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.

I use Walker Crips stockbrokers... I know that they should not give you advise, but they can offer a good experianced opinion...

FACTS and FIGURES are the most helpful. Trying to find the best costs and service. Shares advice is secondary because you can get so much good advice on this and other sites absolutely free!!

Im with 'the share centre' (wwww.share.com). The site is brilliant, with loads of research information and so simple to use. Buying and selling is simple and effeicient on line or by phone. I very rarely have trouble buying or selling stocks and it is immediate, no hassle. They also get a very good price from the MM's, no rip-offs etc.

My only concern is the dealing prices have gone up and now starting to look quite expensive and appears to be a percentage of the deal cost. There is a standard sell charge of 7.50 up to a certain price and then it is 1% percent. To sell 2500 worth of stock would have cost me 25. To buy 1000 worth of stock costs 10. There is also a quarterly charge of 2.95. Reading some of your comments this bit extra looks worth paying!!

Could anybody recommend a site which works very well is simple to use, no hidden extra costs, immediate deals, no MM rip offs and is cheaper than above??

Kivver,

IMHO it's not as simple as XX is the best, or YY is the cheapest.

Firstly, I think you need to decide what you want from your broker, and then look for the broker that is nearest to your requirements.

For example, share.com is a decent enough service IMO, but does not give discretionary advice, and you cannot trade on margin.

Squaregain is also a decent enough service, IMO, but the dealing charges are flat, and a little higher than share.com.

Hoodless are cheaper than most brokers, and do offer discretionary advice, but the prices they obtain from the market may be slightly higher than other brokers.

TD Waterhouse allow margin trading, but charge an inactivity fee if you don't make sufficient trades.

As you can see, all these offer a slightly different level of service, and charges, and I think you have to consider your own requirements, and then try and find ther closest match to them.

Andy in my opening statement i have asked a number of questions NOT just about price. Fully agree it is about more than that. I do not want discretionary advice as i have said this site and other bb's give all the advice i want and it is free (ish). I want all the things the share centre provide but at a better price. Which is 2.50 - 7.50 on deals up to 750 then it becomes 1% of the deal. Which i think is expensive compared to others. For instance sell 10,000 pounds worth of shares cost 100 how much would this be at HB, Barclays, Halifax sharebuilder etc etc???? Thanks for your advice.

Kivver,

I agree, Share.com is expensive if that is the case. I have always considered they were for the small newcomer to investing, rather than a more seasoned campaigner with a large pportfolio, though that may just be my perception.

It would appear that you could do worse than buy a copy of Shares magazine, as most of the popular brokers advertise their charges and services at the back of that magazine every week.

IMO Hoodless Brennan are cheap, and probably the cheapest, although they may not quote the sharpest prices apparently, according to someone I was talking to recently.

Squaregain may be your best bet, and they have a flat fee of 12.50 regardless of deal size, for either online or telephone dealing. One word of caution here is to compare the online quote with the dealer's quote, BEFORE accepting what he says!
I had a poor experience when the dealer was quoting higher than the online, even though I had the online in fornt of me at the time! (I was at work, and we are not allowed to trade online, so had to do over it the phone).

I entered into correspondence witrh them, and they just wouldn't accept what I was saying, (even though I could, and did, prove it!), and their total failure to offer even a token gesture of reconciliation or goodwill made me switch my main account and future ISAs away from them.

Barclays are offering 12.50 online, and that reduces to 7.50 if you deal more than 10 times a month!

TD Waterhouse, and Phillips offer the oppportunity to margin trade, ie T trade, which some of the others don't, as well as flat fee broking charges.

Depending wheter you want to margin trade or not, Squaregain may be the best for you, especially if you can always deal online. they always get you inside the yellow strip price, but beware their telephone quotes!

If you want margin, and the ability to trade US and Canadian stocks, TDW is worth a look IMO.

this thread would help everybody, honest!!

everyone obiviously getting a brilliant deal (apart from me, a good deal but not a brilliant one) but doesnt want to share it then???

HSBC online share dealing is fairly cheap - if you use their Invest Direct Plus it's 11.95 a deal reducing to 6.95 after ten deals in a quarter - but often the prices obtained are poor.

In the past I've put orders on at fixed prices and watched trades go through at those prices, but HSBC were unable to deal. When you phone them up they are fairly clueless, and it takes forever.

Also, the HSBC web site is utter shite - it often doesn't work at all or is impossibly slow. They admit it themselves and are apparently working to upgrade it.

I have been dealing through James Brearley in my Sippdeal Sipp and I have to say that the prices obtained are excellent, almost always inside the market quote and sometimes by quite a margin.

They charge 9.95 for a deal under 499 and 14.50 for deals over 500 but that is in a SIPP, not sure what their prices are for general trading - it might be worth checking.

I have never tried Barclays but their rates seem to be low at 7.50 a trade after a certain number of deals a quarter, so maybe that is an option for you.

I agree it is difficult to know what to do as there are so many offers about. I did think about Hoodless Brennan who certainly seem to be cheap, but general opinion on here seems to be that prices obtained are not competitive and that they tend to push their own in-house shares.

Hope this helps.

Although not the cheapest, if you are a regular trader, Barclays is 7.50 flat rate and your online account shows ex-div date, etc. which is useful for the lazy. There is quite a lot of information on the site.

Also use Squaregain (formerly comdirect) who were one of the first fixed rate brokers at 12.50. They have been very good and I still have a SIPP and Max Isa with them - all trading at the fixed rate. Only moved because of the cheaper rate with Barclays. I think Squaregain's portfolio lay out is clearer as it shows gain and loss in s, whereas Barclays show in percentage terms! Being a Scot, I like to know to the last penny where I stand!!

In terms of quotes, all seem to be much the same and very few technical problems over the last six years with either. Squaregain did not like Firefox for a while and I had to switch back to IE but no problem now.

I certainly would always go with a fixed rate broker, rather than having to calculate each transaction.

I/ HAVE USED BARCLAYS FOR ALONG TIME STILL FIND THERE THE BEST ALROUND BROKER////

bristelad,

How many brokers have you tried?, out of interest.

Just re-read header, in terms of money transfer ease - squaregain transfer to and from a nominated a/c (takes three working days). Barclays, you add funds with switch. Funds of sales/buys credited to a/c immediately - don't expect you could withdraw them but certainly you can repurchase with funds realised immediately.

Kivver, at the moment of quote you get real time prices. It expires obviously after x seconds but you can then press for a requote.

Dividends are credited to the a/c - Squaregain send you a secure message to advise you. Barclays do not.

That is another difference. Squaregain, you print out your Contract Notes and at the year end they send you a very comprehensive statement, including dividends. Barclays, send you by post your Contract Note. They do not advise you when dividends are paid in (you can obviously look at your online statement) but also send good year end info.

Copied from another site.

use TD Waterhouse and up until recently I was happy.
So you know the details I put an order in for shares as they were rising.
For some reason it took over 4 hours for the transaction to go through by that time the price had gone up 40% and peaked.
They put my order through right at the close and for some reason I was charged over the market price, the opposite to the other brokers who I believe give discount for larger orders, anyway the next day the shares dropped back 40% and I ended up 4,000 pound out of pocket.
I can only assume that they do not have enough staff to deal with their clientele so being Mr Joe Public I was not considered worthy enough.
I tried to complain but they just brushed me off with some junior and to this day I have still not received a satisfactory answer, their treatment of me has been appalling, I don't mind losing money as I know the dangers but I do mind bieng treated like dirt.
I am now consolidating my shares and planning to move them to a company that does appreciate the small dealer (if you call 10,000 deals small!!)
So I have an added interest to the outcome of this talking point, I have heard good things about Hoodless but also I am now interested in the Share Centre so any comments appreciated.

I use selftrade.com, linked to banks such as cahoot and some german bank which I remember correctly was the 3rd biggest in the world at the time I joined so secure. I have a execution only account so no advice, 12.50 a trade, if you make 4 trades or more a quarter theres no management fee. Complete digital look tools for investigation, heatmaps, news, rns etc... Very easy to pay into can do it online as a DD, selling takes the normal 3 days before you can draw on profits, if reinvested money available straight away. Dividends are credited to your account as standard and everything else done by email or telephone. Can also print out full account history like a bank statement showing buys, sells, cash in, cash out, dividends etc.

You cal buy/sell at best, set limit ordes, stop losses, etc all online or over the telephone. My friend Zoe uses TD Waterhouse which shes happy with. Likewise I think selftrade.com is the best for me so I suppose this comes down to personal preferance. I do know however that selftrade has more research tools in comparison to TD. Having said this if you research from a number of different sources as well as doing general searches you wouldn't have a problem.

Selftrade looks good, any other recomendations??? facts and figures really help.

THATS A NO then!!!

Hi I posted in the wrong threads earlier but got some replys so you might like to check the Traders thead in both here and the Trader's room
I am leaving Squaregain because of their cockups on my account and very poor response, also because they are merging with Selftrade who I left 2 years ago for the same reasons. I trade equities and Covered warrants, (and forex via Capital Spreads and BOM) I was going to go to Etrade, but in 10 days they have not reponded to my initial enquiries, thus not endearing them to me, though their comission is low and facilities seem good. (If they are all they claim.)

Can anyone please tell me of their experience of Etrade or recommend another (execution and data only) outfit?
Many thanks in advance

I also added the reasons for leaving Squaregain in more detail when asked:
The problem I had with both Squaregain and before that with SelfTrade was the inability to tell the difference between a credit and a debit, both of them plunged my bank account deep into the red way past my overdraft limit. Then they (Squaregain) argued about what amount it was and wrongly identified a cash transfer from my ISA to my dealing account as the item in question. Had I not insisted on talking to the head of dept they would have left me not only several hundred in the red at the bank but also would have inadvertantly nicked/lost several hundred of my money as well. To add to this they only admitted it to me when I rang them (on checking the money had arrived in my bank account, the reverse was the case the took it out instead) in spite of the fact they had known about a general credit/debit error on ALL transactions on a particular afternoon 4 days before! They would not say how it happened or if they had fixed the problem or what extra measures they had put in place to prevent it happening again. In the industry I used to work in they would be dead in the water!

More recently I had found that their spread on SG CWs is often greater than that quoted live by SG and sometimes 15-30 mins behind. Also that I could not deal online in the more recent warrant issues (a month ago). With warrants being geared the volatility in price means that the ability to trade within a few seconds is important, I dont have time to ring up.

The other issue I had with them last year was the inability to answer a question except with a standard answer from a list, they just pick a random key word in the question then send of a pre-typed paragraph.

I only trade in equities and have never experienced any problem with Selftrade, they merge with Squaregain next month and I'm told were moving to the squaregain platforms will advise any problems encountered.

I also have problems with trading ONLINE with Squaregain today...tried to sell only 1500 shares of JKX...but it wouldn't allow me...only allow 150 shares at a time...isn't this ludicrous? POOR service!
Can anybody please recommend me a better broker? Thanks!

the share centre www.share.com yes a bit more expensive, but very few problems when buying or selling.