AJ Bell / HL ISAs - no payment mechanism but to force sell

masonic

I'm going to come back and address the confusions/questions on the following points, because I think there is some merit in further discussion, but I'll try to put in caveats to hopefully avoid further confusion over my intent...

ValiantSon wrote: »

You are missing the point. If I want to invest £1,000 then I do need to deposit £1,005 into my iWeb account, otherwise I will only invest £995. I didn't say that this was wrong, it was more a case of simply making clear to anyone reading that to achieve the objective of investing a specific sum, they would need to fund the account by £5 more than this. Look at my post again, and you will see that I specifically said, "I don't have a problem with this approach either." (You even quoted this).

When I made my comments, I was fairly sure they were not news to you and fully understood you weren't saying there was anything wrong in the fee structure. However, I came away feeling a novice investor might actually believe it was necessary to ensure you have sufficient uninvested cash left over after your transaction to cover the fee. Perhaps even an order would fail if you didn't pre-calculate your fees and make sure you had enough available.

The practicalities of investing £1000 and ending up with exactly £1000 in investments is confounded by funds rising and falling in value, bid-offer spread, stamp duty in the case of investment trusts and shares, etc, there is inherent variation of which trading costs are an additional factor.

But as I said, I'm just making these points for clarification. I, like you, am not making a judgement of the merits of either approach.

Again, what is your point? I know all this, and I haven't disputed it. The thread revolves around a new(ish) investor who has a relatively small amount to invest, so my comments are naturally focused on that.

My point is that these things are worth considering for any serious investor as there is a likelihood that over time a change of platform and fee structure should be considered.