What’s the best way to buy a small amount of shares…. In one company and with the intention of not selling them for at least a couple of years? No shares already held, and willing to loose the money of course as any share buying is a gamble (under no illusions that the value will only go up)… No experience of this as you can tell!

Cheers for any advice 🙂

For the absolute beginner I’d recommend a fund (ISA?) of some sort (there are hundreds…good luck choosing :-)) The potential returns will match the risk you are willing to take.

IMO, drip feeding monthly is the best way if you’re serious about long term investing. Any falls in prices over the short term lower your average unit price.

But I’d read up first (quite a lot) before investing any money. And I’d only invest after I’d have the recommended 6 months take home pay in cash (for me personally)

http://www.hl.co.uk/

http://www.lse.co.uk/

I have not bought yet, but was advised these two, the top one do the donkey work the bottom is a forum with other info, don’t always take the forum advice as the truth.

You investing in costa cruise liners?? tesco took a hit the other day.

http://www.share.com

EFTs?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-Simpler-Decisions-Results/dp/0273722077/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Just 500pounds and definitely not costa haha

what about premium bonds? at least you don,t lose your stake. I have some and only not won 2mths out of the 13mths i’ve had them.

When buying and selling shares there is a transaction fee. I use a halifax share dealing account. Its £11.95 when you purchase shares, and £11.95 when you sell. On top of that, you will pay stamp duty on both purchase and sale, so just to recoup your costs with £500 you will have to make around 5%. The company you invest in will need to increase by 15% just to make £50.
If I were you, I would put the 500 into an ISA if you havent already maxed you ISA allowance for the year. Alternatively, you can hold cash in a share dealing account without owning any shares, so I would drip feed into this a monthly payment from your wages and any other funds you want to contribute until you have a figure that minimizes the transaction costs. I wouldnt buy shares in any company that I hadn’t researched thouroughly. http://www.lse.co.uk and http://www.iii.co.uk will have plenty of information. Set up an account with virtual trader. You get £100000 of fake money to compile a portfolio. It uses the FTSE 100, and tracks it with a 15 minute delay. Good luck

Again, share.com.
£7.50 per transaction, or 1% fee.

I trellised I’m not very good at shares (or I am, but lost the balls to ride out a storm! Bought at 202. Sold at 273. Still rising past 330…..!)

DrP

Lots of online brookers, all will have fees. You need one that is cheap but also displays all the data in a way you find easy to access / understand.

PS. £500 is any investment needs to return say £15 to cover transaction costs and say 1% to cover the spread.

cheers guys, I’ve heard good things about halifax, do you need an account with them already or could you just set up a shares account with them? (probably a question best asked to halifax haha)

already researched the company, and am looking at a 2-3 year projection when certain new products should come to market. if they collapse as a company before then… then I’ve lost my money. but as a first dabble into buying shares its a risk I’m willing to take 🙂

You want to buy a single share and have £500? Don’t bother.

Get this:
https://www.hl.co.uk/free-guides/wealth-150

share.com +1

I buy all my ISA and share accounts through them. Easy to use, pretty cost effective too.

I use iii.co.uk flat fee of £10 / trade and no ISA admin costs.

The bog standard share.com account looks like it has no max cap on the 1% dealing charge ? I wouldn’t like that.

I use a service through RBS/Natwest, good service but possibly not the cheapest. You need to know on which exchange the shares trade and that the broker can trade on that exchange. You also want to decide where to keep the shares, an electronic account is best rather than holding paper certificates in my view. With the small amount you are considering the tax benefits of an ISA are not worth the extra restrictions, any profit you make is likely to be below your annual capital gains allowance of around £10k

You need to watch out for admin fees if you are only buying 1 share for£500, share.com charge £2.50 plus VAT per quarter so that is £7.5 to buy, £24 to hold for two years and £7.5 to sell, in total £39 or 8% of your stake. Therefore look for brokers who don’t charge an admin fee, iii.co.uk would be one possible, there are others, this article points to a few click here.

Phil if you are going down the route of penny shares i know at least 20 or 30 people who have wasted thousands of pounds on them. If you are doing it for financial gain it is a big big risk if you are doing it for a bit of fun spend your money on a holiday for you and Mrs Concequence.

There will loads of folk that tell you this is the next big tip but they rarely ever come to anything.

2nd Rusty Mac

Blue Chips – investing

Penny Shares – Gambling. For every amazing story about someone who made several hundred % on there investment, there will be 100 fold of those who lost the lot. The 2nd lot tend not to be as vocal 🙂

You don’t need a Halifax account to open a share dealing account. It takes about 5 minutes. You can do it online. You will need your national insurance number.

The simple share account doesn’t have holding fees (as I believe it), just transaction fee..

DrP

If it’s just LSE listed shares you’re looking at then:

x-o.co.uk

£5.95 flat rate per trade. No other charges that I’ve ever come across (including buying shares into an ISA).

Part of Jarvis Investment Management and seems to have won various awards for doing-what-it-says-on-the-tin.

An ISA through Hargreaves Landsdowne is what you want: Takes about 5 mins to buy and sell online once you’re set up and their fees are very reasonable.

Blue Chips – investingGambling
Penny Shares – Gambling.

thekingisdead, fixed it for you.

These guys are good, easy to register online and 0% transaction fees on any trades. 😀

http://www.williamhill.com/