First time investing. Best platform for infrequent trading?

prezzacc

Hi all,

Looking to put a small amount (£2k) into the stock market for the first time. Wonder if any one could advise which platform would best suit my needs?

Going passive so i'm planning to split portfolio of arou d 40% bonds and the remainder a couple of index tracker funds. Possibility a REIT.

I'd like to invest around 50 a month into the portfolio however I'm wondering due to the low value I'm investing if its worth me saving this then making a lump sum due to charges?

Will ideally only trade a couple times a year to rebalance.

I like the look of vanguard but don't really like being tied to thier funds only and also want some bonds.

Thanks all for any advice

youngemptynesters

In the same boat as you - I've researched quite a bit and I keep coming back to Vanguard, the Lifestrategy funds look interesting and you can choose the risk level.


I'm not an experienced investor so looking at funds, and Vanguard appears to be the best in terms of platform cost and depth of funds.


You can see how their funds are made up, equities/bonds etc so you get a good view of how the funds are split.

Thrugelmir

Not worth splitting £2k into a number of holding. Let alone incurring the exense of rebalancing them. You'd do better to identify a broad based fund as yout initial investment and let the fund manager decide the investment allocation.

ColdIron

prezzacc wrote: »

I'd like to invest around 50 a month into the portfolio however I'm wondering due to the low value I'm investing if its worth me saving this then making a lump sum due to charges?

Monthly investing is not infrequent trading so that rules out iWeb and similar low cost platforms that charge by transaction. At £2,000/£50 pcm there is no point in constructing a bespoke portfolio. Lifestrategy at Vanguard investor will suit your equity/bond requirements. Once you are well north of 5 figures you can always transfer away but even HL could cost you less than the price of a mixed kebab each year

Have a play with these links

http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5583030

Alexland

+1 for going with Vanguard Investor and if you don't want LifeStrategy then maybe a 2 fund portfolio of their FTSE All Cap fund (or FTSE All World etf) and their Global Bond Index Hedged fund?

prezzacc

Thanks all for the replies.

Taking this all on board and didn't really think about the lifestrategy that much. Now I look into it I assume amounts I'm looking at, as mentioned just aren't worth the time to create my own portfolio.

I've read a good strategy was to rebalance by selling off the well performing part of the portfolio and buying the underperforming. This made sense, but what I couldn't get my head around was with the trading costs, ie paying £12 once a year just to sell some underperforming index will eat into most of my return! Clearly this approach is aimed at a bigger investor than myself.

Appreciate the advice all, will look more into life strategy keep swatting up and reading / learning, then when I'm a bit brave maybe add some more money and get my own portfolio going.

Just one quick question, can I manually add money to the life strategy? I one month I have an extra £200 spare, can I put this into my life strategy fund?

londoninvestor

prezzacc wrote: »

I've read a good strategy was to rebalance by selling off the well performing part of the portfolio and buying the underperforming. This made sense, but what I couldn't get my head around was with the trading costs, ie paying £12 once a year just to sell some underperforming index will eat into most of my return! Clearly this approach is aimed at a bigger investor than myself.

Lifestrategy will do that for you - Vanguard will be buying and selling the underlying investments to rebalance the fund, so that for example your VLS60 remains close to 60% equities and 40% bonds.

Alexland

prezzacc wrote: »

Just one quick question, can I manually add money to the life strategy? I one month I have an extra £200 spare, can I put this into my life strategy fund?

Yes on the Vanguard Investor platform they have no trading fees (unless you want live ETF market trading) and once you have met the minimum criteria to open an account (either a £500 lump sum or a commitment of £100 per month) you would be fine to add an adhoc £200 into a LifeStrategy fund. Once the account is open you can apparently even setup a lower monthly contribution.

Alex

prezzacc

Thanks for the replies all. Good to know the lifestrategy is pretty much what I had planned then! Sounds perfect really. I think I'm going to jump in and go for it. I'll continue my research while it's there then move away when Im more confident.

Thanks