Online Buying and Selling Shares

[AndyADH]

Just wondering where you buy and sell your shares online. I am sure most of you have financial advisor's for your big investments. But what about for just investing a few hundred quid in something that you think is cheap for a quick return.

Who do you use and how much does it cost, subscription fees, costs per trade commission etc. In the US Ing Direct have brought out a company called Sharebuilder and it looks ok, but not every stock is listed and especially not UK stocks. But it allows you to invest a $ amount rather than buy 100 shares at a time.

So I was wondering if anyone used a similar firm with a greater number of options of stock to buy.

Thanks for your time.

Andy

[ATM]

AndyADH said:

Just wondering where you buy and sell your shares online. I am sure most of you have financial advisor's for your big investments. But what about for just investing a few hundred quid in something that you think is cheap for a quick return.

Who do you use and how much does it cost, subscription fees, costs per trade commission etc. In the US Ing Direct have brought out a company called Sharebuilder and it looks ok, but not every stock is listed and especially not UK stocks. But it allows you to invest a $ amount rather than buy 100 shares at a time.

So I was wondering if anyone used a similar firm with a greater number of options of stock to buy.

Thanks for your time.

Andy

If you are speculating on price [going up I presume] then you can always look at CFD or Spread betting. Lots of sites which do this online.

[AndyADH]

I have look at spreadbetting, but do not want to do this, because some of the investments may shift slightly and therefore hit the floor or ceiling price from a random spike and force the sale and therefore cause me to loose money. Although I may revisit this when I have had some luck with the free account and can actually consistently make money. Which I fail to do.

I am looking for a slightly longer term investment.

What about E-Trade any users? What do you think and is there anything better out there

[ATM]

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. A spread bet will only be closed if your stop is met. You can set a stop very far away from current price.

So for instance if you are thinking of buying Bradford and Bingley which are now around 68. So if you buy [or go long] with a stop at 34 they would have to half in value before your position is closed. Some peole might argue this is a good thing. Do you still want to hold the position if the price halves?

You could set your stop at 20 etc etc etc.

If you do set your stop at 34 then you need to deposit enough money to cover the spread. You can therefore buy twice as many shares [in effect] doing this.

Does this make sense???

[AndyADH]

Yeah it all makes sense, but to set the stop that far out will cost you a lot more money.

Then if it drops just 1 point below the stop then turns round and shoots up, I have lost my money and I have to start a new bet.

All it takes is for the price to drop below the stop for 1 second and the bet will close and I will lose.

I am looking for longer term than spread betting and would actually like to own the shares as a possible long term investment and then be able to choose when to get out.

As I have said I have looked at spread betting but that is not what I want at this point in time, maybe in the future when I have more disposable income.

[walm]

I use TDWaterhouse self-select ISA. £12.50 per trade I think. Most UK stocks and some European. Can buy 1 share at a time if you like but the commission hurts, obviously.
I also use eTrade for US$ investments. Has a greater variety of products (options, CFDs etc...). Much cheaper (like everything in the US) I think maybe $7.50 per trade. You need a US address to set up there though. I am sure they have a UK equivalent.
I have used IGIndex for spreadbetting (mostly to short) which is annoying if you get spiked out and it hits your stop. Not for the faint-hearted since it is leveraged, obviously. Massive IGIndex thread on here.
Not used it but if you want to invest through a SIPP the Hargreaves Lansdowne (sp?) one is the cheapest apparently.

[ATM]

OK I'm sorry to go on about this spread betting thing but you definitely dont seem to understand exactly how it works. You say you dot want a wide stop because this costs too much money - this still costs less than buying the shares!!!!

If you want to effectively buy the shares with a spead bet then just have NO stop. This is therefore effctively the same as just buying the shares. And you can do this easily online. Also with a spread bet if the price rises you do not get taxed.

Give me an example of a share you are interested in buying - or just the share price of an imaginery stock and the amount of money you want to invest and I will work through the numbers for you.

[AndyADH]

Ok, its the stops I do not like on spread betting. I know that I can choose not to have a stop at all, but that way I may as well own the stock and get paid the dividends for owning it.

On the IG thread there was the glitch on both the gold and silver market if I am not mistaken where there was a sudden spike that would close out a stop and therefore cause me to lose all my money.

I know I would lose if I owned the stock as well, but I am looking at long term, I feel that stocks may still go down with the current economy but to buy a few here and there, trying to minimize my exposure and also trying to limit my fees per transaction.

As I said it is the spikes that can be caused and I would hate to hit my stop and then watch it recover the same day and even then continue to gain in value after closing me out.

I may contact you in the future, when I am ready to try spread betting again. Also as a person who lives in the US, it is difficult to time the spread bet in the UK to avoid these spikes, whereas if I were just to set it to buy shares from the UK when the market opens, I am willing to take the initial turbulence at open and close of day trading, without fearing being driven out due to stops.

[AndyADH]

Thanks for the input,

E Trade seems expensive and if you fail to trade in a quarter they seem to hit you with a fee and unless you are trading on a regular basis the fees seem quite high.

Has anyone had any dealings with E Trade

I am off to look at the other options now.

Keep the ideas coming

[AndyADH]

haworthlloyd1 said:

to answer your question hoodless brennan are best and they are free for an initial period

The other I looked at are around the same price as E Trade.


It looks like this is limited to the top 500 stocks from their website.

Thats the problem I am facing with Sharebuilder. Some of the stocks are the lower end that I am interested in and they are not covered. And Sharebuilder is just $1 a trade if you do 20 automated trades a month.

Although I would still prefer a US company with a wider variety and no inactivity fees. Due to the fact my majority will be done through the sharebuilder account.


So ATM which Spreadbetting site do you recommend and what are the fees like.

[ATM]

I dont really want to recommend a site. I have used a few. The IG web interface is very good and stable. But sometimes the execution can be slow and their spreads are usually wider than others.

Those spikes I showed on the IG thread in Gold and Silver would not necessarily close you out if they were pricing errors. If they did you would definitely be complaining to IG to put this right so dont let this put you off spread betting and / or IG.

I am not saying you should definitely start spread betting but that your logic about why this doesn't suit you is not sound.

[AndyADH]

Ok I will look into it further, I take it you have made some money out of Spreadbetting, the other thing I am not sure of is the amount per point that you bet with.

With a share price you know where you stand, but if you bet higher then you limit the amount of stop gap you have.

Have you had a lot of success with Spreadbetting? Or do you just do it for fun or small amounts.


As an expansion of my other idea has anyone used Scott trade, they seem cheap with no annual or quarterly fee.

[ATM]

I have had some winners and some losers. Overall I'm down. Been trying various differnt strategies and systems and to be honest not really sure if I will ever find a winner.

Like I said earlier give me a stock or share price and some idea of how much you want to invest / risk and I will run through some numbers for you.

[walm]

ATM said:

I am not saying you should definitely start spread betting but that your logic about why this doesn't suit you is not sound.

My problem with spread betting vs. plain vanilla owning the shares is that as far as I can tell there is a time limit on the bet.
For example, if you want to go long the FTSE 100 you can hold the bet for a maximum of 1 year. For equities it is more like 9 months. So, if you are in it for the long haul and don't have a good grasp on timing, then spread betting is not for you.

For example, I am 100% convinced that Ryanair will come out of the airline disaster we are seeing right now a far stronger company. The problem is that the news will continue to be bad for at least the next 12 months (winter is always weak for airlines). I think today is a good entry point and I am willing to take lots of pain until my long term thesis is proved correct, I just don't think that will be in the next 12 months.

How could I benefit from that hypothesis through spread betting? I can't. I have to own the stock and hold for the long term.
(Note Ryanair don't pay a dividend either.)

[Horse_Apple]

AndyADH said:

Ok, its the stops I do not like on spread betting. I know that I can choose not to have a stop at all, but that way I may as well own the stock and get paid the dividends for owning it.

On the IG thread there was the glitch on both the gold and silver market if I am not mistaken where there was a sudden spike that would close out a stop and therefore cause me to lose all my money.

I know I would lose if I owned the stock as well, but I am looking at long term, I feel that stocks may still go down with the current economy but to buy a few here and there, trying to minimize my exposure and also trying to limit my fees per transaction.

As I said it is the spikes that can be caused and I would hate to hit my stop and then watch it recover the same day and even then continue to gain in value after closing me out.

I may contact you in the future, when I am ready to try spread betting again. Also as a person who lives in the US, it is difficult to time the spread bet in the UK to avoid these spikes, whereas if I were just to set it to buy shares from the UK when the market opens, I am willing to take the initial turbulence at open and close of day trading, without fearing being driven out due to stops.

You still get the divis on a spread bet. You have to or the market would arb betweeen the OTC and physical and the broker would eventually go bust.

As a US resident? you wouldn't be permitted to open a spread bet account unless the directors of that company were thick or genuinely thought they looked good in orange and fancied a 25 year holiday in Cuba.

If I understand you right about the types of stock and also your average deal size ( you seem to imply that you will be going for low end stocks and with a few hundred pounds per pop) then you will not make money. Market spreads will put you offside very strongly and even the cheapest online brokers comm will eat to massively into your potential return.

US brokers make more sense as many do not have minimum tickets and the US exchanges are priced in cents per share and not basis points, as such, you could buy one share in Google ar c$400 and pay 1c, rather than £10 (the typical minimum in the UK)

Have a look at Interactive Brokers to get an idea of the typical US retail brokerage. However, I still stand by my warning that all you will be doing is throwing your money away. You'll have more fun and learn more by taking your cash to Cheatahs in LV.

[BOR]

I use Charles Schwab - www.schwab.com

Trades are about 12$ if I remember correctly. No complaints.

[Simon813]

Andy,

I use Selftrade. I was a total novice when I started in January but their site is very easy to use. You can trade online or over the phone. It has all the options you will need to make quick trades.

They charge £12.50 per trade which is similar to most other companies.

Now comes the bonus, if I refer you as a new customer we both get £50. The only requirement is that your first trade is £500 or more.

PM me if you are interested.

Si

[VX Foxy]

I use sharecrazy.com (I think this is basically Hoodless Brennan) . At £9/trade I think they're about the cheapest. I also use HSBC InvestDirect as it's linked to my current account but that's £12/trade.
I have heard many bad things about Selftrade, but no personal experience.

What's your tip?

[Simon813]

What have you heard about Selftrade? I've had nothing but good experience so far.

Si

[VX Foxy]

Like a say, no personal experience but have a look at the sharecrazy forum and (iirc) moneysavingexpert forum for comments on selftrade. I may be wrong so DYOR as they say!