Discount Brokers Discussion Area

dunstonh

john_holgate wrote: »

This website had previously steered me towards Cavendish Online.

Does anyone know why they are now seemingly out of favour?

They are ok for basic insurance related contracts (although IFAs can usually beat them on pensions even with quite large commissions taken mainly as their execution only panel of products is not good enough). However, for pure investments they are not that cheap.

Lansdowne

I have been trying to choose between Cavendish Online and H-L or another discount provider (for basic Funds, not pensions, in my case).
For a business with "Online" in its name, Cavendish needs a top class Web presence. Look on www.cavendishonline.co.uk and choose "Structured" products or "VCTs" and you get a well out of date list.
Choose "Fund supermarket" and then "Charges" and you read "Actual Initial Charge can be found below" which plainly it can't.
An online supplier with a web site that isn't kept up to date doesn't inspire confidence.
A pity because their basic offering of rebated commission looks good, as does the apparently similar offering by Alliance Trust. The latter however has a small choice of funds.

jg-ms

I've read both the articles on discount brokers for shares, and funds ISA's. I'm interested in recommendations for brokers for holding ETF's within an ISA wrapper, which I'm likely to buy and hold rather than regularly trade. This means I'm not so bothered about refunds of fund charges, or on the range of funds in their funds market, which is the focus of the ISA self select article it seems.

So if I compare Hoodless Brennan, Selftrade and Hargreaves Lansdown and assume I trade 3 times a year max and hold £7200 of ETF's in the fund ,then I end up with Hoodless at ~£74/year, Selftrade at ~£61/year and HL at ~£102 excl stamp duty.

Are there any opinions about on whether I should a/ choose someone other than from these three, 2/ not choose selftrade, assuming my calculations are roughly right !

Thanks for any help.

John G.

tradetime

ETF's from where? Traded on the LSE only, or do you look further abroad?

jg-ms

tradetime wrote: »

ETF's from where? Traded on the LSE only, or do you look further abroad?

Ah, good question !

Initially LSE only I think - for example from the ishares range (ftse250/S&P small cap/MSCI emerging markets/nareit global) with perhaps a couple of lyxor or db x-trackers (msci eu small cap) in there as well.

I'm branching out from a portfolio that's heavy in FTSE-100 and large APAC companies and this seems like a sensible way of doing it if I combine it with a basic global index tracker such as the Aviva international index.

My preference is to do this over a few years with multiple S&S ISA's and stick with one provider just to keep the paperwork/tracking simple. So I would appreciate your thoughts on a suitable UK only provider initially, and if I continue in the longer term a possible route to go for overseas etf's.

Thanks for your help.

John.

tradetime

In that case two more to look at would be TD Waterhouse, and E-trade, neither suitable for foreign ETF's see my on going saga with TD Waterhouse here on the subject of US ETF's
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1532427

mango100

Myself and husband purchased £14000 of ISA shares last year due to the current climate they have now dropped to below £7000, we are thinking should we cut our losses and sell the shares or wait to see if they recover. Any views??
:eek:

dunstonh

Myself and husband purchased £14000 of ISA shares last year due to the current climate they have now dropped to below £7000, we are thinking should we cut our losses and sell the shares or wait to see if they recover. Any views??

A drop of that size suggests a medium/high to high risk approach.

So, what has changed on your risk profile between last year and this that you now are considering pulling out because an even you knew could happen (And would happen at some point) has happened?

thrupence

mango100 wrote: »

Myself and husband purchased £14000 of ISA shares last year due to the current climate they have now dropped to below £7000, we are thinking should we cut our losses and sell the shares or wait to see if they recover. Any views??
:eek:

What are you invested in?

mango100

We bought L&G Property, Ethical and UK top100 shares, appreciate that its always a risk but didnt expect to see such a drop so quickly.