Virgin stocks and share isa 25 February 2018 at 11:17PM in ISAs & tax-free savings 5 replies 733 views

Aberdeenkid

I'm looking to open a stocks and shares isa. Saving £50 a month long term, around 10 years. I want the stocks and shares selected for me.

I'm looking at Virgin just now and wonder if anyone has used them or got any advice. They charge 1%, not sure if this is a lot of if it is around the norm? I have my pension with them so they why I'm looking at them.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Alexland

Virgin are expensive for nothing special.

For a contribution of £50 per month look at Cavendish who charge a platform fee of 0.25% and you can invest in multi asset funds such as Vanguard LifeStrategy, Blackrock Consensus or HSBC Global Strategy which have ongoing charges of around 0.2% with the exact fee depending on the fund manager and risk/reward profile you pick.

Still your platform plus fund fees will be under half of the Virgin cost for a similar investment performance.

Or if you are OK to pay a high fee then at least go for something with a history of outperforming the market (even after fees) such as Orbis Access which offer very simple ISAs invested in their Global Equity (high risk) or Balanced (medium risk) funds.

Alex

ValiantSon

Virgin are expensive and their choice of funds are poor.

A 1% charge might not sound much, but you can get a better diversified fund for less than 0.5%.

I suggest looking at the following range of multi-asset funds as a good starting point. You can read about all of them on https://www.trustnet.com/ (select the ones labelled "IA Unit Trusts & OEICS"):

Vanguard LifeStrategy
HSBC Global Strategy
Blackrock Consensus

All of these cost less than 0.5% if bought through the best platform:

Vanguard LifeStrategy (20, 40, 60, 80, 100) on Vanguard Investor = 0.37% (0.15% platform fee + 0.22% OCF)

HSBC Global Strategy (Cautious, Conservative, Balanced, Dynamic, Aggressive) on Cavendish Online = 0.42% - 0.46% (0.25% platform fee + 0.17% - 0.21% OCF)

Blackrock Consensus (35, 60, 85, 100) on Cavendish Online = 0.47% - 0.48% (0.25% platform fee + 0.22% - 0.23% OCF)

EDIT: Alex beat me to it, but you can see that we were both thinking along the same lines!

Alexland

You must be my twin brother!

I didn't suggest Vanguard Investor as the minimum for a regular contribution is £100 per month.

ValiantSon

Alexland wrote: »

You must be my twin brother!

Snap!

Great minds?

Yes, Vanguard Investor does have that drawback. I should have said to the OP that they could always save up for a year in a regular saver so that they would have the funds for an initial £500 deposit, after which they could make monthly deposits of £50 if they wished.

dunstonh

Lets go for triplets...

Virgin is expensive and poor quality. Their ISA and pensions are aimed at people buying the brand but not buying quality.