Hi all, thinking about getting into some share trading (with all my bags of spare cash) so…

1) Best online trading site/app to use?

2) Stocks & Shares ISA; how does tax work if I use one of these (can I trade using one?)

Cheers!

I love the share trading threads…

Best advice is don’t lump a load of new money into the ftse when it’s at it’s current highs. Load up your account with cash and submit your bids to buy at levels you feel comfortable buying at, your bids may or may not get taken in a few months, so keep them realistic.

There’s a correction on it’s way and it will happen when you least expect it.

Hargreaves Lansdown and IG are probably the best trading platforms-IG I find has a very good mobile app if that’s how you want to trade.

Beware of so called ‘experts’. Choose your own method of buying shares. However I always find Robbie Burns blogs/Naked Trader/Proactive investors site has useleful info.

You won’t pay tax on stocks & shares ISA however there will be stamp duty and fee/transaction.
Don’t get suckered into Spread betting (for now), it’s gambling in effect. I occasionally do it to short stock and make a quick couple of tax free quid. I have also lost a few quid!

And yes, you can trade, but at low volumes you’ll be incurring fees per transaction and probably not worth the effort. Be aware also that it’s £20k in s&s ISA-anything above that will have to be in a separate trading account that will be taxable.

Hargreaves Lansdown is a very easy app to navigate

Stocks and shares ISA are good. You don’t pay any tax on gains. – this only has any bearing if you make more than the Capital gains allowance really, (currently £11.5k or so)
You can put max £20k into one.
You can only hold 1 per year
You can hold a single company or a fund in one.
if you put the full £20k don’t trade from them as anything you take out, you cannot put back in.

Thanks for the replies, I’ll have a look at the HL app. Will definitely be taking it easy to begin with, need to learn quite a bit!

if you put the full £20k don’t trade from them as anything you take out, you cannot put back in.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case from this year; if you withdraw funds from an ISA you can put them back in again, up to a maximum of a net £20k total subscription per year

You can hold a single company or a fund in one.

Bit confusing…
You can hold as many companies shares up to the value of £20k as you want.

There are a few fee-free trading platforms springing up..

The app will allow investors to make 10 trades per month each worth up to £10,000 commission free, an offer it estimates will cover the demands of around 90 per cent of its customers. More active and bigger spending traders will be charged a commission of £1.95 and 0.05 per cent commission per trade.

http://www.independent.co.uk/Business/indyventure/trading-212-fintech-startup-app-brokers-first-free-uk-share-trading-platform-a7799511.html

You can put max £20k into one.
You can only hold 1 per year

Confusing…

You can only put £20k into one this tax year, but over the years you can put as much in as the annual allowances, er, allow.
You can hold more than one per year, but you can only open one (S&S) ISA per year, though I believe you can also open a cash ISA , totalling up to the yearly max.

Hargreaves Lansdowne have an excellent site. They are a bit more expensive than most but their site is easily navigable, unlike some, and they have excellent research and dealing tools.

I listen to the podcasts from
Investors chronicle, companies and markets and personal finance shows
Ft money show
Wake up to money

All free and full of useful info, I d listen to a few before you part with your cash

All free and full of useful info, I d listen to a few before you part with your cash

+1, though the best lessons are usually the ones learnt the hard way!

+1, though the best lessons are usually the ones learnt the hard way!

I’ll agree with that. When they say hard way, they mean loosing nearly your whole original investment. 😉

“trading” is a mug’s game. Just buy a few decent companies and hold them. Over time, trickle in more money as you have it (obviously only buy decent sized chunks so you don’t pay too much min commission etc). Don’t churn any more than you have to.

As thecaptain says, do you actually want to be trading? I suppose its a fun hobby if you like that sort of thing but can you actually make more money buying and selling? Mine is just stuck in a couple of funds. It made good money last year, this year not so much so far but still up.

Just buy a few decent companies and hold them

I think that’s probably the plan. I’ve watched some companies over the past couple of years, now kicking myself I didn’t invest in them earlier! It would also be nice to get a bit more return than the interest offered on current ISA’s, which is pitiful. There’s always someone making money

Capital gains tax allowance is £11,300 (or so) per year – I suspect you won’t get close to that (based on a guess of the amount of money you are prepared to risk) – so I would not bother with an ISA. If you do have a stellar year and rack up decent gains then you simply “realise” these by selling the shares and rebuying. This resets the capital gains calculation and is generally “cheaper” than paying the tax if the gains continue. FYI tax free capital gains allowances don’t carry over year to year.

If you do have a stellar year and rack up decent gains then you simply “realise” these by selling the shares and rebuying. This resets the capital gains calculation and is generally “cheaper” than paying the tax if the gains continue. FYI tax free capital gains allowances don’t carry over year to year.

Though to realise these gains you would need to Bed and Breakfast, leaving you out of the market for 30 days. With an ISA you could Bed & Isa the gains, keeping you in the market continuously.
An ISA may not make much sense in the first year or so but sometime in the future you will wish you’d opened an ISA from the start. HL charge 0.45% for shares held in an ISA, capped at £45 pa. iWeb charge nothing.

+1 suburbanreuben

No reason not to ISA, no downside but potential upside in the future.

Price is what you pay,value is what you get.

Your not buying shares your buying a portion of a business.If the stock market was suspended tomorrow,would you be happy still holding your picks in ten years time?Also try not to buy at the bottom and always sell to soon.You’ll need a benchmark for this process.

Anyone looked into an Lifetime ISA?

Invest up to £4000 per year and get 25% government bonus

‘free money’ always sounds too good to be true which probably means they’ll can it further down the line

Good if you’re a FTB or supplementing a pension pot

http://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/lifetime-isa

A suggestion, also backing what nickjb said. Have you considered index funds (Vanguard do a good LifeStrategy series).

These aim to track the stock market by holding proportional amounts of shares. So something tracking the S&P 500 would hold 3.8% APPL, 2.5% MSFT etc.

This works under the assumption that you don’t know more information that the market and so your best bet is just to track the market.

You don’t get the spectacular gains that you would have if you had put £1000 into AMZN in 97, but you don’t get the total losses that would if you had put it all into Pets.com in April 2000. Unless of course the stock market fails totally, in which case you have bigger things to worry about than the fact your investments have vanished.

I’d recommend investing in funds – effecteively just a mixture of shares but managed by a fund manager who buys and sells as they see fit to take advantage of market situations.

If you use HL they also have their own funds. I have a selection and they’re all up about 20% at the moment.

Also look at funds from Neil Woodfood and Fundsmith.

Buy a Vanguard global index tracker in an ISA wrapper and put your feet up 🙂

By all means use funds if you don’t have the time or inclination to do it yourself. But bear in mind that you’re paying someone else a fat fee for the privilege. If they take say 1%pa then after 70 years they have taken more than half pf your money!

But by investing in funds you’re buying someone’s expertise – and you will potentially earn much more than just randomly buying shares in x, y and z.

I’ll happily pay someone 1% if they’re making me a return of 30%.

Yes that’s the myth. But it’s a myth.

But by investing in funds you’re buying someone’s expertise – and you will potentially earn much more than just randomly buying shares in x, y and z.

I’ll happily pay someone 1% if they’re making me a return of 30%.

+1
Over the years I have been paying into ISAs for me and the missus. I have been buying and selling , wheeling and dealing, spending hours seeking the next opportunity, winning and losing…
The missus’s portfolio I treated almost as an afterthought, choosing a selection of funds in Europe, Japan, China, India, Frontiers etc. These have remained untouched, save for topping them up every year, with only the odd addition. She’s comfortably outperforming me, and the markets.

Sounds like I need to look into funds as well. TBH I’m not experienced enough to be sifting through hundreds of companies and picking them out to build a varied portfolio, I’d just like to concentrate on a few at the moment. Presumably you can see how a fund has been compiled if you have money in it?

I’ll happily pay someone 1% if they’re making me a return of 30%.

That sounds like a pretty high rate of return!

That sounds like a pretty high rate of return!

But achievable, in the past few years anyway…

https://www.trustnet.com/Investments/SectorPerf.aspx?univ=O&SP_sortedColumn=PerformanceCurPerf.P3m&SP_sortedDirection=DESC

is what you need!
Play around with this, clicking on column headers and your mind will be boggled…

If you use HL they also have their own funds.

They won’t be cheap or good value.

Presumably you can see how a fund has been compiled if you have money in it?

Yep, they will give you a breakdown of how the fund is invested.

That sounds like a pretty high rate of return!

I invested in the Neil Woodfood fund at launch and it’s currently up by 35%! I’m very happy with that…. 🙂

I invested in the Neil Woodfood fund at launch and it’s currently up by 35%! I’m very happy with that….

You need to compare it with an equivalent tracker or market index. UK and US markets have been having a bull run for nearly 10 years, so it would be very hard not to be up…

Are Terry Smith and Neil Woodford genuinely the UK’s best fund managers?

I invested in the Neil Woodfood fund at launch and it’s currently up by 35%! I’m very happy with that…

Ditto with Terry Smiths fund, up 150% since the beginning! (although I only had small amounts to begin with)

Buy a Vanguard global index tracker in an ISA wrapper and put your feet up

Is probably the best answer on here

But by investing in funds you’re buying someone’s expertise – and you will potentially earn much more than just randomly buying shares in x, y and z.

It’s a bit like giving someone who follows the horses your betting money. They stand a slightly better chance than you do, but they’re still just betting.

All people choosing fund managers think they’re applying expertise to beat the market by picking a fund manager who’s better than the other fund managers. All fund managers aim to beat the market by picking stocks thinking they’re better at it than other fund managers. Everyone thinks what they are doing is outsmarting everyone else, which is clearly nonsense.

It’s been shown many times that a low-fee tracker will generally outperform a higher-fee managed fund over time, mainly because of the cumulative effect of the fees. Any ‘advantage of expertise’ is nullified.

It’s been shown many times that a low-fee tracker will generally outperform a higher-fee managed fund over time, mainly because of the cumulative effect of the fees. Any ‘advantage of expertise’ is nullified.

Whats been the best performing tracker over the last 5 yrs?

I have just changed how I invest. As most people do I thought I could make shed load of money trading and then sail into the horizon on my new yacht. Wrong wrong wrong!! I wish it was that easy. I have stocks in 2 companies that I have done the groundwork research in and see them as good long termers. I have a global index tracker all wrapped up in a stocks and shares Isa. I had a bit of a wake up call after losing a fair whack on a couple of sure things.

Watch these videos for some good ideas on passive investing.
[video]https://youtu.be/_chiIIxMGl0[/video]

Whats been the best performing tracker over the last 5 yrs?

Surely the more pertinent question is what will the best performing tracker over the NEXT 5 yrs otherwise you run the risk of confirmation bias affecting your thoughts?

The compounding nature of fees generally work to erode any addition value of a fund, that and the fact that skill isn’t scaleable.

Surely the more pertinent question is what will the best performing tracker over the NEXT 5 yrs

Nope my question is the pertinent one. I am interested in the statement ref Trackers outperforming managed funds. Do you know what the best performing tracker was (also its annual charges?)

The compounding nature of fees generally work to erode any addition value of a fund

Yes and growth compounds as well.

Do you know what the best performing tracker was (also its annual charges?)

They vary a lot as there are good value and poor value ones.

0.1% annual fee or lower is good.

Some ‘con ones’ run by high street banks aimed at the naive investor can have fees similar to managed funds.

I am interested in the statement ref Trackers outperforming managed funds.

Generally true for well researched markets such as USA. Less so for Europe / UK.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/funds/11512441/Do-trackers-beat-active-funds-Our-new-analysis-has-the-answer.html

But all depends on the period you look over.

I’ve gone for US trackers, but managed funds for UK / Europe.