Would you please help me come up with definitive Very Best Stockbroker. It would certainly help us and newbies to investing/trading, looking for the best site and deal. Hopefully the stockbrokers themselves will realalise they have to provide the very best and competitive service if they are going to keep their customers. What are we looking for????
A) costs for buying and selling
B) ease of use of the internet site and phone service
C) ease of putting in and taking out money
D) how does the site record your dealings?? paper profit made/loss
E) how quickly and what kind of deal does your broker get from the MM's
F) how quickly is the money made from a sell deal put back into your account
G) any other charges ie quarterly, inactivity fee??
H) do you get real-time prices wanting to do a deal
I) when you have the price do you have a time delay to have time to weigh up the deal before proceeding?
J) what kind of service do you get from the team if there is a problem.
K) what do the brokers do with your dividends

Have i missed out important things??? Facts and figures would be much appreciated. Cheers in advance everyone.

Buying them is easy. They will all sell them to you. Selling them in a hurry is very often difficult. I was caught a few times in the early days and it cost me too much. I usually try to ignore stocks that have jerky graphs unless I know I am going to hold for the long term

Wel I've had more information and more questions answered by SAGA within 1 day than anyone else. Being an old git had to have an advantage one day.
I'm still waiting for Squaregain to tell me what their exit fees are though
I have searched their site and cant find it at all. Maybe they will answer my message in another few days.

Anybody know of any brokers that will re-invest dividend payments for you at a small charge?

I take back everything I ever said about the SelfTrade platform, used to be great but new platform must have been designed by a computer nerd with no concept of information traders require on a day to day basis. Looking to give them the boot ASAP and would advise all others to stay well clear unless of course you have a BA in clicking and like to endlessly search for simple information that should be to hand on any trading platform.

Can anyone give information on brokers who routinely quote prices inside the spread?

Also, regarding FTSE100 companies, upto what value (s) is it possible to buy shares ONLINE with any given broker? Thanks.

"Can anyone give information on brokers who routinely quote prices inside the spread?"

Haven't traded in the last couple of months but I kicked Selftrade and iDealing into touch and moved all over to Barclay's about a year ago, usually get inside the spread on Fts 100
Companies.

Quantity also better then S/Trade and iDealing.

When you say "Quantity" Stan - just how much are we talking about?? For instance, could I readily trade, say, 50,000 online for a FTSE100 company ...and inside the spread????

Generally yes. Which is not to say every time.

I got sick and tired of the Selftrade's amounts going down and down, I asked around and Barclay's were one that I had not tried.

Took ages to change over but must say there platform does work relativly well and I don't regret going with Barclay's.

Thanks Stan. Will take a look at that one.

Anyone know an online broker where you get more than 15 seconds to decide on the trade???

HI Stan must agree(regarding BARCLAYS)ICHANGE OVER A couple a years ago NO PRODLEMS EVEN CAN GET MONEY OUT WHEN I WANT IT/////////

Would be interested to know if anyone can follow up on HP's post (see post 34) as I too would like to know if it's possible to get more than a 15 second trade time.
JJ.

Tried most of the Brokers over the years and 15 seconds has been standard.

The one broker to avoid at the moment is Hoodless Brennan. I'm with them and haven't been able to do a thing online today at all. The established site repeatedly logs you out and isn't quoting buy-sell prices whilst the newly designed site is deducting stamp duty for shares that are actually stamp duty exempt. It is absolutely frustrating and if you're looking for something reliable I'd look elsewhere!