Recommend me a Stocks & Shares ISA

Let’s differentiate between platform company and fund company. I hold “buy and forget “ Vanguard trackers on trading 212, without paying Vanguard the 0.15% platform fee.

I have put some money into a pension for my kids, to forget about until they can access it, which will probably be when they are 60 at this rate…maybe even older.  Vanguard 100% equities. It’s got 40 odd years to grow.

As dantsw13 says, it’s possible to hold Vanguard funds through other platforms and avoid the (admittedly fairly low) platform fees that they charge if you hold them directly. With the added advantage of being able to choose from loads of other funds as well.
InvestEngine, Trading 212 and Interactive Investor all give you this option, although with II you need a decent fund size before it ends up cheaper.

Cheers both. Essentially i just want to invest my full 2024 isa allowance into a S&S invest and forget tracker fund. Tbh i don’t mind on the platform but had already started looking at Vanguard Lifestrategy funds, is/are there any others to consider? Thanks

Trading 212 sounds too good to be true, you can can vanguard funds but with zero fees?

How does that work and where do they make there money from then?

Don’t listen to footflaps… When I asked he recommended SMT and was down about 40%… Back up to 8% down!🤪 😉

Royal London Sustainable has been doing good…. About 40% up in 16 months.

Most of my best funds on II SIPP are Royal London funds. Slightly higher fees but very consistent performance.
Ref other platforms – no it’s not too good to be true. Trading 212 make their money from currency conversion fees (most of us are going to be investing in US funds / shares) and also in other trading methods like contract for difference trading.
InvestEngine charge virtually nothing if you self manage your ISA but do have managed portfolios and SIPP platforms which are charged.

@jim25 – there is no fee for the platform but each individual ETF has a management fee regardless of where you invest. So if Vanguard ABC fund has a 0.15% fee then you pay that however you access it

“If you’re looking to Invest and forget then I’m not sure you can do much better than Vanguard. Despite being ‘higher risk’ their 100% equity funds have performed much better than the 80 or 60% ones“

100% equities *should* perform better than a blended fund, as they have higher concentration of growth assets. Volatility would expected to be higher.

the “once in a generation” bond rout of 2022 did hammer a lot of 60:40 funds that people thought would be more stable than a 100% equity fund, however.

returns from bonds are now higher than before 2022, so have become an investable asset for alot of people again.

True although if you look back historically even without the Covid years when bonds bombed, the higher equity funds perform better almost every year.
If you take the maximum recording period available on the Vanguard website, £10,000 invested in 2011 would be about 23500 with 60% LifeStrategy, or £34,000 with 100%.
El Shalimo: no – you don’t pay the Vanguard Account fee if you access their funds elsewhere. You only pay the fund management fee which from memory is 0.22%.
Using Interactive Investor for my pension I pay £12.99 per month account fee, which works out as 0.04% at the moment. With Vanguard the account fee is capped at £375 per year so using Interactive Investor saves me just over £200 per year in account fees.

My S&S ISa is a new thing for me, with only £2k in it. That’s nowhere near enough money to make Interactive Investors flatfee worthwhile, hence using T212 for that. We did transfer my wife’s previous workplace pension there though, as that’s all just leave alone & hold and the flat fee is a very good deal at her pot level.

I am considering a partial transfer out of my pension to II, as they are one of the few platforms with direct access to Bonds and Gilts, rather than the more volatile funds.

SIPP fees across all platforms tend to be higher than ISAs.

Same reason I’m not using II for my ISA – the flat rate only becomes worthwhile if you have lots of money in it. InvestEngine and Trading 212 definitely win there.
InvestEngine do a SIPP now with similar fees to II but there is a much smaller range of funds available.

I’m lucky my workplace pension (Aviva) has a SIPP option with a much bigger choice of funds than the standard workplace scheme. Because we have 40,000+ employees, our platform charge is low at 0.1%, and some funds get big discounts too, so my US fund costs a total AMC of 0.1% . I’m approaching my last 10 years and feel that tradeable bond funds are just too volatile, so will be transferring 25% to II for individual bonds and gilts. I think I’ll probably use II for my drawdown too, unless something better has come along by then.

My mortgage pays off in 10 years so that money will be redirected into the ISA with T212.

Back to the original question…….

So to summarise, he agrees with us! InvestEngine if you’re happy with ETFs (I am), Trading 212 if you want to buy specific company shares.

If you’re dealing with thousands rather than hundreds, then I would be very wary of using trading 212 (or any other commission free broker). They are notorious for offering awful spreads. A thorough read of their ‘order execution policy’ would be well worth your while before giving them any money:

https://www.trading212.com/legal-documentation/uk/common/Order-Execution-Policy_EN.pdf

For Share and ETF transactions, where the size and nature of the Order permit it, T212 will
execute the Order via its Systematic Internaliser in the first instance. Following this priority of
venues, ensures that the price given to you will, in most cases, be at least as good as the
best Bid/Ask price of the primary exchange upon which the instrument is listed.

Bottom line is that your trades are not actually being forwarded to a registered exchange (as they would with a fee charging broker) you are trading within their own little made up world – the ‘Systematic Internaliser’. The reason that sounds dodgy is because it is…

If the price is as same or better than the price listed on the exchange, why is this a problem?
InvestEngine for instance are currently not making a profit, so they’re not doing some dodgy maths and making a mint.
Also they are regulated by the FSA like all other financial institutions – you can’t get away with doing anything dodgy.
I’d certainly prefer managing my own investments for a pittance than giving money away to an IFA…

It’s a problem because most trades go through inside the bid/ask. If they’re not dealing on an exchange, then they’re not getting quotes from other market participants, and so they’re not getting the best executions. You will notice in the above document that ‘best execution’ does not equal ‘best fill’. You will also notice points 12 and 13 – they are responsible for monitoring their own executions, but there doesn’t seem to very much in the way of detail as to what procedures they have in place…

I’m all for managing your own investments – I do it for a living. I actually spend quite a lot of time watching people’s crappy fills from commission free brokers on the order book of various stocks. If you have a decent pot, then I would recommend you manage it through a traditional broker. I use II and IG personally.

I use II too as well as InvestEngine but I’m not quite sure how they’re different? As far as I can see Trading 212 are just using software to calculate what price to sell you stock at, before placing the actual order. I don’t think it’s some underhand way of secretly making more money out of the trade but I might be wrong.
When placing orders on InvestEngine I can see the current price, the actual price will be slightly different depending on when the order is executed but I don’t think anything strange is going on. Equally with II the free investing is on the same day each month and you may do better or worse depending on what the market is doing at that particular time.
Is Trading 212 doing something more underhand than the other platforms? I must admit I avoided using it because it seemed more complicated than what I was looking for.

Looking at IG.com I’m immediately put off by them promoting CFD trading, which for most is far too much of a gamble to be worthwhile, and in my view a significant reason why stock markets are so volatile with so many idiots gambling on ultra short term gains and losses.

“ Is Trading 212 doing something more underhand than the other platforms? I must admit I avoided using it because it seemed more complicated than what I was looking for.”

it has to make money somehow. By offering a “free” (it’s not) trading service it generates revenue in a less transparent manner.

somewhere, you pay for a platform. The key is to choose one that is cheapest for your portfolio size / construction / investing style.

Yep – I was under the impression that Trading 212 make money by charging foreign exchange fees.
InvestEngine presumably rely on the booth people opting for their managed options and the new SIPP, both of which have fees.

T212 has a CFD arm which is where it makes money.

InvestEngine is making a loss in return for market share in its early years. No doubt charges will rise.

That I get and have no issue with. Trading 212 taking money off people by stealth seems extremely unlikely.

Re: £85k safety net – I would imagine a company like Vanguard is too big to fail but it’s not impossible

Yep that I guess is an advantage to using a platform and choosing a variety of funds. I only have more than that with one company, and to lose a lot, several of Vanguard, HSBC, Aviva, L&G, Ishares, Royal London, Fidelity and Schroder would have to go under, at which point presumably the apocalypse would be happening anyway…

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that the shares you buy through any modern platform are not actually held directly in your name. That all went out the window many years ago (though you may find elderly relatives holding on to the old paper-based system with share certificates).

It’s all dematerialised into nominee accounts these days. Whether they are quite so safe from fraud and financial malpractice is not entirely clear to me but I’m not aware of any failures.

I think the regulations are pretty strict in terms of them having no right to use the money you invest, even if they get into financial difficulties.
The strange thing about modern society is that much of what forms the basis of modern life, wealth etc is a construct that we have invented, but much of it, especially money and wealth, doesn’t actually exist other than as a concept we all agree to believe in.

Re: £85k safety net – I would imagine a company like Vanguard is too big to fail but it’s not impossible

I think someone here explained that in the event that Vanguard went bust you would still hold the stocks from your funds?

I think the suggestion earlier was that if a platform went bust then you would still own your funds, wherever they were invested, and you would then presumably need to access an alternative platform to manage them.
If the company itself went bust – eg Vanguard, HSBC or whichever – then the FCSC would kick in and you’d be covered for £85,000 maximum. Therefore if all your funds are with Vanguard, or indeed any single company, and are worth more than this, there is a risk albeit small with such a big company.

And even if Vanguard went bust the shares will actually be held by a separate custodian company, I think.  It is a multi layered system which ensures against shares going missing.  Put another way, Lehmans going bust in the GFC was a very big thing for share trading and even if values of shares fell a long way, no one actually found they didn’t own shares they had thought they owned beforehand.

My point is that you *never* own the shares yourself, not even at the start. In the good old days you actually had a piece of paper saying you owned X shares, and there was a register where your name was listed as the owner of X shares. It all took time and money to maintain and update. Now you get a computer printout listing the shares that are held on your behalf by a nominee.

I’m sure there is regulation, the issue probably is how watertight they are and how easily broken. I’m not particularly worried, just curious.

Well we’ve just stuck a few £K into a Vanguard 100% equities junior isa for granddaughter.

Hope to be around when it matures for her in 2042 and hope she spends it wisely and doesn’t blow it all on coke and hunks.

So after spending most of last night and most of today I think I’ve made a decision, bailed from Vanguard Lifestrategy for being too UK centric and going to punt on either FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (VWRP) or the FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund (VAFTGAG) both the accumulation versions as I want growth not income.  Looking on Trustnet they appear to track pretty similar, does anyone here hold either? Ta.

This tax year I’m about to start holding VWRP.

perhaps worth mentioning that the shares you buy through any modern platform are not actually held directly in your name. That all went out the window many years ago (though you may find elderly relatives holding on to the old paper-based system with share certificates).

It’s all dematerialised into nominee accounts these days. Whether they are quite so safe from fraud and financial malpractice is not entirely clear to me but I’m not aware of any failures.

Well said. Despite the assertions from various people in the thread, I am not convinced that you do actually own the shares. Funnily enough, the OP of this thread also opened a thread dedicated to that very question. 😉   And I think it was the answer to that thread ( in the negative) that prompted him to open this thread to ask where to start moving his savings above £85k into

Lemme do a search…

Here you go..

Do I need to consider FSCS limits for my shares ISA?

How weird is that for people to be asking a question on this thread that was actually answered by the Genesis of this actual thread…. What a mind ****..

PS, anyone else stupid enough to buy Docs after the recent tumble? I was watching them fur ages at 90p, then pounced when they went sub 70

Juanking – both those funds are pretty decent global trackers. I hold the lifestyle 100 and offset the uk weighting by another global ex-uk tracker.

I’ve got the Vanguard Developed World ex-UK fund in my SIPP which is another decent Vanguard global tracker. Seems to have slightly better long term performance than the one you mentioned although I wouldn’t claim to know what exactly the difference is.

Time in the market v timing the market.

That’s what I’m relying on rather than trying to find a wise pick.

Time in the market v timing the market.

That’s what I’m relying on rather than trying to find a wise pick.

It’s a valid point. It’s easy to get hung up on which fund is the very best, comparing UK and US and far east, etc, which platform to use. It’s makes it seem complicated and maybe puts people off. Buy something sensible, hold on to it, buy some more occasionally. A lot better than doing nothing.