share dealing account advice

bobbyhibs

hi
I hope this this is the right forum to post in.

I am currently looking around to open a share dealing account and am looking for advice in regards which company to pick.
I have seen share dealing accounts from my bank., which is like £12 per trade and hargraves lowdown which is similar priced ,though highly recommened
I however, in doing some research found a company called x-o share dealing which charges like £5.95 per trade.(a big difference between that and £12!!)
is x-o safe-sercure?anyone used this company-are able to give feedback?

as for what i am looking for
* I am looking for an account where i can buy-sell shares ( and in thinking i am only looking to buy and or sell shares,no funds or bonds)
*which has a low trading fee
* little to no other fees for holding shares in an account
*no inactivety fees
*also a company that if i get dividends from the shares i own is easy to take out the money .
At the moment i am looking to do 1-3 trades per months with values from £50-£100 per trade

thank you for reading i hope i have given enough information.
kind regards
bobby`

notbritishgas

I think XO would suit you fine.
It is safe and secure. But gives no advice which I do not think you want.
Withdrawing money is a little involved, you send them an email and they BACS it to your nominated account.

bowlhead99

At the moment i am looking to do 1-3 trades per months with values from £50-£100 per trade

X-o are very reputable, used by many here for investments either inside or outside an ISA.

Compared to HL and other rivals, they won't let you buy open ended investment funds, they won't let you trade on foreign markets and they don't have a 'regular investing' feature to let you invest consistently each month by direct debit for a discounted £1-2 per purchase.

However, if you're not looking for any of that and just want to do ad hoc buys and sells of UK listed companies, they're fine.

Single trades of £50 a time is crazy expensive though, however you do it. Imagine if you buy 50 shares at £1 each for £50. Plus half a percent stamp duty is £50.25 total. Plus one of the cheapest deal fees in the market at £5.95, you're up to £56.20 of expenditure.

Now consider that when you sell the shares it will cost you another £5.95. So to get £56.20 worth of cash back in your hand, you need to be able to sell the shares for £62.15 to be able to pay the £5.95 sale fee and get £56.20 that you started with, net of fees back in your account.

How does the company have to perform to allow you to turn the 50 shares from being worth only £50 total when you buy them, to be worth £62.15 when you sell them? The share price has to grow to £1.243 per share so that the whole lot will be worth £62.15.

So basically when you buy only £50 of shares at a time you are betting that this company will increase in value by over 24% just to let you get out without losing money. Let alone actually making a profit to reward you for the high risk you were taking by buying into an individual company that could lose half its value overnight.

Over the long term a company might grow (including share price growth and dividends) at 8% a year annualised. So, if the company does well, after three years you might be 25% up. But as you have a hurdle of over 24% just to get back up to break even, you need a very long time or a LOT of good fortune to overcome the hurdle and actually make money.

Try investing with minimums of £1000 per company instead, as paying £6 of fees for every £50 you invest (even ignoring stamp duty and eventual selling cost) will financially cripple your trading strategy - even if six quid doesn't seem like a lot.

lozzy1965

http://www.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk/charges-and-interest-rates/charges.asp


£5 per trade, £25 to open and no inactivity charge.


But as previously mentioned, £50 per investment is crazy!

cloud_dog

lozzy1965 wrote: »

http://www.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk/charges-and-interest-rates/charges.asp


£5 per trade, £25 to open and no inactivity charge.


But as previously mentioned, £50 per investment is crazy!

In line with the comments on the rather low investment amount, it is probably worth pointing out to the OP that neither X-O or iWeb offer a regular investment option, i.e. where you can set up a schedule to purchase £50 of stock (plus stamp duty) for £1.50 or £2 per trade. Halifax do provide the RI option for £2 per trade. Also worth noting that there may be limitations on the stocks that you can trade this way.

Probably the best bet is to save X amount, either in the trading account or outside, i.e. savings account, and then when you have a reasonable amount make a trade.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If you are prepared not to deal live and on only about 3 days a month then using the Halifax one off regular investment might be the very cheapest option at £2 a deal so £100 will get you shares of about £97.50 after the £2 deal and 50p stamp duty.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Outside an ISA there are no other fees whatsoever. An ISA has a £12.50 pa admin fee.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]You can sell using the once a month day when for 2hrs dealing in £3.95.[/FONT]

BluMoon

I agree with iWeb being a low cost option which also offers an ISA account.

Another lower cost option if you do not require an ISA account is Degiro.co.uk , they are very cheap. To buy UK shares it cost £1.75 + 0.004% (maximum limit of £5).

AnotherJoe

bobbyhibs wrote: »

*also a company that if i get dividends from the shares i own is easy to take out the money .
At the moment i am looking to do 1-3 trades per months with values from £50-£100 per trade

thank you for reading i hope i have given enough information.
kind regards
bobby`

Why? Just burn the notes, it will be quicker to lose your money than this drawn out way.

ColdIron

BluMoon wrote: »

I agree with iWeb being a low cost option which also offers an ISA account.

Another lower cost option if you do not require an ISA account is Degiro.co.uk , they are very cheap. To buy UK shares it cost £1.75 + 0.004% (maximum limit of £5).

No FSCS protection though, so there is that

BluMoon

ColdIron wrote: »

No FSCS protection though, so there is that

It's protected by the Dutch Investor Protection Scheme, which protects you up to €20,000. But Degiro also uses a separate custodian entity which holds your assets (shares, cash etc) which is completely segregated from the assets of Degiro. So if Degiro were to go under, your investments etc would still be safe. (Check the Degiro website for more info).

sevenhills

I previously used Nationwide who offered an execution only sharedealing service provided by Stocktrade; and I always had share certificates.

Do these cheaper dealing companies still send paper certificates?