... Launched in 2003, Sharebuilder is a unique share dealing account, which is operated by Halifax PLC. As far as I know, it is the only one of its kind in the UK.
Sharebuilder is great not only for newbies, like myself, but also for more experienced dealers who want to buy and sell shares ... Read review
Advantages: Good value for money share dealing service, excellent website Disadvantages: Can lose money too!
...account, which is operated by Halifax PLC. As far as I know, it is the only one of its kind in the UK.
Sharebuilder is great not only for newbies, like myself, but also for more experienced dealers who want to buy and sell shares on the UK stock market. It is important to note that you can only deal in the UK market, not the US or other world markets, but there are literally hundreds of shares to choose from!
REGISTRATION ...the Halifax website and is very straightforward, but can take a few weeks to complete because of the various anti-fraud/ID verification checks involved. Before you apply, you need your sort code and account number of your bank account, your National Insurance Number and your address details for the last three years. After a few days, you will be sent some forms to sign and return, and once these have been received, you will get confirmation of your ... more
The stock market has interested me for many years, but until recently, I was reluctant to get involved in share dealing for real, partly because of the costs involved but also because of the risks. However, a few months ago, I discovered Sharebuilder. Launched in 2003, Sharebuilder is a unique share dealing account, which is operated by Halifax PLC. As far as I know, it is the only one of its kind in the UK.
Sharebuilder is great not only for newbies, like myself, but also for more experienced dealers who want to buy and sell shares on the UK stock market. It is important to note that you can only deal in the UK market, not the US or other world markets, but there are literally hundreds of shares to choose from!
REGISTRATION
Registering for the service is done through the Halifax website and is very straightforward, but can take a few weeks to complete because of the various anti-fraud/ID verification checks involved. Before you apply, you need your sort code and account number of your bank account, your National Insurance Number and your address details for the last three years. After a few days, you will be sent some forms to sign and return, and once these have been received, you will get confirmation of your new account and a Personal Registration Number (PRN).
HOW IT WORKS
Sharebuilder is a very flexible sharedealing service because it allows you to choose how you want to deal. For example, some people like to invest in a variety of companies to spread the risks of the stock market, whereas others prefer to take the risk and invest in one or two companies only. However, the great thing about Sharebuilder is that you also get to choose how much you want to invest. You can make small, regular investments or one-off lump sums and hold shares in lots of different companies like your favourite brands. The only condition is that you pay in a minimum of £20 a month (by direct debit) to fund the account. Additional one-off payments can also be made, but these are not mandatory by any means.
BUYING SHARES
When you register, you will be asked to select which day of the month you want to invest on. If I remember rightly, there are four days to choose from, spread across the month. On this date shares are purchased in the relevant companies/brands that you have chosen and all it costs in commission is a mere £1.50! The minimum price you can place on any company is £5 and this works out at £3.48 in shares, once stamp duty and commission are deducted. Obviously, the more money you invest, the more stamp duty you pay, but rest assured that the commission remains fixed at £1.50.
Buying shares can be done in real-time as well as on a fixed date. This means that if you want to take advantage of a particular share price, you can purchase them during trading hours. Once you select the 'buy' option, you are given 15 seconds in which to buy the shares. If this time elapses, the deal is suspended, but if you want, you can wait a few minutes and try again at perhaps a more favourable share price. There are no guarantees, though, of a better quote and it is important to bear in mind that you only have a certain number of attempts to buy/sell in a day!
As long as you keep your shares, you will paid a dividend - normally once or twice a year. Dividends are payments which are made by a company to its shareholders. These can either be paid directly into your Sharebuilder deposit account for you to then withdraw, or be used to purchase further shares within the company. The choice is yours! I haven't had my shares long enough to get any dividends yet, but I look forward to receiving them soon.
SELLING SHARES
You can sell shares at any time during trading hours and the funds will be transferred directly to your holding account. Selling shares works in the same way as buying. The website gives you the latest market price for a share and you are given 15 seconds in which to agree or cancel the deal. Of course, there are charges for selling as there are for buying. As a guide, I have summarised the main charges below:
Deals under £250 = £5 (real-time online sales), £15 (telephone purchases and sales) Deals over £250 = £11.95 (real-time online sales), £15 (telephone purchases and sales) Deals between £2500 and £5000 = £11.95 (real-time online sales), £30 (telephone purchases and sales)
In my opinion, these charges are reasonable, but it obviously doesn't make sense to buy and sell on too regular a basis, as the charges will quickly eat into any profit you may have made.
THE WEBSITE
The Sharebuilder website is very impressive. It is detailed and generally easy to navigate, although some of the functions take a bit of getting used to. You will find excellent, up-to-date information on all companies on the UK stock market, including charts and graphs, monitoring shares and comparing them with the shares performance of companies within the same sector. You will not be offered advice on which shares to choose, but are given plenty of information, allowing you to make an informed choice about which shares to invest in. I would strongly recommend you do some research first before investing in any company, because this will give you an invaluable insight into how the company has performed in the past and how it is likely to perform in the future.
Of all the main sections on the website, the 'Statements & Valuation' section is probably the most important and one which I use all the time. It tells you how well - or badly! - your shares are performing and is constantly refreshed throughout trading hours to provide you with an accurate valuation.
MY OWN EXPERIENCE
Since opening Halifax Sharebuilder, I have learnt so much about share dealing and although I haven't been wholly successful in the deals that I have made, I am gaining in knowledge all the time. If anything, my biggest mistake has been to buy shares and sell them too quickly. Although I am not investing huge sums of money, you can still lose quite a bit of money if you're not careful. It is important to understand that shares can go down as well as up, so don't expect to become rich overnight! Shares in companies have historically produced higher returns over the longer term, so this something to bear in mind. However, this is a generalisation and is not applicable in every case.
Overall, I have found the Sharebuilder website very helpful - if a little technical at times. There is a lot of help available for novices and even courses that you can take to improve your knowledge. There is also a section, called Live Assistance, which allows you to contact a member of the Customer Service Team if you have any queries. I haven't used this personally, but it is reassuring knowing that it is there if I get stuck!
If you're interested in shares, I highly recommend Sharebuilder as a way to build up your knowledge of the stock market, and hopefully, boost your bank balance too! Why not give it a go?
Advantages: Competitive dealing costs of £1.50, free market information provided Disadvantages: Information can be a bit simplistic
Halifax launched their "sharebuilder" service in 2003 following the success of the "sharebuilder" service in America to which they bought the UK rights to produce a similar service. To my knowledge they are the only company in the UK that offer this type of share account.
How does it work?
The headline rate of £1.50 dealing cost is obviously attractive. However there is a "catch" - buying shares is not done in realtime, rather, you choose one of ... ...will receive a letter from Halifax explaining this and setting out your options.
Smoothing effect
One of the advantages of investing smaller amounts, regularly, is that short-term peaks and troughs in share prices are ironed out somewhat. Many newspapers have pointed to this as an advantage with investing in funds, such as unit trusts, now for the first time Sharebuilder gives you the option to invest directly in equities in this way.
The website:
...
andyev 12.02.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Halifax Sharebuilder
Advantages: cheap/nil commission, online valuation Disadvantages: poor customer services, very slow to transfer cash in
...at a cheap price. Halifax ShareBuilder was what I opted for and at £1.50 per trade I found no one cheaper at the time.
I was only looking to invest £1k to begin with and did not want to see a big chunk of that eaten up in trading charges. This account seemed right for me.
The reason that they can offer such low charges is because they let you invest on set days of the month and they group your "orders" together with that of other customers, which ... ...account.
I complained to Halifax that due to them braking their terms & conditions I had lost the opportunity of investing that week. I then lost another weeks trading while I waited for my £100 to clear. Debit card payments to the ShareBuilder take three working days to show on your account whereas their standard Sharedealing account shows it instantly and you would be ready to trade.
To their credit they admitted it was their error that they ...
wellsie82 29.06.2007 (01.01.2008)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Halifax Sharebuilder
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
...a Bank account with the Halifax to take over as my main one (alongside my existing "Liquid Gold" & "Websaver" accounts there)..... the third was to look at ways of investing some money for the future the best I could with my meagre £112 a fortnight unemployment benefit.
Premiums Bonds were ruled out, as I didn't have the £100 for the minimum purchase amount. as were ISA's because I can't make much sense of them + if I remember correctly that tight ... ...the Sharedealing account on your HALIFAX online banking facility, click "Sharebuilder" from the menu on the lefthand side of the page, then it's pretty straightforward after that.
But before you go ahead and do that, first you need to grab a pen & some paper and do a spot of research (don't worry, it ain't that bad). You can get some basic information from the 2 sharesearch engines on Halifax's, but they can be a little slow at times. One is a "sensible" ...
duck1979 26.11.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Halifax Sharebuilder
Advantages: Easy to use, cheap Disadvantages: Not suitable for active dealers
I originally chose Halifax Sharebuilder because of its low charges - £1.50 per purchase was exceptionally good. The Sharebuilder was easy to use and open, and I transfered shares from an existing account without any issues.
In general the sharebuilder is ideal for people looking to build up a portfolio but not to invest large amounts of money. The low charges and ability to schedule your investments and funding allow users to plan their investments ... ...investment set up each month and forget about it.
It is less suitable for people planning on active dealing as the low cost share purchase price only applies to planned purchases on one of four dates during each the month. Although shares can be bought at other times the charges will be higher. However, the shares buying and selling prices are still good at these times. The shares offered focus mainly on the UK and FTSE shares, rather than on the ...
tirial 14.08.2007 (13.08.2007)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Halifax Sharebuilder
Advantages: Low cost, simple, fun, low risk. Great for 1st timers Disadvantages: Simplistic for advanced users, limited functionality
Halifax have added a new option to their online sharedealing service, "Sharebuilder". A good starting place is Halifax's online share dealing service of which Sharebuilder is a part. It is a very simple way for most people to dabble in the stock market, and cheap too at £1.50 per deal! The forms & literature can be wordy at times, but it is clear English and your part of dealing is as simple as it can be. Registration is simple via the Halifax.co.uk ... ...with the Share service from Halifax but most information is not held in the sharebuilder part of the site.The site itself is easy to navigate, and is packed with information, including graphs that will plot any named share's performance against either it's market sector or the FTSE100. There is no advice service - you are totally responsible for the decisions you make and the outcome of your investments, which adds exitiement, but DO YOUR RESEARCH.
...
snurge2002 01.12.2004
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Halifax Sharebuilder
Competitiveness of char...
Coverage of national/in...
Online - Content/organi...
Online - Reliability/sp...
Online - Ease of applyi...
Online - Investment tra...
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "Halifax Sharebuilder"
Advantages: Cheap dealing costs Disadvantages: You are tied to fixed days for dealing
OK, so you may consider that this is the wrong time to even think about buying shares since the stockmarket has dropd by about 30% in the last few months. Well, if you are an optimist and think that we may be at the start of a market recovery then you might be interested in opening an account with HalifaxSharebuilder.
The Sharebuilder is new concept tht allows you to buy or sell shares for only £1.50 per deal which is considerably cheaper than anybody else offering such sharedealing facilities. I should say that I have accounts with TD Waterhouse, Comdirect and Selftrade and these costs range from £9 to £15 per deal.
All you have to do to set up an account is go to www.halifax.co.uk/online and go to the Sharedealing/Sharebuilder homepage, choose the Sharebuilder tab and then open and fund your new account.
You can fund your ...
Advantages: Plenty of articles, has some messageboards, excellant quotes facilities Disadvantages: They've just ditched their Shares portfolio service, which was light years better than any similar service on the 'net
I've been visiting their site on & off ever since I heard them get a mention... probably on some news programme like CNN or whatever, so when I eventually decided to take the plunge earlier this year and started investing in shares (via "HalifaxSharebuilder")... it was only natural I should use "The Fool" to search for tips, look-up some quotes + use their portfolio service as a back up to view how my shares were doing after the Halifax have closed that part of the share dealing part of their online banking facility after midnight......and the fool.co.uk portfolio is / was alot easier to make sense of than any other service.
It was fairly straight forward.... a green smiley face to indicate shares in a particular company was doing well, a yellow smiley with a straight mouth :-| to indicate the price had stayed put, and a Red frowny ...
Advantages: enter the stock market game without risking a fortune Disadvantages: fixed buying days,
HALIFAXSHAREBUILDER IS A FUN WAY TO INVEST IN SHARES WITH AS LITTLE AS £20.00 A MONTH.OPENING AN ACCOUNT ON WWW.HALIFAX-ONLINE.CO.UK WAS NO DIFFERENT TO OPENING A BANK ACCOUNT YOU NEED 3 ID'S TO VERIFY WHO YOU ARE .ECT.COULD TAKE A LITTLE TIME TO GET STARTED.ONCE YOU ARE UP AND RUNNING YOU CAN PAY AS LITTLE AS £20.00 A MONTH DIRECT DEBIT OR REGISTER A CARD FOR ONE OFF PAYMENTS.{CARD PAYMENTSTAKE 3-5 WORKING DAYS TO REACH YOUR ACCOUNT}
THERE ARE 4 SET DAYS A MONTH WHERE YOU CAN CHOOSE AND BUY YOUR SHARES.THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO RUN YOUR ACCOUNT AS CHARGES ARE LOW £1.50 + 0.5% STAMP DUTY.{TAKE INTO ACCOUNT ONE OFF PAYMENTS TAKE LONGER TO REACH YOUR ACCOUNT. I.E SET DATE MON 12TH ONE OFF PAYMENT MUST BE MADE 3-5 WORKING DAYS BEFORE.
REAL TIME DEALING CAN ALSO BE USED BUT CHARGES ARE HIGH. VALUE UPTO £250.00 FOR SELLING £5.00 + BUYING ...
