].

Now you're confusing me :rotfl: For standard trades the price is £9.90 for us, the other prices are for the professionals doing large trades and also include percentage charge on the amount traded - had to do some digging for those

elwy

I manage my S&S ISA with TD Direct (transferred from Interactive Investor since the platform fee shake-up), and I manage my OH's with Hargreaves Lansdown.

I chose TD Direct and Hargreaves Lansdown as platforms from the perspective of a passive long-term investor, i.e. I tend to trade funds infrequently and leave my accounts alone for long periods of time. I haven't traded shares with either of them yet.

The advantage of TD Direct is that it has a low platform fee which makes them very cheap to hold tracker funds with. They also have no charges for transfers or account closure, which is a nice bonus.

Hargreaves Lansdown have a slightly higher platform fee but they tend to negotiate better annual charges for many of the managed funds that I invest in, so in practice their managed funds are often the same price as TD Direct. Their website is excellent, highly intuitive and easy to use and they send periodic newletters and are very good at communicating.

The TD Direct website is fairly good but not quite the same standard as HL - for example, one niggle is that I cannot completely close my position on a fund via the TD Direct website, unlike HL. Also, I once managed to buy obsolete funds via the TD Direct website via a link that hadn't been updated on the website. TD Direct has been very good at helping to resolve problems whenever I've phoned them, but by contrast I've never had to phone Hargreaves Lansdown because there have never been any problems.

In summary, I'm fairly happy with both of these platforms but my personal recommendation out of the two would be Hargreaves Lansdown for the best overall value, unless you are looking to mainly invest in cheap tracker funds in which case TD Direct would be the better choice.

masonic

Reckless_Saving wrote: »

Now you're confusing me :rotfl: For standard trades the price is £9.90 for us, the other prices are for the professionals doing large trades and also include percentage charge on the amount traded - had to do some digging for those

Yes. They were previously mentioned as a cheap broker, but £9.90 per trade is not cheap, hence my confusion, and to top it off they charge £5 per quarter for the privilege of having an account?

I'm not happy with my own provider, SVS XO for raising it's trading fee to £7.95 (and not telling me). But at least they aren't trying to charge me a plaform fee and won't hit me with a £60 account closure fee if I leave them.

So alternative platforms are of interest to me. It seems iDealing can definitively be crossed off my list of platforms under consideration.

cloud_dog

masonic wrote: »

Yes. They were previously mentioned as a cheap broker, but £9.90 per trade is not cheap, hence my confusion, and to top it off they charge £5 per quarter for the privilege of having an account?

I'm not happy with my own provider, SVS XO for raising it's trading fee to £7.95 (and not telling me). But at least they aren't trying to charge me a plaform fee and won't hit me with a £60 account closure fee if I leave them.

So alternative platforms are of interest to me. It seems iDealing can definitively be crossed off my list of platforms under consideration.

Ooooo, didn't know this either.

I think the rise almost takes them out of the 'cheap' arena in to the main throng of average dealing charges. I've put up with their 'basic' website purely because of the low dealing costs.

I think X-O have an account closure fee. I'll have to check.

EDIT: Masonic, I've just checked their site and it still says £5.95 dealing charges. Where did you hear about the increased cost? The website says £50 closure fee, not £60???

Rollinghome

cloud_dog wrote: »

Ooooo, didn't know this either.

I think the rise almost takes them out of the 'cheap' arena in to the main throng of average dealing charges. I've put up with their 'basic' website purely because of the low dealing costs.

I think X-O have an account closure fee. I'll have to check.

EDIT: Masonic, I've just checked their site and it still says £5.95 dealing charges. Where did you hear about the increased cost? The website says £50 closure fee, not £60???

Masonic was referring to SVS-XO who were charging £5.75 per trade and are now charging £7.95.

X-O are still charging £5.95.

(SVS did inform me of the pending rise by email some time ago BTW.)

cloud_dog

Rollinghome wrote: »

Masonic was referring to SVS-XO

Ahhhh....How confusing (for a simpleton like me)