Standing up in a Hammock

By deciding to trade a variety of stocks and ETFs I have made a little problem for myself by increasing the demands I place on my broker and trading platform. On the journey so far four brokers have been sampled and rejected, Hargeaves, Hoodless, TDW and Barclays.

Maybe it is just a bit too complicated and I should simplify my life by compromising on my goals.

Then again, there may be a broker out there who can do all I want to. This is a new venture for me and I will not be risking more than £12K initially which I will place in a SIPP for tax reasons. So if the broker's threshold is higher I'm excluded!

The criteria are - the brokerage must fund (I expect this will be based on a certain volume of trades) a decent trading platform which offers multicurrency trading with stops and limits, and must provide realtime charting for "regular" stocks and ETFs.

Oh, and sensible commissions.

Any suggestions welcome.

Have you considered CFDs?

brendansvest said:

Have you considered CFDs?

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Sure, but I don't know if I can afford the learning curve. Same for spread betting.

No different to trading physical if you ignore the leverage. I trade CFDs, go short and long and dont use leverage. its the gearing that gets novices in trouble. If you take it out of the equation its not an issue.Cheaper commission (0.05%) and no stamp duty too.