I have had my DirectShareDeal account for 6 months now and I am moving my deals from Halifax to here. It is a crest sponsored account which means that it you own the shares personally in a nominee account (ie. in your own name not the brokers). This means that you get the benefits of certificate ... Read review
Advantages: free crest account, £12.50 min £30 max, email support Disadvantages: have to phone Scotland if you want to talk to them
I have had my DirectShareDeal account for 6 months now and I am moving my deals from Halifax to here. It is a crest sponsored account which means that it you own the shares personally in a nominee account (ie. in your own name not the brokers). This means that you get the benefits of certificate owned shares ( like dividends, reports, company information sent to you personally) without the hassle of having to post certificates etc. I like to receive ... ...I chose this type of account.
The account costs 0.5% per trade with £12.50 minimum (£30 maximum) so reasonable for small investor. There is NO management costs for your account and CREST memebership is FREE.
You do have to send your money to the account before you can buy but you can do this by a simple bank transfer (no CHAPS costs) which is great.
The website is quite fast and you get a real time quote ... more
I have had my DirectShareDeal account for 6 months now and I am moving my deals from Halifax to here. It is a crest sponsored account which means that it you own the shares personally in a nominee account (ie. in your own name not the brokers). This means that you get the benefits of certificate owned shares ( like dividends, reports, company information sent to you personally) without the hassle of having to post certificates etc. I like to receive dividends and reports and company information and that is why I chose this type of account.
The account costs 0.5% per trade with £12.50 minimum (£30 maximum) so reasonable for small investor. There is NO management costs for your account and CREST memebership is FREE.
You do have to send your money to the account before you can buy but you can do this by a simple bank transfer (no CHAPS costs) which is great.
The website is quite fast and you get a real time quote for the price. There is a reasonable portfolio summary and valuation facility. You get statements from the bank (bank of scotland) for your cash account and from DirectShareDeal for your portfolio.
The first time I tried to transfer money from my online bank account the money disappeared but ShareDeal tracked it down for me. I have since changed bank accounts and my new one transferred money without any problems. I was impressed with the email support from the company. Ringing the company is OK but of course they are in Scotland so costs are not cheap if you are not local, but most questions can be dealt with by email which is good.
I will continue to use ShareDeal for most of my longer term share deals where I want company information. (I am considering idealing.com as a short-term cheap facility). I would recommend having a CREST sponsored account and DirectShareDeal seem to be a good way of getting one.
Advantages: Set limit orders. Sharedealing game with prizes. Disadvantages: No virtual portfolio
ComDirect has to be the best online stockbroker that I have come across. I found their site by accident and registered for their online "Fantasy Sharedealing" game which was great fun although I didn't win. This is ideal for the novice trader and you are given a fixed amount of virtual money to buy and sell shares. You can view your position in a league table and I believe there are prizes for the top 10 dealers.
Now the fun bit is over, here is the serious stuff. I do a lot of sharedealing and was tempted to open a real sharedealing account with ComDirect as they offered me £150 cash after my first trade. I had nothing to lose so I registered and gave it a go. Was I impressed or what? Let's go through all the features available in ComDirectsharedealing.
(1) Low rates of commission - only £12.50 per trade which is the lowest I ...
Manics 13.10.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Comdirect
Advantages: Cheap dealing costs Disadvantages: You are tied to fixed days for dealing
account by direct debit or by debit ard. You are then given a choice of four payment dates that you want Halifax to debit your account each month. You can choose a one off option if you are setting up a plan to divesify a larger lump sum.
The next stage is for you to choose your shares and you have the opportunity of seeing which are the most popular top ten shares selected by other clients or indeed select shares via a search facility. Once you are happy with your choice of shares this becomes your investment plan. You can change this plan at any point.
The only downside for me is that you are restricted to four monthly investment days and as I am sue that you are aware timing is everything in sharedealing. I also found the site a little confusing nut once you get going it all sems to make sense.
You can also invest as little as £20 ...
Advantages: £1.50 Purchase commission fee, easiest way for share buying beginners to start off Disadvantages: £5 commission for selling shares, UK markets only, closes at midnight
), and leave them to do the rest.
Minimum price you can place on one company is £5, which is broken down as follows:
Shares = £3.48 worth
Commision = £1.50 (cheaper than anyone else's that I've seen)
Stamp Duty (Tax) = 2p... the more you invest, the more you pay (had 4p - 5p tax on £10 share purchases).
Transferring the money for the investment is straight forward: to put it in the with Debit card you registered with takes about 3 working days to complete..... if you've already got some form of Banking account with the Halifax, then you can set-up a direct payment from the Sharedealing site that'll have in there ready to invest by Next working day or sooner (depending on what time of day you set it up).... though some forms of account are excluded from this (I think "Liquid Gold" + "Websaver" were the main two you can't)... obviously it ...
