Tools of the Trade?

Philbert

Greetings,

Firstly Nesf thanks for making this happen.
I hope to get a lot out of this forum and although I’m not in any kind of financial profession (IT), I hope ill be able to give my two cents worth, when and where I can.

On to the topic....

I would be interested to find out what services (both online and offline) people use to actually buy and sell shares. I am currently in the process of setting up with AIB Share Dealing (which I believe the underlying broker is Goodbody?), and I will be transferring over my Vodafone shares from ‘Computershare’ so I can start trading as this is something I’ve been trying to get into for some time.

So what other services are out there? Has anyone any experience with the AIB Share Dealing service?

Thanks.

nesf

Well, options are quite varied really.

You are correct about Goodbody's, they are the stock broking wing of AIB. It really is a matter of how seriously you take it.

I'll go through a few of the options here, and I'll sticky a topic with links to services and such when I get a chance

Your basic options are traditional stock brokers be they off or online (such as AIB's Goodbody, Dolmen Securities' Stock Broking division etc.), financial spread betting (such as IGIndex) and CFD (Contract for Difference Trading).

Each has benifits depending on the style of investing you are planning on. For extreme short term trading, ie holding a position for less than a day, financial spread betting is the best (it's tax free!). For positions upto 16 days (i think, might be different), CFD services are the best. For positions longer than these then traditional stockbroking services are the best.

My advice to anyone starting out, is to go with a solid traditional stockbroker with an office local to you. Your broker can advise you on decisions and recommend shares to you (this is very useful if you are new to the game). Also a local office means you can have face to face meetings with your broker easily, which is always nice.

On the other hand, financial spread betting is very simple to use, isn't taxed and is an easy place to start. You don't pay commission on a trade, instead there is a certain offset of ticks against your position (eg if you go long (expecting the instrument to rise), you will buy the instrument, but the price you buy it at would be 2-7 points above the actual market value.). This spread is how the site makes it's money. It's nice in that it's financially viable to trade on a small scale with these.

Actually look I'm going to do up a FAQ about this. It's complex and deserves proper treatment.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Philbert wrote:

I would be interested to find out what services (both online and offline) people use to actually buy and sell shares. I am currently in the process of setting up with AIB Share Dealing (which I believe the underlying broker is Goodbody?), and I will be transferring over my Vodafone shares from ‘Computershare’ so I can start trading as this is something I’ve been trying to get into for some time.

So what other services are out there? Has anyone any experience with the AIB Share Dealing service?

Goodbody's is as good as any share dealing co. Although, Irish stockbrokers tend to be overpriced as a general rule. A few years back FEXCO was by far the cheapest, but now they are all much-of-a-muchness. For what it's worth, Sharewatch claim to be the cheapest, but i don't know anyone who uses them...

...you might be nearly better going with an online UK stockbroker (if this is possible using an irish bank account). They tend to be a lot cheaper.

jay567

The Irish brokers realy do charge alot. If u have a large sum and are going to stay in for a period over 5 yrs then sure use them for comfort. However if u are planning on buying and selling a bit, try one of the online companies.
I have been using Internaxx for the last yr or so and find them very good and well priced.

karltimber

I use an Ameritrade account purely for US stocks - Amex,Naz,OTC.
With $10 trades - it is easier to trade a few times a week/month - not sure I'd be doing that with Irish bokerage houses.

Whats the standard trade charge now ??- E20 E40 ??

Two things I recently found out though.
Ameritrade and a lot of the other on-line brokers will not setup any more European accounts !!!!! Not sure why

There is absolutely no linkage between the US and Irish Tax bodies.
There is no sharing of info, lists, accounts etc. which is very good for folks who have US trading accounts already.

Q - whats the "flag" amount for transfering in/out of the country --
what I mean is -if I transfer 5K --is this ok but if I transfer 15K will draw attention to my account - as to the where/why/who. just though I'd ask.

thx

TheLedge

karltimber wrote:

Q - whats the "flag" amount for transfering in/out of the country --
what I mean is -if I transfer 5K --is this ok but if I transfer 15K will draw attention to my account - as to the where/why/who. just though I'd ask.

thx

good question. I'd like to know the answer to this as well, seing as I'm transferring money regularly between UK & IRL. I sent 6k stg last week. is this going to raise a few eyebrows or what? I dont live in Ireland and don't intend on doing so for years so, would I be liable on any of this anyways??

cheers

nesf

So long as you're paying tax on the money in the UK then I'm pretty sure it's fine. Nearly 100% but not quite.

I believe (and I'm open to correction here) that if an Irish person is living in the UK (be it temporary or permenant) and works there and they pay income tax on the amount in the UK. Then if they choose to transfer it back to Ireland they don't have to pay tax on it (excluding fees on currency exchange etc).

I might be wrong though. I'm not an expert on tax law, international tax law even less so.

Nuttzz

thats right Ireland have double taxation agreement with a lot of countries and all EU ones

http://www.revenue.ie/services/tax_info/taxes12.htm

Blackjack

You can transfer any amount you like to the UK, you may need to prove where the money has come from and what you intend to do with it to satisfy AML, as the Bank to which you are transferring it may query it if it seems to be an out of the ordinary transaction, but currency controls of that nature have been removed.

I had to find out the same last year and called the IFSRA to confirm it, with a reasonably large sum (in excess of 15K as it happened).

Blackjack

On to the topic....

Philbert wrote:

I would be interested to find out what services (both online and offline) people use to actually buy and sell shares.

I use Comdirect (comdirect.co.uk) who are shortly going to be called Squaregain, but can do so because I have a UK bank account. They're not bad to use, you can deal online quite easily and the price they quote lasts 15 seconds and you can also put in orders to buy and sell at certain prices.
Their FX rates are a bit mean sometimes though, but that's a risk you take when trading cross currency. Flat fee of GBP12.5 per trade. Service is pretty good, no problems so far.

jay567

IN relation to bank flags. As far as im aware its somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000. But that flag is raised if its lodged into the account trans'd out, or moved out of the country.
Im open to correction , but was advised of this by a banking person.