AJ Bell Youinvest Review
Dear readers: This is my honest review of AJ Bell Youinvest as Stockopedia’s Markets Editor. Neither I nor Stockopedia have been incentivised to write this review, so what follows are my genuine thoughts on the service, having been a customer for a few years.
AJ Bell Youinvest is one of the fastest-growing stock market investment websites in the UK. It is also one of the largest, with nearly 300,000 people using it to manage their investments.
Its dealing fees aren’t the cheapest in the market, but they are cheaper than some of its major competitors. The trade-off for their competitive pricing is that their research offering and trading tools are not as powerful as some of its competitors. As part of its low-cost model, you’re in the driving seat when it comes to making investment decisions and placing your own trades.
Youinvest offers the range of accounts that you’d expect from a major investment platform. This includes tax-efficient Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs), Stocks and Shares Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), Lifetime ISAs, standard Dealing Accounts, and Junior SIPPs and ISAs. Among the securities available to trade on the platform are a wide range of UK and international equities, funds, investment trusts, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and bonds.
Commission and Fees
Each share dealing platform comes with different costs, and these can eat into your returns if you’re not careful. AJ Bell, like the majority of its competitors, charge no fee to set up an account, no fee for inactive (dormant) accounts and no fee for withdrawing or holding onto cash – which is a good start.
Dealing
Most investment platforms charge flat rate fees for buying and selling investments – Youinvest is no different. Depending on the investment and the trading frequency, those fees are:
Funds (including unit trusts and OEICs) online: £1.50 per deal
Shares (including investment trusts, ETFs, gilts and bonds) online: £9.95 per deal
Shares become cheaper to deal in (at £4.95) if you trade more than 10 times in the previous month.
How does this compare to the competition? Hargreaves Lansdown – the UK’s largest share dealing website – typically charges £11.95 for most deals. Interactive Investor, another competitor, charges £9.99 per month for an account, and then an additional £7.99 for dealing in shares, trusts and funds. Compared to this, if you’re primarily interested in trading in shares, AJ Bell Youinvest represents good value for many investors.
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Custody fees
Most trading websites also charge for holding your investments, through custody or safekeeping charges. AJ Bell’s pricing here varies depending on the types of investment you hold (eg. shares or funds), and what account type you have (e.g. an ISA, or a SIPP), but the takeaway note is that these fees are one of the better I’ve seen out there. For shares, custody charges are mostly capped between £3.50 and 10 per month. With funds, custody fees range from 0 to 0.25% of the value of the fund held per year.
Despite a general increase in AJ Bell’s custody fees beginning in January 2021, the fees are still competitive. Rival platform Interactive investor doesn’t charge custody fees, but does charge a monthly platform fee of between £9.99 and 19.99 per month – which for some investors may end up being more expensive. Hargreaves Lansdown does not charge custody fees on shares at all, but instead have a sliding scale of fees for funds, starting at 0.45% on portfolios valued up to £250,000 – which is approaching double AJ Bell’s fund’s cost of 0.25%!
One big drawback on AJ Bell’s fees is the cost of transferring holdings should you want to move to another provider. While some platforms, such as Hargreaves Lansdown, don’t charge for transferring out, AJ Bell charge £25 per holding.
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Beyond these headline numbers, it’s worth bearing in mind other fees you may encounter. Telephone dealing costs £29.95 per transaction – which is in my view a standard rate. Hargreaves Lansdown, in contrast, charges 1 percent (capped at £50). For income investors, reinvesting dividends costs 1% of the sum re-invested (min £1.50, max £9.95), which is about consistent with what else is out there on the market.
If you intend to buy securities on international exchanges (e.g.technology stocks in the US) you should also keep in mind foreign exchange charges. AJ Bell charges foreign exchange fees on international dealing and foreign currency funds:
First £10,000: 1.00 percent
Next £10,000: 0.75 percent
Next £10,000: 0.50 percent
Value over £30,000: 0.25 percent
In the past, forex charges have tended to be notoriously high and difficult to compare between brokerage platforms. Some brokers apply forex fees on both buying and selling international securities, which can make round-trip charges surprisingly expensive. Others are happy to hold foreign currency in your account, which makes the process cheaper.
AJ Bell competitor Interactive Investor has a sliding scale of margin rates it charges for forex transactions, starting from 1.5 percent on deals valued below £25,000. Saxo Bank charges 1 percent on conversions, while Halifax Stockbrokers charges 1.25 percent per transaction. On this basis, AJ Bell Youinvest is likely to be a competitively-priced option for many investors looking to trade outside the UK.
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Researching securities: Summary pages
Before making any investment, doing your own research is important (which is why we built Stockopedia). To this end Youinvest provides a clean and easy to understand Summary page for every share, fund and investment trust. This summary offers a view of key financials, a profile, mini chart, dividend data, director dealings and recent news with a clean design that is not too overwhelming. The cost of this simple design is the limited information these pages provide – which will underwhelm those serious about doing share research.
The Summary page has a menu of options and areas to explore. One of the first is an “Analysis” tool, which provides a very useful “Activity Analysis” and “Geographical Analysis” of each security - showing how it makes revenues and where its geographical exposure is. This is a really excellent feature, but it’s worth saying that AJ Bell Youinvest generally lacks additional research from either in-house analysts or writers, which is something that other platforms are much better at. More in-depth content on the investment merits of different securities would be welcome.
Charts
AJ Bell Youinvest offers some basic charting tools that allow you to compare securities against different benchmarks. They can switch between Line, Candle Stick and OHLC (open, low, high, closing) and they can flag dividend and news dates. There are 10 Technical Analysis overlays available, including Moving Averages and Bollinger Bands.
In practice it’s unlikely that these charts will be sufficient for more advanced investors and traders - because there simply aren’t enough overlays and indicators available. However, for most investors, the tools on offer are more than sufficient for basic technical analysis.
One downside is that there are no automated stock alerts – nor the ability to screen the market for securities based on technical analysis.
Share Price
This page includes detailed price data, recent trades and trading volume. It’s standard stuff for most broker platforms, but nonetheless useful for gauging trading levels and momentum. The tools are slightly let down by the absence of volatility and risk measures for securities. All prices are provided with a 15 minute delay – except for when you’re buying or selling a holding. If having access to real-time pricing is important to you (or having access to the order-book via Level 2 data), you will have to look elsewhere to supplement your research – Youinvest cannot help.
Performance
The performance tab shows annual and trailing returns from the security over a period of 1-5 years. Youinvest helpfully shows an illustration of the notional return on £10,000 invested over time.
Key Ratios
This provides a summary of the most important financial ratios and measures, including valuation, profitability, financial health, growth and cash flow. Those new to investing or unfamiliar with these ratios may find them hard to use. AJ Bell Youinvest steers clear from offering a view on whether these measures are good or bad for any given company, so it’s down to the investor to interpret them.
Financials
Each Summary page contains five years of full-year financial statements and dividend payment data, plus two years of interim results. Those keen on scrutinising trends in financial statements may find that five years is a bit limited. For most, though, Youinvest’s easy to navigate user interface makes it quick and easy to dive into company accounts.
News
Under News you will find RNS announcements and commentary from the celebrated financial information company, Morningstar. The addition of Morningstar content is a nice touch and makes AJ Bell Youinvest feel like a premium service. One downside is that market-wide RNS feeds on other platforms sometimes come with a handy keyword search for those looking for specific words or phrases in company updates – such as “Covid”. Sadly, that’s not on offer here.
Owners
This lists the major shareholders, including institutions, and director holdings. This information can be very useful but it’s a shame that Youinvest doesn’t show trends or recent buying or selling activity among major shareholders. For instance, what if a number of the largest institutional shareholders have recently begun selling their holdings in the past month? I would certainly want to know about it – which is something available on Stockopedia.
Insiders
This provides information about director dealings and holdings. Again, the data is useful and easy to understand but lacks trend analysis and could do with more indications of notable director buying or selling.
Filings
This simply lists recent communications, financials and other announcements – which all trading platforms will do, so AJ Bell Youinvest has nothing special to offer here
Share research with Youinvest: conclusion
The Summary pages and research tools provide a very solid base to explore securities. AJ Bell Youinvest resists giving you any kind of view about the investment merits of shares and funds, so you really are on your own in assessing the appeal of factors like valuation, growth, momentum and overall quality. In turn, the research area would benefit from a comparison tool to let you compare different shares side-by-side using different measures.
Finally, the platform shows popular buys and sells in its top lists, but it would be interesting to know the popularity of any individual share with other investors using the platform, rather than just the top ones.
Investment ideas
AJ Bell Youinvest is an ‘execution-only’ platform, meaning you do your own research into what you wish to buy and sell. But similar other investment platforms, it does provide a list of its own AJ Bell Funds, Favourite Funds and Ready-Made Portfolios for investors looking for suggestions and ideas.
Most of AJ Bell Youinvest’s own funds achieve Morningstar fund ratings of four or five stars (out of a possible five), indicating that they are generally well regarded. They are effectively “funds of funds” and match your risk appetite to a wide basket of managed funds. Youinvest say their approach focuses on low cost, proven management and achievable investment objectives.
There is a solid range of funds on offer, broadly split between growth and income and well mapped against different levels of risk appetite. The funds range from “Cautious” to “Adventurous” and are presented with simulated historical returns and notional projected performance. These have proved to be very popular among new users of the platform and the company has focused on expanding the range. One of the more recent offerings is a “Responsible Growth” fund, which caters for growing interest in investing in companies with good records on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
A handy fund search tool allows you you to take this further by exploring some of AJ Bell’s favourite funds (it stresses that it doesn’t receive payments or commissions from the managers of these funds). Alternatively, you can use the Ready Made Portfolios to construct diversified fund portfolios based on your capital and risk tolerances. It’s all simply laid out and there’s a huge amount of flexibility and choice in the selections available. In all, it’s designed to be a completely friction-free way of getting invested in the market quickly.
For investors selecting their own securities and constructing their own portfolios, AJ Bell Youinvest offers a rudimentary screener for basic filtering of different international markets, sectors and industries. But that’s where the screening capabilities generally end. It would be nice to screen the market based on more detailed measures of factors like value and growth, but the platform doesn’t offer that capability.
Trading tools
AJ Bell Youinvest has an easy-to-use, intuitive process for buying and selling securities. The practical steps are very similar to what you’ll find with most online brokers, but my experience with them has been positive nonetheless.
As with most investment platforms, the service offers a simple Buy/Sell option and the ability to trade “At Best” or set Limit Orders and include or exclude dealing costs from the overall trade value.
By clicking “Get Quote”, the system will offer a quoted price for the trade and give you 15 seconds to accept before the offer quote lapses.
This is the only time you see the ‘live’ price for any security; otherwise you only see the price with a 15 minute delay. Once the trade is completed, the system automatically sends a contract note to your Secure Message area.
It’s a pain-free process but it’s worth noting that in rare moments when market conditions are very volatile, the platform can come under pressure. This occurred in 2020 when news of a Covid vaccine from Pfizer caused a surge in trading that left some users unable to access the platform.
Portfolio tools
AJ Bell Youinvest offers some useful portfolio tools to help you understand your holdings and risk exposures. These are standard tools on all investment platforms, showing the price, value, and change in price of your holdings. For those with family members who also have accounts on the platform, you can easily switch between accounts to quickly access this information.
On any main portfolio page is a list of positions and their performance since purchase. With the data analytics from Morningstar, the platform offers what it calls a Portfolio X-Ray, which a detailed assessment of the make-up of the portfolio, including:
Asset exposure (stocks, bonds, cash)
International diversification,
Sector exposure
Risk analysis and investment style
Top holdings
Performance
The Portfolio X-Ray is an excellent added extra that gives you a detailed summary of your exposure and the overall profile of your portfolio. As a PDF it’s easy to print and save offline. It’s also updated instantly when trades are executed.
Customer service
AJ Bell Youinvest’s customer support starts with a detailed FAQ section on its website. New and existing users also have the option of sending questions and messages through a dedicated online form. It also offers web chat support and telephone support for customer service, dealing services and transfer enquiries.
In my experience, interacting with Youinvest’s customer support via both webchat and email has been quick and pain free. Questions are dealt with quickly and it feels like you genuinely have help on hand when you need it.
The service has a Trustpilot rating - as scored by its customers - of 4.1 / 5.0
Overall pros...
- Comprehensive, easy to use platform with a solid range of accounts and plentiful investment options
- Competitive pricing (although some fees are increasing in January 2021)
- Trading is straightforward and simple to execute
- Good portfolio analytics showing diversification, risk and exposure
- Lots of articles and videos offering suggestions and ideas
- Good customer support
...and cons
The ability to screen for securities using different financial ratios and measures is limited - so you need to know what you are looking for
Investment tools are adequate but data is limited in places and charts won’t appeal to regular traders
Depth of research into individual shares, funds and trusts is not as extensive as it is on other platforms
Transferring out holdings to other providers is expensive
Disclaimer
This is not financial advice. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for information and education purposes only. Please read our disclaimer and terms and conditions to understand our obligations.
51 comments
New to AJB but good so far except that there seems to be no SL facility on European stocks❓
This seems common on many UK platforms for foreign shares.
I see AJB has just got live prices.
herbie47
Do we know if this is true on IG's ISA?
I don't know about IG foreign shares stop loss as I have not bought any yet. But I don't tend to use stop losses anyway.
On the IG forum there are a few complaints about no stop losses.
HL don't have limited orders or stop losses on foreign shares.
Just checked and you can place limited orders, on US and European shares, on IG ISA platform, so I would expect you can place a stop loss also on those shares also, I don't if there is a delay on foreign share dealing or not. Seems it is not direct live quotes like the UK shares.
Re IG Herbie you are correct, they have stop loss, and guaranteed stop loss on their leveraged products but not on their physical shares platforms, ie ISA's.
Obviously a stop loss is pretty useless on large falls as you'll be taken out well below your expected limit, in this respect a guaranteed stop loss is very useful on their leveraged offering, albeit the margins can be so large on small caps that they tend to be pretty useless in practice.
My rule of thumb on speculative, smaller caps is to expect, on bad news, to lose upto 40% of that position. If that keeps me awake at night, then don't enter the trade or make it a size that I can sleep at night. Larger caps not such an issue, although years ago when Lamprell was a FTSE 100 company I got proper burnt on leverage. Your hardest lessons are always the most valuable. "When you don't get what you want, what you do get is experience"
haydn parmenter,
I refer you to my post just above.
In respect to fees, IG is hard to beat for ISA's, but its very much a trading platform, not a cosseting platform.
https://www.ig.com/uk/investme...
Just a couple of things for anybody considering AJ Bell that you should be aware of:
No Limit orders on US Stocks (not sure if this applies to other world stocks - I only have UK and US)
No Stop Loss orders on US Stocks (as above with other stocks).
Cancelled and re booked orders can take forever and even overnight if booked outside trading hours (makes updating your stop outside of trading hours very laborious).
Prices only become live when quotes are requested (although these quotes are generally within the widely advertised spread).
Contract notes can sometimes take forever. In fact a couple of my contract notes have never appeared at all.
I bought a newly listed UK share today Verici Dx (LON:VRCI) for which a Stop Loss is not available with AJ Bell (probably to do with liquidity - but it's a long shot buy anyway).
Minor quibbles buy could be important to some investors.
Ben - a small correction - you say under the Dealing heading: "Interactive Investor, another competitor, charges £9.99 per month for an account, and then an additional £7.99 for dealing in shares, trusts and funds".
The a/c charge contains a free deal each month valid for 3 months so if you do 12 reasonably spaced deals each year then you effectively pay £2/month. ii becomes cheaper on 15 or more reasonably spaced deals a year.
Thanks for the review of AJ Bell Youinvest Ben.
From a personal point of view I opened an ISA with them this tax year as a cost saving exercise. For many years I've been a paying subscriber to Shares magazine. However I found that if I held at least £4k in assets with AJ Bell then I had free access to the magazine. So I opened the account, invested in an Investment Trust I wanted to buy and now apart from that one off £10 dealing fee I only have annual custodian fees, which are a lot less that the £125pa I was paying each year for the mag.
I'm aware of the trading/access issues others have had last year during the market turmoil. This doesn't bother me much. My shares held by AJ Bell are planned as long term investments and I don't plan to be making many/any trades through the account.
The platform is much like Ben describes, some bells but not all whistles. Yet as others have pointed out if you have such as Stockopedia for research does it really matter?
Having been with AJBell for just under a year for ISA and SIPP I have just instigated the transfer of my ISA from AJBell to IG and will follow up with my SIPP if IG provide a decent service. I have found getting on-line quotes from AJBell to be problematic and I also had an issue when I transferred my ISA and SIPP to them from HL which highlights IMO very poor customer service.
For those who may be interested this is what happened: The transfer from HL was protracted and I was locked out of dealing for several months and to expedite matters I ended up having to have phone conversations with both companies and even in once case passed a contact email address from one to the other. As the transfer was going to complete close to the end of the tax year I requested a cash withdrawal from my SIPP to take advantage of my tax allowance. I sent 2 secure messages which were acknowledged and made 1 phone call. The transfer completed before the tax year ended but AJBell failed to carry out my withdrawal instructions until I queried it by which time we were into the new tax year. I spoke to HMRC and was told the withdrawal could be moved to the previous year but the request would need to come from AJBell. To my surprise AJBell refused to do it and told me I would have to do it myself. I opened an official complaint with AJBell and asked them to compensate me for the lost tax which was about £300. After some back and forth they sent me a final 5 page printed letter which dismissed my complaint. As a final attempt to get the tax refunded I contacted AJBell back office staff directly via email (which I had from the transfer) to get details to pass to HMRC myself. When I told them why I wanted it I was told we can do that for you, you don't need to take any further action!!! If I could have billed AJBell for my time it would have far exceeded the money I was trying to recover.
If I was doing a lot of US trading then I would consider Charles Schwab but they don't do ISAs.
I want everything in an ISA.
If I was doing a lot of US trading then I would consider Charles Schwab but they don't do ISAs.
I want everything in an ISA.
That's fine. All of my US holdings are outside tax wrappers so I can claim back the WHT on my SA return and I can use my CGT allowance.
I like the look of Charles Schwab but can't see what the catch is? How do they make their money if you only trade US stocks and hold USD and so don't incur the 1% FX charge? The commision rates are very cheap and I can't see an annual "management" or "platform" fee of any kind... Does anyone know?
All the best, Si
Most US platforms are free or low fee and they are a US bank. They will make some on the spread, also I have read they can lend out money, that is not being traded. They will make money on other markets, I think they are more expensive if buy UK shares than say IG.
You are comparing them with UK/European based platforms. The catch is we are in the UK where they are few, if any, decent low cost platforms. I just hope the UK goes down the US path soon.
Most US platforms are free or low fee and they are a US bank. They will make some on the spread, also I have read they can lend out money, that is not being traded. They will make money on other markets, I think they are more expensive if buy UK shares than say IG.
Thanks! So Schwab is more like the old TD Waterhouse account I used to have many years ago before they ditched UK customers and I had to move to their UK subsidiary for my US share dealing which was less than ideal. I'd settle for that - the old TDW US account was brilliant and ideal for my US trading needs. I have no interest holding UK shares in the same account.
I think I'll phone them tomorrow. Obviously, you'd not be protected by FCSC etc. if the funds are held offshore in a USD account, so I need to check what protection there is for non US nationals. Other than that I can't see a downside.
Thanks again, Si
Back in the day (1999 like) I had a Schwab UK account, as did many - think it was called Frequent Traders Club. Worked well, low cost and efficient. Sadly trading volumes plummeted after the crash, and perhaps compliance costs rose, so they abandoned the UK offering in the early 2000s and switched us to Barclays, where I still am, though have started to realise and de-fund as it's a horrendous platform now and geared towards 'funds' (as are HL, AJB and most of the big players I believe).
Likewise I held an Options Direct account at that time. Again, nicely efficient and fine for US and UK securities (including US options of course). Sadly they were acquired by FXCM shortly before the GFC. FXCM maintained the platform for a few years though they really wanted Forex trades so they also abandoned their UK clients. We can't take for granted the longevity of any platform! I'm also with Charles Stanley Direct for my James Hay SIPP. Not cheap, but does what it says on the tin. However, a few years ago they were talking of ditching their execution-only platform to focus on 'advised' clients and other 'wealth management' enterprises (yucky term!).
I also held a Tradestation US account for a few years. I'm ashamed to admit I never made a single trade as I'd set it up for a Forex initiative that I never had the courage to begin in earnest!
My new money (ex-NS&I and other bank accounts paying < 0.5% pa now) is mainly being deployed into DeGiro. Can't really fault it. Low commissions, especially on US stocks at under $1 sometimes, with typically £2 for UK transactions around the £5k level, and has the big advantage that every overseas transaction (including dividends) is converted to GBP at the underlying spot rate. This really does simplify tax returns! Also I see they've recently added 500+ Hong Kong securities to the platform though I haven't dabbled there yet. So I think China is probably the only major developed market they don't cover. Cash is currently held in money market funds (which I believe have similar protection to other funds, and where you'd find a UK DC fund puts its members' cash holdings). However, they are due to introduce a deposit account soon, with standard EU protection limits. Execution is often instantaneous - none of this ''you have 15 seconds to decide if you really want to proceed'' nonsense, though I've found sometimes a UK trade is split over 3 or 4 tranches with marginally different prices; presumably they split it over more than one market maker?
My current decision is whether to bite the bullet and open an IG spread bet account. I've always regarded spread bets as a bit 'spivvy' but do see the attractions now. I once traded CFDs on advisory basis (does the name Zak Mir ring a bell?) and that was a massive disaster. My account monotonically decreased each day over 3 months until I called a halt.
fwiw, I'm not sure why the OP sings the praises of AJB - I have an ISA account with them but see nothing remarkable about the offering. Andy Bell has of course generated significant wealth for himself, just as the HL boys did!
There used to be a comprehensive platform comparison service called Lang Cat, but I fear it's gone 'professional' now and is aimed at intermediaries.
I think those thinking of moving to the IG Sharedealing platform should be aware that IG need to use a custodian unlike the other main retail brokers e.g. II, AJB, HL. Instead, IG are just a front end and I believe Citigroup act as their custodian. You need to check their terms and conditions very carefully to be aware of this. For some reason they do not advertise this fact in their marketing blurb! This means dividend payments are often credited to accounts several days after the official payment date which is something I've never experienced with other broker accounts. I had one Intel dividend payment that was 5 weeks late last summer and some UK small cap dividends can be paid up to 2 weeks late. Of course, if you phone up to complain they just blame the custodian!! Perhaps it's just me that objects to third parties improving their own cashflow using my dividends and other IG customers are not bothered?
Also you need to be careful when using limit orders with IG as they can partially fill which can be very unhelpful with illiquid small caps because they do not operate on a "fill or kill" basis. For instance, I was trying to sell a rump holding in Zytronic (LON:ZYT) in December and set a sell limit order of my entire holding @ 150p as I was going out for the day. When I got home I discovered the limit order had triggered and sold just 5 shares @ 150p per share and they had charged me £8 commission. So I was 5 shares down and 50p down on the deal! Who on earth would think that good execution? However, they seemed to think that was fine when I called them and they made me feel like it was my fault for not understanding how their limit order execution worked. Well, I do now...
Anyway, at least IG do not have exit charges. Anyone know of another broker that allows the holding of cash in USD in their dealing account for trading US shares?
All the best, Si
" Anyone know of another broker that allows the holding of cash in USD in their dealing account for trading US shares?"
ii and DeGiro.
" Anyone know of another broker that allows the holding of cash in USD in their dealing account for trading US shares?"
ii and DeGiro.
Thanks! I took a look at Degiro and didn't like the 10 Euro charge per line of stock to transfer in and out. That would cost me 150 euros before I started to transfer my US portfolio. Seeing as I'm not an active trader of US stocks that matters more than the low dealing costs.
I didn't realise II allowed you to hold USD in a dealing account? I used to have an account at TD Direct but for some reason I thought they had stopped the ability to hold USD when they were taken over by II. I will take a fresh look at II.
All the best, Si
There's also Charles Schwab - though the minimum opening account size is $25k.
There's also Charles Schwab - though the minimum opening account size is $25k.
Thanks! I will take a look at Charles Schwab. The account size will not be a problem :-)
All the best, Si
I don't want to take anything away from Ben's excellent and detailed write up - very thorough and informative work.
Would this be the beginning of a review series perhaps? I'd be very interested to see a similar walkthrough for other ISA/SIPP providers - a good opportunity to contrast the feature set that differing users might like perhaps, alongside different fee structures and scope of market etc.
Very comprehensive review, accurate too I would say.
Shares magazine has a value too, it's not amazing but would be quite good for newer investors and generally has a nugget or two for the more experienced.
SIPP charges are particularly competitive.
I had a little issue recently where by my set Limit orders were not executing, even while I was watching trades go through at my price using Level 2.
After speaking to them at length the following was ascertained.
Imagine a limit buy set at 111.5P.
The spread of the stock is quoted at 111P - 112P. Your are watching Level 2 buys go through at 111.4P. AJ Bell will not trade. The quoted spread is the indicator by which the Limit order will trigger.
Now imagine the quoted spread moves to 110.5P to 111.5P. AJ Bell will now apparently trade your Limit order (obvs with usual caveats such as liquidity and getting in fast enough. If the SP moves quickly the trade may not execute).
I don't know whether this is standard practice? If anybody knows please shout up.
I did ascertain though that AJ Bell will introduce a new live platform (which they are testing at the moment) within the next few weeks. Whether that will rival IG etc. will remain to be seen, but the customer service guy who I spoke to said he has seen it working on dummy accounts and he says it is good. We shall see!
this might exactly explain my inability to buy Innovaderma (LON:IDP) from them yesterday via limit orders placed above the spread (since it was clear it was moving up from the opening lows). Why not just let me place the order immediately and see if it gets a buyer/seller ?
not sure why there is any need to hold it back against some artificial limits that may or may not be accurate or related to the way the spread is maybe being manipulated or the trading is progressing..
Because that would be placing your order to market (direct Market access), which is not the service they offer.
Given the info I now have, I can work with it. That's partly why I have flagged it here on Stockopedia.
Let's start with the bad and finish with the good.
Bad
Good -
Gonna move both SIPP/ ISA to IG. Frequently trade us stocks and the FX fees are a real pain when doing so.
Spl183
Not sure IG have a SIPP offer ATM?
Yes they do, having checked their site in fact last night on same. Partnering with James Hay :
https://www.ig.com/uk/help-and-support/investments/sipps/ig-sipp-who-are-james-hay
Spl183
Just now on the IG Site:
IG do have SIPPs.
I have just opened an ISA with them. The platform is pretty basic, I prefer HL but their fees are too high. Prices on ones I have tested are the same as HL. Fees are £8 per trade but only £3 if you did 3 trades in previous month, US trades are free but there is a 0.5% forex fee. They even offer some shares that HL don't trade.
There is a custody fee if you don't do any trades in one quarter of £24.
I did look at AJB but seem to be too many issues.
IG do have SIPPs.
I have just opened an ISA with them. The platform is pretty basic, I prefer HL but their fees are too high. Prices on ones I have tested are the same as HL. Fees are £8 per trade but only £3 if you did 3 trades in previous month, US trades are free but there is a 0.5% forex fee. They even offer some shares that HL don't trade.
Good luck with the IG ISA. I'll probably bump into you at the door on my way out :) It's not true that US trades are free. Well, I hope not, otherwise that's another cause for complaint and I'll be wanting my $15 per US trade back from them!
All the best, Si
Well they say zero commission if you have done 3 trades, in the previous month. There is a 0.5% forex fee. 0-2 trades is £10 per transaction.
"Note for multi-currency accounts: These figures apply to clients who opt for the default setting of 'instant currency conversion'.
Clients who choose to convert currencies manually will pay commission of 2 cents per share with a minimum charge of $15 on US stocks."
Do you have a multi-currency account?
Well they say zero commission if you have done 3 trades, in the previous month. There is a 0.5% forex fee. 0-2 trades is £10 per transaction. But "Clients who choose to convert currencies manually will pay commission of 2 cents per share with a minimum charge of $15 on US stocks."
Well, that's all as clear as mud but it clearly ends: "with a minimum charge of $15 on US stocks." which is what I said. All I know for certain is that I hold USD and do not need to convert currency, and that each buy or sell I have made without having done 3 trades etc. has incurred a $15 "commission".
All the best, Si
I agree it's not very clear but I don't have a multi-currency account.
It seems it only applies to "Clients who choose to convert currencies manually will pay commission of 2 cents per share with a minimum charge of $15 on US stocks."
It seems it only applies to "Clients who choose to convert currencies manually will pay commission of 2 cents per share with a minimum charge of $15 on US stocks."
This is the price you pay for wanting to keep your cash in USD with IG. I don't want them converting any dividends or sale proceeds automatically into Sterling. Another reason to leave and find a proper US brokerage account. So if they don't get you with the 0.5% FX rate on trades they hit you with the fixed $15 commission. Tbh the $15 commission is cheaper than 0.5% for the size of trades I do. The fixed $15 commission works out cheaper if your trade size is >$3K USD.
Anyway, good luck with the transfer. When I transferred into IG one of my US holdings ended up at IG Group in Australia and no-one there knew what it was or who I was!! They're probably very good at spreadbetting but as per my comments in this thread, it is a poor share dealing platform and they need Citigroup to do all the dirty work for them. The customer service is available 7 days a week would be the only plus point I could give you although you may like all the wizzy charting and stuff that I have no interest in.
All the best, Si
I read somewhere there are two ways to control FX exchange rates, "On the fly" and "Manual"
I understand "On the fly" charges $10 commission + 0.5% FX.
"Manual" charges $15 commission + whatever the manual FX conversion rate is - I'd assume this is less than 0.5% and there will be a trade off as to which is the better value - it probably depends on trade size.
I read somewhere there are two ways to control FX exchange rates, "On the fly" and "Manual"
I understand "On the fly" charges $10 commission + 0.5% FX.
"Manual" charges $15 commission + whatever the manual FX conversion rate is - I'd assume this is less than 0.5% and there will be a trade off as to which is the better value - it probably depends on trade size.
I believe this is correct, particularly wrt using "Manual" currency conversion as I do. Either way, it's important for the integrity of this thread to make it clear that trading US shares with IG is not "free" as herbie claimed - whatever "free" means these days...
All the best, Si
Agree - there's no such think as a free lunch, though some can work out cheaper than others.
Cant see anything about $10 commission. Yes 0.5% FX.
HL charge about £12 + 1% FX.
If I do 3 trades in previous month then it should just be 0.5%?
As I'm new, the fee is now £10 for US shares. Is the FX charged later as I can't see it on the transaction fees?
My bad - your right it is £10 not $10 for a US trade.
Also that's the way I read it after 3 trades in a month, the following month is commission free and you only pay the 0.5% FX fee.
I wonder what they charge in month three if you do three or more "free" trades in month two.
It should be the same as month 2.
I use Degiro and am very happy with their service and their charges are significantly lower than AJBell. You cannot use them for ISA or SIPPS but that’s not a big deal for me
@Caper4.
So do I but mainly DeGiro for global stocks others do not offer. But the ISA/ SIPP/ Spreadbet tax free wrappers are vitally important, assuming gains >£12.3K p.a. Also bear in mind that DeGiro is only protected up to 20K euro from the Dutch regulator.
Also, astonishingly difficult to navigate/ understand all functionality but equally lots of hidden gems if you spend the time trying to find certain stocks/ instruments.
Spl183
My tax free wrappers are used by a professional investment manager who looks after my mainly international portfolio. I have a custody account at Degiro and have had absolutely no problem navigating the functionality. Furthermore,as you are no doubt aware,the hidden gems are being added to all the time
I'm a happy customer of some six or so years now. One feature I particularly like that has not been mentioned is the ability to link family accounts, which means that I can manage other family members' portfolios and trades through my log-in.
Linked accounts are a cool feature - I run two family members' investments and it's a breeze, one simple form to fill in for each of them and there are all the accounts on one screen without constantly logging in and out. All three of us have SIPPs and the SIPP charges are really competitive. Those are the strong points.
Like others, I have been very disappointed by the inability to trade during recent periods of volatility and I look forward to A J Bell adding to their capacity (or whatever the issue is).
I never use the analysis tools - why bother if you have a Stockopedia subscription? I just mirror all the portfolios on here. By the way, Ben, we need more portfolios please! And thank you for writing this, it's a very fair summary.
I have ISAs with both AJ Bell and Interactive Investor, anyone considering opening a new account should consider very carefully the cost of transferring out. Although AJ Bell recently reduced their charges, they still run at £9.95 per holding, whereas II charge zero.
If like me you want to take advantage of regular monthly investments, and dividend reinvestment II is also significantly cheaper, in fact they offer free regular monthly investments.
also worth flagging for potential customers is (perhaps due to them being a cheaper option than many):
In their defense on the capacity/scale aspect, I've found them to be understanding of this and they say they are trying to do more there. Proof will be in the pudding however.
Overall, as a customer for a few years now, I've found them to be cost effective and (under normal trading circumstances) perfectly usable. I've been a bit more frustrated with them more recently due to the perhaps abnormal market conditions in recent months - and having a contrast with IG who I use with an ISA where I just don't see these problems at all.
I would echo Antehelion's comments and can personally speak to all four of those bullet points. I had a limit order stuck for several days about two months ago on their system which meant I couldn't use the funds during the time. It is also strangely difficult sometimes to get deal now prices for even some larger caps, which I have then cross-checked with another broker and had no issue.
That all being said, I am generally happy with their service for my SIPP and will likely keep it with them (it would also be a pain to move it!). I must say, however, that I am happier with the service offered by my other brokers (CSD, IG and X-O) for my ISA accounts.