Share Dealing Discussion Area

Aegis

paddy2006 wrote: »

This may seem very unintelligent question etc..I have a Natwest Brokerline Nominee account.
I bought a 1 share to try out and see how it goes (USA stock market),I got charged £20 for buying a a share...What is the point in this? As I can't make any money unless my share doubles in value (heres hoping:beer: ).So could someone please explain?
I got into it way to quick,but wanted some fun...

All brokers will charge a trading fee. Usually that is either a flat fee or a percentage fee with a minimum value.

Most brokers will also charge more for dealing with foreign markets rather than the UK ones, which adds additional fees on.

All in all, buying a single share is generally a really bad idea, and in fact trading with anything less than £500 will require you to make large gains before you can break even, let alone turn a profit. Remember that for the majority of shares listed on the UK markets, you have to pay the trading cost, the stamp duty reserve tax, any fees that the broker charges for maintaining your account, any inactivity fees, then when you sell you have the trading fees again plus any capital gains tax applicable (usually irrelevant for small concerns unless you have already exceeded your annual allowance).

You'd probably be better off running a virtual portfolio than buying a single share to see what happens...

Unless that share is likely to triple or better in value, it might be better off abandoning it if your broker doesn't charge any maintenance or inactivity fees. Then you can learn share trading with your virtual portfolio and eventually start investing with more initial experience.

ThisLDoo

I have a number of batches of shares in one company which I purchased over the last 20 years through sharesave schemes.
As these different batches all have different valuations for CGT purposes, it is more advantageous for me to dispose of the oldest ones first. I want to make best use of this years CGT allowance.

Is there a ruling which says that I must sell the newest acquired shares first?

I sent all the certificates to an online broker a couple of years ago and they are now held as one "lump" rather than the ten or so separate batches dated back to 1987.
I have copies of the original certificates and purchase history so I know when things were purchased.
Thanks.

Biggles

Is there a ruling which says that I must sell the newest acquired shares first?

It doesn't matter which ones you sell (now they're aggregated, you don't have a choice, anyway).

But you do need to keep a record of when they were all bought and sold, as the HMRC's share identification rules will decide which ones you will be treated as having sold.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/guidance/cgt-introduction.pdf - para 3.15

cheerfulcat

ThisLDoo wrote: »

I have a number of batches of shares in one company which I purchased over the last 20 years through sharesave schemes.
As these different batches all have different valuations for CGT purposes, it is more advantageous for me to dispose of the oldest ones first. I want to make best use of this years CGT allowance.

Given the length of time you have held some of these shares it may be well worth your while calculating the effect of taper relief if you sell before April 2008, when ( as things stand ) this relief will be abolished.

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Inspector

Commission free at Halifax for a fair while.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/sharedealing/products/halifax_sharebuilder.asp

AceT

Thinking of delving into the buying arena. Are Hargreaves Lansdown any good? Notice they have a flat rate £9.95 per trade (buying or selling I guess)

Aegis

AceT wrote: »

Thinking of delving into the buying arena. Are Hargreaves Lansdown any good? Notice they have a flat rate £9.95 per trade (buying or selling I guess)

Not for shares, no. Unless they've changed their policy, the £9.95 rate only applies to trades with a value of £499 or less after which the prices start to rise.

If they haven't changed, you'd be better off going through somewhere like Selftrade, which also has a referral scheme that you can use to get £80 extra in cash if you use one of the nice MoneySavingExperts as a referrer. Do a search for them on this site and you'll see the pros and cons of using their trading facility.

1111111

Inspector wrote: »

Commission free at Halifax for a fair while.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/sharedealing/products/halifax_sharebuilder.asp

hi all

I see that once the free period finishes (June) ,then Halifax charge from £5.00-£11.95 per trade.This seems a fair price srtructure.

style2

I have a really basic question about shares. I'm just wanting to look up a few companies just to keep tabs on them really as I don't have enough money or knowledge as of yet to invest in the stock market. However, I'm finding it hard to 'look up' the companies stock price. For example, I've been using digitallook and the other day I wanted to see if innocent smoothies were on the stock market and see how much the shares were? How do I go about doing that? Or how do you go about finding out if a bigger company owns the company your interested in looking up?

I hope that makes sense.

gt94sss2

style2 wrote: »

I have a really basic question about shares. I'm just wanting to look up a few companies just to keep tabs on them really as I don't have enough money or knowledge as of yet to invest in the stock market. However, I'm finding it hard to 'look up' the companies stock price. For example, I've been using digitallook and the other day I wanted to see if innocent smoothies were on the stock market and see how much the shares were? How do I go about doing that? Or how do you go about finding out if a bigger company owns the company your interested in looking up?

The best thing to do is then go the relevant companies website and see if they have an 'Investor Relations' section.

Many brands will be owned by bigger companies but that brands website should tell you who they are and then you try the 'parents' website instead

Many brands will also be owned by foreign companies so listed on a stockmarket abroad not in the UK - or not listed at all.. so won't have a share price available.

Regards
Sunil