Buying shares..whats the best way?

[boxster9]

I am thinking about investing some money in shares but have never done this before. Planning on going for some of the banking shares which look quite cheap right now. Not really worried about short term losses/gains as the investment would be for the long term.

I have seen that you can buy shares through Yahoo.co.uk . £9.95 per transaction. Is this the going rate? or can it be done cheaper by any other means.. Any recommendations.

Cheers

[Big Al.]

Try this company,

http://secure.jarvisim.co.uk/mainpage.html

Similar trading prices as Yahoo.

You can view your portfolio on line and trade as and when you want to.

I've been using them for around the last 3 years never had an problems.

HTH

[boxster9]

Big Al. said:

Try this company,

http://secure.jarvisim.co.uk/mainpage.html

Similar trading prices as Yahoo.

You can view your portfolio on line and trade as and when you want to.

I've been using them for around the last 3 years never had an problems.

HTH

Thanks for that, Just had a look on their site..can you trade online with them?

[Big Al.]

Yep, I always do saves all that faffing about. They will even hold your share certificates. They also collect dividends and forward to your account.

When you trade they just send you a letter relating to the transactions you've undertaken.

If you wish to transfer money from say your trading account just email them telling where you would like it transferred to.

HTH.

[ginettag27]

Take a look at Fool Sharedealing, from Motley Fool.. You can significantly reduce the dealing cost, if you use their service which only deals 3/4 times a month.. That might not be ideal, but if you are keeping them long term, then it will be. Of course you can sell them at any other time, but pay more.. They also allow you to DRiP dividends back into the account..

[Simon813]

I use www.selftrade.co.uk

Never had any problems with them.

They used to do an offer whereby I (as a member) recommend you and we both get £50 cash. Only caveat is that your first trade needs to be for £500 or more.

PM me if interested.

Si

Edited by Simon813 on Thursday 4th December 14:48

[Steve H]

I have recently used Hoodless Brennan and have them quite easy to use (first time buyer as well)

Steve

[northandy]

I use my bank (First Direct), really easy to move the money from my account forwards and backwards.

Current dealing cost is £10 per trade, but they do have special offers where they charge a reduced rate, or even nothing.

very happy with the service from them

[northandy]

My brother uses idealing.com similar prices per trade, but I think more functionality like auto buy and sell features etc.

[boxster9]

Thanks for all the useful advice, will have a look at these options

[Ordinary Bloke]

My advice. Don't.

Even those who are experienced are losing a fortune. You will be unlikely to outperform the highly paid 'experts'. The 'experts' managing my ISA's and pension fund managed to lose 35-40% in the last 12 months. What do you know that they don't?

If you only gamble pocket money, the fees make it not worth the effort. If you gamble with significant amounts, the risk of losing significant amounts is too high to risk it.

Why not pretend to buy some shares, watch what they do over a few months, then decide if you should risk some real money? In fact, why don't you post your fantasy portfolio on PH, and we can watch it for you - nothing to lose.

[northandy]

Ordinary Bloke said:

My advice. Don't.

Even those who are experienced are losing a fortune. You will be unlikely to outperform the highly paid 'experts'. The 'experts' managing my ISA's and pension fund managed to lose 35-40% in the last 12 months. What do you know that they don't?

If you only gamble pocket money, the fees make it not worth the effort. If you gamble with significant amounts, the risk of losing significant amounts is too high to risk it.

Why not pretend to buy some shares, watch what they do over a few months, then decide if you should risk some real money? In fact, why don't you post your fantasy portfolio on PH, and we can watch it for you - nothing to lose.

It is possible to pick winners even in this climate... tbh my largest buy ever has been 1k, and I generally have a couple of grand in total in my portfolio...

My recent 1k buy was Lloyds TSB, which I sold at a net 27% profit over a 2 week period...

my point is it is possible to make money, but its very risky, granted I've had some losers as well but over the past 2 years of small trades (probably no more than 25) i've made about 10%... better than a bank, obviously risker, but its also a bit of fun for me...

Thats a good point about "fantasy" dealing, I did that for a while, thing is its very different to it being your own cash

[Twosheds]

Wouldn't it be a good time to put money on a spread of FTSE 100 (dont know how to do it though) at the moment it's at 4,000 surely it must go up to 6000 in 5 or 10 years

[Somewhatfoolish]

Ordinary Bloke said:

My advice. Don't.

Even those who are experienced are losing a fortune. You will be unlikely to outperform the highly paid 'experts'. The 'experts' managing my ISA's and pension fund managed to lose 35-40% in the last 12 months. What do you know that they don't?

If you only gamble pocket money, the fees make it not worth the effort. If you gamble with significant amounts, the risk of losing significant amounts is too high to risk it.

Why not pretend to buy some shares, watch what they do over a few months, then decide if you should risk some real money? In fact, why don't you post your fantasy portfolio on PH, and we can watch it for you - nothing to lose.

One problem is these experts have to show performance to morons at least quarterly... leads to a pile of churning and burning.

I pretty much guarantee anyone who goes and buys 20 companies - doesn't even matter which ones, really, within reason - and comes back in 30 years time to see how they did will outperform 90% of these 'experts' over the same time period, especially after fees.

Edited by Somewhatfoolish on Saturday 6th December 18:11

[Somewhatfoolish]

Twosheds said:

Wouldn't it be a good time to put money on a spread of FTSE 100 (dont know how to do it though) at the moment it's at 4,000 surely it must go up to 6000 in 5 or 10 years

There is no reason it should do that, really, but if you believe that your best plan is to buy the Fidelity monebuilder uk (or similar name) ftse index fund, it's about 0.2% management charge if I remember correctly. You could replicate that yourself if sufficently capitalised but it would probably be a lot easier to just pay the fee.

[ATG]

If you want to speculate, now is a truly hilarious time to do it because the market is so volatile. Up 20% at elevenses and down 20% by afternoon biscuits. If you are looking to invest for the long term, I think now is as good a time as any to start putting money into the market. There are no guarantees, you might lose the lot, etc, etc, but stocks are cheaper now than they have been for years. I've been in cash for a long, long time and I'm finally going to start moving some of it into equity.

[henna777]

ATG said:

If you want to speculate, now is a truly hilarious time to do it because the market is so volatile. Up 20% at elevenses and down 20% by afternoon biscuits. If you are looking to invest for the long term, I think now is as good a time as any to start putting money into the market. There are no guarantees, you might lose the lot, etc, etc, but stocks are cheaper now than they have been for years. I've been in cash for a long, long time and I'm finally going to start moving some of it into equity.

Looked back at previous threads to pick this up. My group of small businesses have been in cash for a while but want to start moving into equity. Talked to Lloyds share dealing but they will not allow company money because of laundering, never share dealt before so can anyone advise any bankers who allow this?? Thanks