[Closed] Investment platforms

Have a look here:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/stocks-shares-isas/

I’m dollar cost averaging daily into Trading212.

It lets you create a pie which is essentially your own ETF with stocks you chose yourself. I have 20 or so stocks within this. Every day it automatically purchases a small amount of each of the stocks on a fractional basis. With traditional broker it would end up costing £200 a day to achieve this in trade fees and I’d have to buy whole stocks. With 212 you can mess around with a few £ a day. Im essentially using lunch money.

Just pick companies I like and don’t try to time the market. Can’t see a downside at small volumes. Great for a hobby.

Whatever you do stay away from services over all platforms that let you trade on margin like spread bet or CFD. Most low cost platforms make money trying to pull you into this side of their business / platform.

I’m a big 212 fan. Person that sits next to me in office uses etoro and also seems perfectly happy. We are both amateurs just having fun though and chat stock at lunch over the usual news / politics / sports…

You say investing but then from what you say it sounds more like gambling.

If it's actually investing then get a Vanguard ISA and stick the cash in an index each month such as Lifestrategy.

If it's gambling but trying to outdo the mathematical chaos of markets and endless thousands of finance analysts then I'm not sure.

I love that you're looking to put money away each month. I'd advise reading some books such as the Bogleheads guide, A random walk down wall street, millionaire teacher, etc.

Investing is different from trading, which is basically gambling.

Money saving expert is a great site.

I use Intelligent Money and they are great and very easy to use.

Doesn't sound like gambling to me.

Gambling is going in hoping to win, while risking the entire stake. Being a GameStop lemming was gambling. Buying something off the FTSE100 isn't if you do it for the right reason.

If you do the research, find something with value, have an entry and more importantly an exit strategy, then it is trading.

For that, eToro and Trading212 seem to be the most popular ones. I don't use either, but did contemplate Trading212. If you have the pension sorted, and the ISA (or equivalent) sorted, and have a bit left to do something more risky, then it is more risky trading, not gambling (unless you randomly pick companies likely to go bust, hoping they might "moon").

From the OP:

I am not looking to be be flipping stocks quickly, but to be slowly building up a small portfolio.

That's investing not gambling.

Buy well run companies with competitive advantages and just hold the stock through the market ups and downs.

If you're only buying £100-£200 at a time the you probably want a platform with low fixed trading costs.

FreeTrader is a great app if you're looking to trade frequently. Pay a monthly fee (£3 or 9.99) a month, and every trade costs nothing.

Plus, up to £4k in cash you get 3% interest. Which pays back that £9.99 a month.

Provident Financial was a well run company...until it wasn't.Companies can and do implode.I would recommend you buy some well run Investment trusts.There are plenty to choose from.

I've been using eToro for a few months now and it seems pretty good.

Their big thing is 'copy trading'; you can allocate X amount of your money to copy another trader; whatever trading they do, your money copies it in proportion. Like a managed fund (I think) but free.

For instance, one of the people I copy is this lady - https://greeffinvest.com/ - who no doubt does a far job than I ever could.

I keep a small percentage aside for my own efforts at trading, but basically I'm like a kid with a toy steering wheel in the car, thinking I'm helping. I leave 90% of it to people who know what they're doing

I would love it if etoro copy trading/portfolio was avail to ISA/SIPP

It's easy to target certain markets without having to identify who the players are i.e. CRSPR