Best Share Dealing site

sorry £9.95 per trade . £4.95 for regular trader

Guardian shares are £8 per trade

i use easyshare.com

that stellios is a bloody genius

I use youinvest amongst others. The website is not the best, but they are a decent company.
Others to check
selftrade (Good company & choice of investments. Are being bought out)
not tried these below
http://www.svssecurities.com/ (cheapest?)
http://www.beaufortsecurities.com/online-share-dealing-W21page-14-

I suggest having approximately your age as a percentage in bonds. Read the reviews on the fixed income investor site, including the bond of the week articles. Spread your money across a no. of bonds. (no more than 10% in each)

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/prices-and-markets/retail-bonds/newrecent/newrecent.htm

http://www.fixedincomeinvestor.co.uk/x/forum.html

III is now http://www.shareprice.co.uk/

Have had no problems with them.

Cheers guys

That's an interesting strategy to keep your age as a percentage in bonds Stow_Judge
I just don't like tying money up for 5 years at a time tbh but is worth keeping in mind


Just looking for a decent account with no inactivity fee's (like iii started to charge) for £10 per trade so Shareprice.co.uk look pretty decent

They can't be III though Alpha

With the retail bonds you do not have to keep your money tied up. They are traded for the duration of the bond.
You need to buy the retail bonds at issue with no dealing costs or you'll pay a premium, so Selftrade and Barclays are the two to have accounts with as they are one of the underwriters for the majority of bonds.
The vast majority have gone up a percent or two shortly after issue. Click on some of the links on the newly issued page and take a look.
They all start at a price of 100.
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/prices-and-markets/retail-bonds/newrecent/newrecent.htm

The risks with bonds are that they can go out of business and you can lose the lot(pretty unlikely, but not unheard of), though you are normally in front of shareholders in the list of creditors. The other risk is that they can trade under the face value in the lifetime of the bond. (e.g. If the parent company issued a profit warning) As interest rates go up, the dividends of bonds will increase, so you should avoid the ones with too long a duration or too low a dividend. Remember that the bonds with lower dividends are usually the more secure companies. It's very much risk vs reward. Diversifying across business areas and across a no. of bonds reduces the risk.

The other things to consider are charges & taxes.

If you bought a share, you'd have the dealing charges (buying & selling), the stamp duty (0.5% on purchase for trades over £1000) and also taxation of any dividends. (20% of the dividend)

If you bought a retail bond at issue and kept it in an ISA (or pension), you'd have no dealing charge at purchase, no stamp duty and no taxation of dividends. (So just the dealing charge to sell)

Another investment you should look at is index trackers. e.g. Vanguard or DBX trackers. There are others. The costs are low compared to managed funds.

Thanks Stow , very helpful regarding Bonds

I know there's risk involved involved in everything but i'm just not too keen that some of the Bonds names i've never heard of , so like to stick to trading the big names & Blue chip companies

I like to buy low as they always recover eventually , usually quicker than you imagine , plus if i'm holding for long enough i'll at least receive some dividends on my money

I'm not too sure whether to open a New Isa now the limit's 15k but guess that'd be best used for a long term fund or Bonds & keep my trades seperate

Tax doesn't affect me too much anyway unless i make a fortune ...

I'm not happy with the site I use. If I could turn back time I would use another.

Check the charges closely.

There has been plenty of retail bonds released from companies you have heard of. The analysis on that fixedincomeinvestor site is very good.
Tesco
Severn Trent
National Grid
London stock exchange
Ladbrokes

United racecourses did a bond as well a year or so ago

I used Funding Circle which is loans to small companies (normally guaranteed). I think the investors call them junk bonds.

About SharePrice

SharePrice is a trading name of Interactive Investor Trading Ltd and part of the Interactive Investor Plc group which also includes Interactive Investor, MoneyObserver and Moneywise.

Launched in 2008, usage of the SharePrice website and mobile applications has grown significantly and we today provide over 100,000 users with a web and mobile watch list and market research service. In May 2011 we launched a £10 flat rate share dealing service, which we then discounted for users of our mobile apps to £9.00 per trade. We charge no inactivity or management fee on share trading accounts.

I use svs securities..they're ok

How long do you generally invest in a Bond for Stow_judge & what kind of rate do you get on them

I see they're decent for large lump sums to stash away but i like to be in control of prices of my shares more than just leaving a chunk in a bond so there's no real fun in that for me , but may consider them if i decide to invest long term

I like the look of Shareprice anyway so will open an account later

i pay £5.5 a trade any size but then 24 a quarter and 1.8 a month admin...but then i hold a few shares in the company.

the share centre.

The dividends on the bonds are normally in the 5-6% range. My intent is to invest for the duration of the bond, so 5-7 years for the ones I have done.

The novice investor tend to think more of the potential return than the actual money they are investing. In my experience, you should be considering investing the other way round! i.e. The bulk of your return in the long run is largely from the the money you have saved/invested and from re-investing dividends rather than share growth. So I think you should be investing the bulk of your money in "safer" types of investment, rather than chasing the elusive share price growth. By all means invest a smaller percentage of your money in riskier assets, but don't put the lot into it. The model of age & percentage of bonds is a good one as when you are old and have mostly bonds you'll want the dividends to supplement your income in retirement.

As I said, it does not have to be a long term investment in a retail bond. You could buy at issue, take the divis for a year or two then sell it. If they do trade under the value you have paid for them it would normally be wiser to stick with them and take the dividends.

got out of bonds after the hope that rates would go up withered away.
rates may well go up sooner rather than later but as we havent hit a proper recovery there is still upside to being in shares.

id just be a bit wary of ones who have already rocketed.

bad news is sometime very good news if you know what i mean although id not ready to go in on tescos yet

think newcastles owner jumped the gun badly there.

barclays were a goodun after their recent "bad news".

Thanks Stowe_Judge
around 6% is what i'd expect & is a decent rate in this day & age but 5-7 years is just too long to tie my money up in something i'm not totally confident in

The novice investor tend to think more of the potential return than the actual money they are investing. In my experience, you should be considering investing the other way round! i.e. The bulk of your return in the long run is largely from the the money you have saved/invested and from re-investing dividends rather than share growth. So I think you should be investing the bulk of your money in "safer" types of investment, rather than chasing the elusive share price growth. By all means invest a smaller percentage of your money in riskier assets, but don't put the lot into it. The model of age & percentage of bonds is a good one as when you are old and have mostly bonds you'll want the dividends to supplement your income in retirement.

This is good advice & very true that i should be looking to invest the bulk of my money for a guaranteed long term yield.

Like i say i admit i don't know enough about Bonds to be totally confident of investing 50k for 5 years , plus i'm more interested in property so may well need to cash it out (what would i lose if i did - a redemption fee) ?

I only risk like 10% on a more risky trade opportunity (like Tesco ) but the returns can be very worthwhile , many times i could of doubled my money

I could've had Vodaphone 75p  BP £3.00 Glaxo £10.00 Lloyds 25p during the recession but panicked a bit as put too much into them & sold way too early , but those kind of stocks would be worth holding for a very nice nest egg , i wish i had them all now

ttt for Chaser

Didnt realise so many shrewdies on here

moonbeam what site do you use now, do you have tesco ones?

I've just opened an account at Shareprice but haven't traded on it yet
I was waiting to buy Tesco/Sainsburys shares but there's so much negativity about the whole sector/markets that I'm still waiting /watching

have you done shares in the past

see that site i gave a link to plus500 , they give you £20 to start , i used it earlier this year but not really sure what i was doing tbh

Yep
The first time I ever invested a lump sum the World Trade Towers collapsed about a month later , so I only really invest when things crash & the market is down , personally I wouldn't invest too much at the moment as a big crash could be just around the corner , then i'll jump in again , but can be dangerous & is quite stressful if you invest a fair amount

what happened to shares they just go bust after towers went down , or you get shares in the new property / land etc

new business or anything

Stock markets all Crashed worldwide on fear of war & terrorism (it's not always about which company's making x amount)
It didn't matter what you had money in you'd of lost 1/3rd or more of it overnight , not good with 20k invested if it's everything you have