Buying and selling stocks/shares-- Platform to use.???

Buying and selling stocks/shares-- Platform to use.???

Author
Discussion

jenzo

Original Poster:

354 posts

247 months

Tuesday 9th February 2010
quotequote all
Can someone please guide me in the right direction as to what platform to use to buy and sell stocks and shares. I have never done this before and want an easy to use platform that does not charge me a huge fee to buy and sell.

Would Barclays Stockbrokers be a good option for me to use? Can you guys please recommend any others.?

Edited by jenzo on Tuesday 9th February 11:17

JonX2C

820 posts

216 months

Tuesday 9th February 2010
quotequote all
I can sell you a Bloomberg termainl for 22k a year, it would be the best thing you could ever need, but only if your a high frequency trader or building a huge portfolio.

Vladimir Pukin

1,086 posts

223 months

Tuesday 9th February 2010
quotequote all
jenzo said:
Can someone please guide me in the right direction as to what platform to use to buy and sell stocks and shares. I have never done this before and want an easy to use platform that does not charge me a huge fee to buy and sell.

Would Barclays Stockbrokers be a good option for me to use? Can you guys please recommend any others.?

Edited by jenzo on Tuesday 9th February 11:17
Then don't buy UK shares for a start - you pay stamp duty and commission.

Superbad

277 posts

187 months

Tuesday 9th February 2010
quotequote all
I use iii.co.uk

£10 a trade, no annual management charge.

twinturboz

1,278 posts

184 months

Tuesday 9th February 2010
quotequote all
Op theres quite a few platforms within the uk. Your choice will to some extent depend on your circumstances.

How often do you intend to trade? Is it going to be your full time job? or are you just trading occasionally.

Also the platforms vary in what your opening balance needs to be to open the account.

Have a look on here for sites that do annual reviews of most brokers.

http://www.consumersearch.com/online-brokers/revie...

Barron's is usually a good guide to go by

Edited by twinturboz on Tuesday 9th February 18:54

matsmith

1,166 posts

215 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
I use barclays stockbrokers, they are decent enough. Have had one major issue with them when I was unable to sell but it was in a particularly volatile half hour where a share spiked through the roof, but thats life.

My advice would be to stock to a reputable stockbroker, and dont be overly concerned about dealing costs. I also had an account with natwest stockbrokers, and they were more expensive to deal with by about £3 or £4, but often they would offer better prices than barclays, so spend more time researching companies you are interested in investing in rather than the dealing charges


edited for poor effort on my spelling

Edited by matsmith on Wednesday 10th February 11:39

NoelWatson

11,710 posts

248 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
JonX2C said:
I can sell you a Bloomberg termainl for 22k a year, it would be the best thing you could ever need, but only if your a high frequency trader or building a huge portfolio.
Can you still blag 3-6 month free trials?

JonX2C

820 posts

216 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
only if you had a bloomberg login in the last 6 months at a cclient of ours.

We offer a loyal users programme where by you can get a trial to look for a new job if you have been made redundant, but there are obvious checks to make sure your not using it for trading and actually looking for a job.

T0M

713 posts

183 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
Hargreaves Lansdown

Wings

5,838 posts

221 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
T0M said:
Hargreaves Lansdown
+1, Absolutely agree;

http://www.h-l.co.uk/home1

Seany88

1,245 posts

226 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
Anyone use TD Waterhouse? I went to them by default when Hoodless Brennan decided to pack up their execution only service...I find their spreads to be a bit bigger than i'd like...

NoelWatson

11,710 posts

248 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
Seany88 said:
Anyone use TD Waterhouse? I went to them by default when Hoodless Brennan decided to pack up their execution only service...I find their spreads to be a bit bigger than i'd like...
Yes

jenzo

Original Poster:

354 posts

247 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all

Thank you for all your kind input guys. I am new to this and for the time being looking at buying and selling occasinally using a simple platform that does not charge a huge amount. I will go through the platforms mentioned and see whats best suited for me.

Barclays stockbroker charges you per quarter if you dont do any trades for 3 months which I thought was a little cheeky

blinkythefish

972 posts

263 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
Seany88 said:
Anyone use TD Waterhouse? I went to them by default when Hoodless Brennan decided to pack up their execution only service...I find their spreads to be a bit bigger than i'd like...
I do.

Does anyone else find their "trading limits" an issue? For example, you deposit 5k in cash with them, go to buy 5k of shares and they tell you that you are only allowed to buy 2k of a given share. They say the reason for this is to minimise their exposure to risk, but given they already have my cash sitting in hand, the risk is all on me isn't it?

twinturboz

1,278 posts

184 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
Yep I used to use Td waterhouse too. For the occasional trader its a pretty good platform and simple to use.

However as I was going to full time trading I noticed a few things that made me switch:

Takes forever to change your limit price,
Have to keep hitting the quote button for a price,
If the market is very volatile and there is large volumes the site will crash, think this also applies to a few other platforms too.



Scrogger

228 posts

215 months

Wednesday 10th February 2010
quotequote all
Superbad said:
I use iii.co.uk

£10 a trade, no annual management charge.
Used iii for several years with no issues at all. Recommend.

Not affiliated etc.

lightweight

1,165 posts

254 months

Thursday 11th February 2010
quotequote all
I mostly spread bet but when i looked at equities platforms the cheepest are www.Simplystockbroking.com charge £8 per trade and then www.Idealing.com charge £9.90 per trade. Both have rate comparison tables on there sites or look at www.247bull.com or ADVFN for independent reviews.