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Best Trading Platform?
don9999
Posts: 596 Forumite
Am reviewing my finances and wondering whether there is a better Trading Platform to use.
When considering a trading platform, the usualy considerations include:
* Annual charges
* Trading charges
* (perhaps) available funds that can be purchased
The latter is not really of concern to me, as I only buy individual companies, or Investment Trusts - mainly FTSE100 or 250.
I currently have TWO ISAs, one with Barclays Stockbrokers and one with AJ Bell (actually one is mine and the other is my wife's, though I now manage both).
I see that Barclays are about to change their platform, and hence also, their ISA fees :
* currently £30 per year and £11.95 per trade
* moving to 0.1% per year and £6 per trade
I will have a portfolio of around £50,000 so my annual costs will already be increasing from £30pa to £50pa, though future trades will be cheaper.
I am not an active trader - perhaps a few trades per quarter as I re-balance my portfolio periodically.
AJ Bell is a little cheaper at £30 annual charge, and £9.95 per trade.
NOTE:
One thing that people don't normally consider (but 'I' think is important) is the trading 'functionality' - specifically whether a trailing stop-loss option is available.
Typically, I will investigate a share before I decide to buy it, and then review it periodically. In the meantime I prefer to set a trailing stop-loss limit, so that if the share price dives between my reviews, my losses are limited - hence I rarely lose more than 10% per share (and even that is rare).
Barclays prvides this functionality (although it is not perfect, since you have to specify the trailing loss in 'pence' rather than my preferred 'percentage' stop-loss.)
AJ Bell on the other hand only allows a stop-loss limit (rather than a trailing stop-loss limit), so you specify an exact price at which you would sell. If the price rises by 50%, and then drops you would lose all that gain, rather than just the top 10%, for example.
Hence.....I am looking for a trading platform that offers a mixture of reasonable costs AND the availability of a trailing stop-loss funcionality.
Whilst I can find the costs for the different available trading platforms, it seems very difficult to find what trading functionality they provide.
Do others have experiences of other trading platforms that they might recommend, and especially whether any include trailing stop-loss functionality?
Cheers,
Don
When considering a trading platform, the usualy considerations include:
* Annual charges
* Trading charges
* (perhaps) available funds that can be purchased
The latter is not really of concern to me, as I only buy individual companies, or Investment Trusts - mainly FTSE100 or 250.
I currently have TWO ISAs, one with Barclays Stockbrokers and one with AJ Bell (actually one is mine and the other is my wife's, though I now manage both).
I see that Barclays are about to change their platform, and hence also, their ISA fees :
* currently £30 per year and £11.95 per trade
* moving to 0.1% per year and £6 per trade
I will have a portfolio of around £50,000 so my annual costs will already be increasing from £30pa to £50pa, though future trades will be cheaper.
I am not an active trader - perhaps a few trades per quarter as I re-balance my portfolio periodically.
AJ Bell is a little cheaper at £30 annual charge, and £9.95 per trade.
NOTE:
One thing that people don't normally consider (but 'I' think is important) is the trading 'functionality' - specifically whether a trailing stop-loss option is available.
Typically, I will investigate a share before I decide to buy it, and then review it periodically. In the meantime I prefer to set a trailing stop-loss limit, so that if the share price dives between my reviews, my losses are limited - hence I rarely lose more than 10% per share (and even that is rare).
Barclays prvides this functionality (although it is not perfect, since you have to specify the trailing loss in 'pence' rather than my preferred 'percentage' stop-loss.)
AJ Bell on the other hand only allows a stop-loss limit (rather than a trailing stop-loss limit), so you specify an exact price at which you would sell. If the price rises by 50%, and then drops you would lose all that gain, rather than just the top 10%, for example.
Hence.....I am looking for a trading platform that offers a mixture of reasonable costs AND the availability of a trailing stop-loss funcionality.
Whilst I can find the costs for the different available trading platforms, it seems very difficult to find what trading functionality they provide.
Do others have experiences of other trading platforms that they might recommend, and especially whether any include trailing stop-loss functionality?
Cheers,
Don
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't!
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Comments
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Even just writing my query has drawn my attention to some of the facts.
With Barclays, my annual charge WILL be rising.
However, even if I only make, say 15 trades per year, then I will be saving about £90 per year in dealing costs (transaction charges reducing from £11.95 per month to £6 pm)
And Barclays DOES provide the trailing Stop-Loss option that I seek.
However, am still interested to hear about 'other' Trading Platforms.
eg. iWeb appears to have NO annual fee, and only charges £5 per deal. Their web site appears to say that they DO have a stop-loss option, but no mention of any 'trailing stop-loss' option....There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't!0 -
Have you seen the Best Buy platforms on this website? - link: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/cheap-online-sharedealing“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair0
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"Spectre.ai offers a revolutionary leap forward in technology which means you can trade straight from your cryptocurrency wallet" Not very mainstream!Adamson791 wrote: »Hi
I'd recommend you check out spectre.ai. They're a new trading platform based on the blockchain and use something called smart contracts.
What this means is that they are a brokerless trading platform and you never actually need to deposit any money with them. A few of my friends have moved to Spectre from platforms such as ig, oanda etc and they love it.This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0 -
Illegal spam reported.
It tickles me that despite being variously described as headquartered in Costa Rica or the Cayman Islands (both well known for their quality financial regulation and investor protection) this outfit isn't allowed to operate in its own country (ies).This website's services are not made available in certain countries such as the USA, Costa Rica, BVI, Caymans, Iran, Venzeula, United Kingdom, Syria, Somalia, North Korea, Yemen, or to persons under age 18.0 -
If you are an individual investor or interested in trading and know how to trade, you can't beat Interactive Brokers. Their charges are decent and allow you to trade just about any instrument in pretty much every market around the world. They also support UK investment vehicles such as ISAs and SIPPs.0
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Interactive Brokers charge USD10/month maintenance fee.ImranQ said:If you are an individual investor or interested in trading and know how to trade, you can't beat Interactive Brokers. Their charges are decent and allow you to trade just about any instrument in pretty much every market around the world. They also support UK investment vehicles such as ISAs and SIPPs.0 -
Except most US listed ETFs and their derivatives if you happen to be a resident of an EU country and aren't a "professional" client. Because of the PRIIPs regulation.ImranQ said:If you are an individual investor or interested in trading and know how to trade, you can't beat Interactive Brokers. Their charges are decent and allow you to trade just about any instrument in pretty much every market around the world. They also support UK investment vehicles such as ISAs and SIPPs.
Roughly £100 pa, honestly a pretty cheap price that allows you to have access to their low interest rate margin loans and a wide range of financial instruments. The only problem is the PRIIPs - you can't even trade the best known S&P 500 index ETF "SPY". I ended up went to a more expensive US based broker that doesn't have an EU branch only because of this. I hope this gets changed or scraped soon after Brexit.banchang said:
Interactive Brokers charge USD10/month maintenance fee.ImranQ said:If you are an individual investor or interested in trading and know how to trade, you can't beat Interactive Brokers. Their charges are decent and allow you to trade just about any instrument in pretty much every market around the world. They also support UK investment vehicles such as ISAs and SIPPs.
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The latter is not really of concern to me, as I only buy individual companies, or Investment Trusts - mainly FTSE100 or 250.-------------
with that strategy, the choice of platform is the very least of your problems.1 -
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