Online broker required

LooksLikeRain

Hi,

I have been using danske bank for share dealing for a number of years and have no issues with them. However, they are stopping this service next year.
Can anyone recommend a good online dealing account?

My requirements are
1. real time values (delayed 20mins)
2. online execuction of trades (no requirement for phone calls please)
3. multiple currency
4. easy fund tranfer, in and out, with no fees and min amount
5. resonanble fees (danske currently min of €20 per trade)
6. dividends or scripts are paid into account with any chasing of paperwork
7. All the major markets,iseq, ftse, nasdaq etc

I have tried sharewatch and TD in the past but these are not suitable as they are incapable of providing a decent service.

I know there have been other threads on this in the past but it seems services are regularly changing with all the banks.
thanks

Rainer

love_struck

LooksLikeRain wrote: »

Hi,

I have been using danske bank for share dealing for a number of years and have no issues with them. However, they are stopping this service next year.
Can anyone recommend a good online dealing account?

My requirements are
1. real time values (delayed 20mins)
2. online execuction of trades (no requirement for phone calls please)
3. multiple currency
4. easy fund tranfer, in and out, with no fees and min amount
5. resonanble fees (danske currently min of €20 per trade)
6. dividends or scripts are paid into account with any chasing of paperwork
7. All the major markets,iseq, ftse, nasdaq etc

I have tried sharewatch and TD in the past but these are not suitable as they are incapable of providing a decent service.

I know there have been other threads on this in the past but it seems services are regularly changing with all the banks.
thanks

Rainer

im currently arranging to leave TD , very cheap but ineptly ran outfit

the irish brokers have the arrogance to take some of your money when you buy shares , im not just talking about the trading charge , the actually take .5% of your spend , TD don't do that and neither do keytrade bank

sent off an application to keytrade today , had to ring them in Belgium first , they don't have a quarterly account maintenance charge either which gives them the edge over TD , their slightly more expensive for the trade itself but not much

davy , goodbody etc are a disgrace

Thargor

Lookslikerain do you have any info on the NIB shutdown? I was wondering how long I have to move my shares. I think Ill just take a chance and go with Saxo.

Really annoying as Danske had just fixed a lot of what I hate about themin their interface.

LooksLikeRain

I am told they will close it down by June next year but it may be sooner.

I have an account with TD\saxo but find it frustrating. Most sales do not go through unless you phone them and money seems to get mixed up between currencies.
Danskes sysetem just seemed to work all the time, its such a pity.

Thargor

Are TD\Saxo the same company or what? Is it that Saxo web trader software thats the problem? The dummy account seems so slick. I agree about trades going through perfectly in Danske, never a single problem for me.

dealhunter1985

TD and Saxo are seperate companies.

I've been using Saxo the last 12 months and find them absolutely excellent.
The online platform is very professional and I think the commissions are very reasonable too.
Never had any problems placing a trade..

Another advantage with Saxo.. Same day lodgements.. I transferred money from my Irish bank account to Saxo and the funds were literally in my account less than 30 minutes later available for trading.. I dont mean an online transfer. I mean I actually went into my bank to do it..
You can also lodge with credit card for no charge and the funds instantly become available.

Thargor

Ah thats excellent cheers Dealhunter.

love_struck

dealhunter1985 wrote: »

TD and Saxo are seperate companies.

I've been using Saxo the last 12 months and find them absolutely excellent.
The online platform is very professional and I think the commissions are very reasonable too.
Never had any problems placing a trade..

Another advantage with Saxo.. Same day lodgements.. I transferred money from my Irish bank account to Saxo and the funds were literally in my account less than 30 minutes later available for trading.. I dont mean an online transfer. I mean I actually went into my bank to do it..
You can also lodge with credit card for no charge and the funds instantly become available.

been looking up saxo and they do appear excellent , they charge a small commission but its tiny compared to davy , goodbody etc

I think I might actually ditch the idea of going with keytrade , saxo have an office in the uk where as you have to call Belgium with keytrade if any problems arise

dealhunter1985

I supposed one thing I should point out which has been a deciding factor amongst some people ..
They claim to charge a fee if your account isnt a certain size I believe.. Not sure what the limit is.. I think its roughly 5,000 EURO.

love_struck

dealhunter1985 wrote: »

I supposed one thing I should point out which has been a deciding factor amongst some people ..
They claim to charge a fee if your account isnt a certain size I believe.. Not sure what the limit is.. I think its roughly 5,000 EURO.

that's ok , il be going for the premium account

Mort5000

Very happy with Saxo.

dRNk SAnTA

I'm a Saxo customer. I've found the staff and their platform to be very good - but they've announced new fees including a quarterly "inactivity fee" and also I believe they are upping their trade fees to £20.

I'm on a 'buy and hold' strategy and want to avoid inactivity fees. I've been looking for an alternative but very few of the execution-only UK stockbrokers accept Irish customers.

Despite all of the negative comments above - I'm in the middle of setting an account up with TD...

dealhunter1985

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

I'm a Saxo customer. I've found the staff and their platform to be very good - but they've announced new fees including a quarterly "inactivity fee" and also I believe they are upping their trade fees to £20.

I'm on a 'buy and hold' strategy and want to avoid inactivity fees. I've been looking for an alternative but very few of the execution-only UK stockbrokers accept Irish customers.

Despite all of the negative comments above - I'm in the middle of setting an account up with TD...

Could you provide a source to the update in commissions and introduction of the inactivity fee? I have heard a few people mention it but i havent seen anything official..

Latest fee schedule can be found here :
http://www.saxobank.com/prices/stocks/commissions

And the minimum account sizes as follows:

Minimum account sizes



$5,000 for a Classic Account
$100,000 for a Premium Account
$500,000 for a Platinum Account


http://www.saxobank.com/prices/general/

Mort5000

dealhunter1985 wrote: »

Could you provide a source to the update in commissions and introduction of the inactivity fee?

Page 7

Mort5000

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Despite all of the negative comments above - I'm in the middle of setting an account up with TD...

Good luck. See you back here in a few months

rock_dinasaur

Mort5000 wrote: »

Good luck. See you back here in a few months

im like the anomaly when it comes to TD

they actually gave me free stocks recently due to their systematic scew ups

I bought bank of Ireland on the Dublin exchange in may and sold it a month ago or so , a few weeks ago bank of Ireland showed up on my portfolio as being held on the London exchange and with a 100% gain , this despite my never having bought bank of Ireland on the London exchange and having offloaded bank of Ireland on the Dublin exchange a week before that , I immedietly sold them and bagged the free money

dRNk SAnTA

dealhunter1985 wrote: »

Could you provide a source to the update in commissions and introduction of the inactivity fee?

The email customers received:

Notification of Change to product pricing and general business terms.

Inactivity Fee

Saxo Capital Markets UK Limited will be introducing an inactivity fee due to the costs of maintaining and supporting dormant accounts. The fee of £25 (or currency equivalent based on base currency) will be applied to clients who have not traded during the previous calendar quarter.

When is this fee applied?

The inactivity fee will come into effect as from 1 November 2013.

If you have not placed a trade during a calendar quarter we will debit £25 from your account at the beginning of the following quarter.

The fee will be charged on a calendar quarter basis with effect from Q1 2014. For the remaining months of this year we will be charging the fee in January 2014 to those clients who have not traded in November and December 2013.

Please note that the inactivity fee cannot reduce your account balance below zero.

SIPP and ISA accounts are excluded and will not be charged an Inactivity fee.

How can I avoid this fee?

This fee is only applied to accounts where the client has not traded during the quarter in question. Trading activity is defined as opening or closing a position. The inactivity fee will still be charged if you have held a position over this period and not traded. Please contact us to reactivate your account or discuss the account status; you can call us on +44 20 7151 2100.

If you would like to access the funds remaining in your Saxo account, please email uksupport@saxomarkets.com from the email address you registered with us.

New minimum ticket fee on UK stocks

Saxo Capital Markets UK Ltd will be implementing a new minimum ticket fee of £20.00 for trades in UK stocks. The percentage commission will remain the same at 0.1% of the trade value; however, if this value is not reached a flat fee of £20.00 will be applied.

This will not affect our CFD, FX, Options or Futures offering.

This change will be implemented for SIPP and ISA accounts.

We are therefore writing to notify you of the changes we are making to our General Business Terms which currently govern the relationship between us (the 'Terms').

The changes in the cost of providing services to you are reflected in our 'Product Trading Rates & Conditions' which are displayed on our website and form part of our Terms. Please click here to see the full list of Rates and Conditions offered by Saxo Capital Markets UK Limited.

Under Clause 24 of the Terms we are required to provide you with at least 30 days' notice of any changes made by Saxo Capital Markets UK Ltd to the Terms. As such, the changes to the pricing and the inactivity fee will come into effect as of 31st of October 2013.

If you object to these changes you must inform us within 14 days. If you do not do so, you will be deemed to have accepted the changes. If you give us notice that you object, then the changes will not be binding on you, but we may close your Account as soon as reasonably practicable and/or restrict your activity to Transactions which will close out your open positions.

Should you require further clarification please do not hesitate to contact your account manager or our Client Support Team.

Yours Sincerely,

Saxo Capital Markets UK Limited

dealhunter1985

thanks for that.
I never received that email from them which is bad form.
I;ll have to get onto them

Thargor

Balls to it anyway, And their minimum fee for a trade is 25 aswell so no way around it by taking a small position once a quarter.

Back to square one then, whats the best broker to go to for a buy and hold investor who still wants to be able to buy and sell online at a moments notice?

Im starting to think there isnt one so Ill probably still go with Saxo seeing as I like everything else Ive heard about them.

LooksLikeRain

Thargor wrote: »

Are TD\Saxo the same company or what? Is it that Saxo web trader software thats the problem? The dummy account seems so slick. I agree about trades going through perfectly in Danske, never a single problem for me.

They are separate companies but it would appear that TD use the saxo platform. Going directly with saxo may be an option.

banie01

LooksLikeRain wrote: »

They are separate companies but it would appear that TD use the saxo platform. Going directly with saxo may be an option.

TD do not use the Saxo platform.
The Saxo platform offers a level of detail, control and interaction far far above what is available via TD.
I was a TD customer for 5yrs and I am now with Saxo @4months, the difference is night and day.
TD in my experience(which includes a successful case against them via the UK Ombudsman) is absolutely terrible.
As I've said before, they are cheap for a reason should you ever need to rely on their ''customer service'' you will find out quickly that cheapest isn't always best.

keno-daytrader

Thargor wrote: »

Balls to it anyway, And their minimum fee for a trade is 25 aswell so no way around it by taking a small position once a quarter.

Back to square one then, whats the best broker to go to for a buy and hold investor who still wants to be able to buy and sell online at a moments notice?

Im starting to think there isnt one so Ill probably still go with Saxo seeing as I like everything else Ive heard about them.

I use Interactive Brokers.

JohnK

This might be a (very) stupid question but with the likes of Saxo, what exactly does the minimum account size actually mean? Take for example the classic account which says 5k minimum - does that mean you need to have at least 5k cash sitting in the account at all times or that you have to have a combination of cash/stocks to that value in the account or just that you can't open the account without depositing that value but that once the deposit is made you could run that down to zero without penalty?

keno-daytrader

JohnK wrote: »

This might be a (very) stupid question but with the likes of Saxo, what exactly does the minimum account size actually mean? Take for example the classic account which says 5k minimum - does that mean you need to have at least 5k cash sitting in the account at all times or that you have to have a combination of cash/stocks to that value in the account or just that you can't open the account without depositing that value but that once the deposit is made you could run that down to zero without penalty?

Usually you need to deposit cash or stocks to meet the min and after that the account can drop under the min, but some brokers will take a fee every month if the account falls below a certain limit.

JohnK

Just what I was hoping to hear, thanks!

LinoRichie

Hi. Similar to many people on this thread, I am looking to sign up to an online trading platform. I intend to invest a figure in the low 000s and won't be a frequent trader. Any recommendations on a reliable platform that doesn't charge inactivity fees? Does such a platform exist?

Mort5000

LinoRichie wrote: »

Hi. Similar to many people on this thread, I am looking to sign up to an online trading platform. I intend to invest a figure in the low 000s and won't be a frequent trader. Any recommendations on a reliable platform that doesn't charge inactivity fees? Does such a platform exist?

I recommend Saxo and have had no issues with them.
They have an inactivity fee, but I believe many do now.
My personal feeling on that is "you get what you pay for".

dRNk SAnTA

Just an update on my activities -

When I posted in this thread last year, I was intending to leave Saxo. Yet, I remain with them.

I tried moving to TD but it just proved too much of a pain.... the amount of trips I took to Bank / Garda Station trying to get documents verified.

Now I'm being charged quite a hefty fee by Saxo quarterly, and their trading fees have gone way up as well. I don't think I have the sums invested to justify paying such large fees, but then again, perhaps I should just stick with them and build up the portfolio over time.

Anyone else in this boat?

Mort5000

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Just an update on my activities -

When I posted in this thread last year, I was intending to leave Saxo.

Are you below 10K and not doing 1 trade a quarter?

Brussels Sprout

For those of you with Saxo did you open your accounts via their British or Danish Websites? What's the difference? I presume you'll get stung for currency exchange fees with both since neither are in the Eurozone.

Recondite49

Mort5000 wrote: »

Good luck. See you back here in a few months

Just received a letter back from TD - they turned me down for a Trading account because I had a poor credit rating - why would this matter when you have to invest?!

Am looking at Davy at the moment...

dRNk SAnTA

Mort5000 wrote: »

Are you below 10K and not doing 1 trade a quarter?

That's right - I've got about €7500 and probably doing 1 or 2 trades per year max.

Of course, it's all relative to the amount of money you're playing with. But for my size of investment, the Saxo fees have the potential to make a big indent on any profits.

Since I joined Saxo last year, they've introduced inactivity fees and increased the price of everything:
- £25 inactivity fee (most trades cost £20, buy and sell)
- Transfer out fee (i.e. to another broke) = £50 pounds per stock (a very diversified portfolio would be really punished here)

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

For those of you with Saxo did you open your accounts via their British or Danish Websites? What's the difference? I presume you'll get stung for currency exchange fees with both since neither are in the Eurozone.

I opened through the British Saxo Capital Markets side.

You can hold accounts in any currency, so Danish VS British doesn't make a difference in this respect.

I opened a Sterling account and transferred money in via a currency exchange site (I used currencyfair). You'll save a lot on fees this way.

Or you could open a Euro account and trade in Euro stocks, then there'd be no exchange fees.

If you exchange currencies using Saxo, you may find it expensive. Here is what the capital markets website says about Currency charges:

"Currency conversions of trading costs as well as profits and losses from trading activities are done using the mid-spread FX Spot rate when you close the position, plus/minus 0.5%. For FX Options the rate is plus/minus 0.1%.
The Currency Conversion fee does not apply to margin collateral. Only settlement of actual payments to or from the trading account are included, for example, buying/selling cash Stocks, paying/receiving options premium etc.

The rate used for currency conversion of amounts booked to your account is shown in the trading platforms under the “Trades Executed” report.​​"


Edit: Having read the posts about TD on here, I'm now too nervous to move to them. I'll stick with Saxo for the time being, I guess we need some new options for Irish customers though, they have a good selection over in the UK.

Recondite49

Recondite49 wrote: »

Just received a letter back from TD - they turned me down for a Trading account because I had a poor credit rating - why would this matter when you have to invest?!

Am looking at Davy at the moment...

Further to my last post TD have since contacted me to say that this was a clerical error and that if I reapply online, they can use the existing identity documentation I've provided to proceed. I'm planning to call them on Monday, watch this space.