New to DIY Trading - platform question

Pat38493

I have set up an account with interactive investor and transferred a SIPP of about 220K into it.

I have calculated on a spreadsheet the allocated amount that I want to put into 5 different funds, setting aside a small amount for charges.

Is it better to do each of the 5 trades one by one so that I can see any variations that occur or is it safe to do all trade orders simultaneously?

I understand that when trading in funds, the price you really get won't be known until a certain time each day, so there is a risk that the amount paid will be different to what I ordered?  Or is it more that I will still get the exact value that I ordered and it's the amount of units I get for the money that will be changed?

InvesterJones

Depends on the type of fund. OEICs/mutual funds are priced once a day and you don't know the exact price. Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are traded on exchanges (funny that!), as are investment trusts, and therefore you do. So when you're talking trading, you're normally talking about the latter - on your platform you'll be able to set a price to buy at, or request a quote for a trade so you can see the price.

Investments (particularly in equities) should be considered for the long term, so you'd want to assess variations after several years - which is probably too long a timescale to use to hold back the rest of your investment. Better to instead some other reason than day to day variance for your choice of funds.

(a word on definitions: put simply, trading is attempting to make money from other traders by attempting to out think/speed/luck them over a very short time frame - within a day - the stats on likelihood of home traders losing money by trading are staggering - something like 80+% will lose. Investing on the other hand is the opposite viewpoint - short time frame variation is insignificant when investing for return over 10+ years)

ColdIron

If by 'funds' you mean OEIC/Unit Trusts it's the latter

The price is unknown until the next valuation point but you don't buy units by whole numbers, they run to many decimal points so the amount paid will be what you specified

Pat38493

Thanks - to clarify I am investing this money for the long term and it's all OEICs that I am purchasing right now.

So the only risk I'm running by putting in all the orders on the same day, is if there is a huge market movement on that day due to some cataclysmic world event or whatever.

ColdIron

If there is a cataclysmic world event you will get many more units than you anticipated

Albermarle

Pat38493 said:

Thanks - to clarify I am investing this money for the long term and it's all OEICs that I am purchasing right now.

So the only risk I'm running by putting in all the orders on the same day, is if there is a huge market movement on that day due to some cataclysmic world event or whatever.

Not all funds are priced at the same time of day and cut off times can be different. So you might buy 5 funds at approx the same time, but find the next day not all have been priced/executed.