The Best Online Execution UK Stockbroker

Can anyone please advise me on some good online UK stockbrokers:

My critieria:

1. A Robust System. Should be able to trade in busy market conditions. Mornings at 8am.

2. Low transaction cost. My limit is £12.50 per trade, can this be bettered?

3. No inactivity fees.

4. No management fees.

5. Good corporate actions department.


I am fed up with Selftrade. They are a financial liability, whereby not allowing me to buy and sell shares at the best market price; I'm losing out big time. This is the result of their IT system breaking down most mornings.

For example:

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Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

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5 May 2009 - 10am update.

We're experiencing slow system performance this morning. We've identified the source of the issue with a third party order flow provider that we, along with a number of other brokers, use to receive share prices. We've been in constant contact with them since market open and as of 9.40am they've confirmed they've identified the source of the problem and deployed a fix to their system. We are constantly monitoring the interaction between our system and the third party provider but in the meantime to aid improvement of our performance, as at 10am, we've turned off Limit Order Manager. We will reintroduce this as soon as possible.

Please continue to call our Customer Service Team on 0845 0700 720 to place your manual orders, at best on a best endeavours basis.

We apologise that we're not able to fully service your business and thank you for your patience whilst we resolve this matter with the third party provider.


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sharkingtrader said:

Can anyone please advise me on some good online UK stockbrokers:

My critieria:

1. A Robust System. Should be able to trade in busy market conditions. Mornings at 8am.

2. Low transaction cost. My limit is £12.50 per trade, can this be bettered?

3. No inactivity fees.

4. No management fees.

5. Good corporate actions department.


I am fed up with Selftrade. They are a financial liability, whereby not allowing me to buy and sell shares at the best market price; I'm losing out big time. This is the result of their IT system breaking down most mornings.

For example:

----------------------------
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

---------------------------
5 May 2009 - 10am update.

We're experiencing slow system performance this morning. We've identified the source of the issue with a third party order flow provider that we, along with a number of other brokers, use to receive share prices. We've been in constant contact with them since market open and as of 9.40am they've confirmed they've identified the source of the problem and deployed a fix to their system. We are constantly monitoring the interaction between our system and the third party provider but in the meantime to aid improvement of our performance, as at 10am, we've turned off Limit Order Manager. We will reintroduce this as soon as possible.

Please continue to call our Customer Service Team on 0845 0700 720 to place your manual orders, at best on a best endeavours basis.

We apologise that we're not able to fully service your business and thank you for your patience whilst we resolve this matter with the third party provider.


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Click to expand...

I am totally with you on that one, selftrade is driving me crazy.
Would really appreciate some advice, thanks.

I've been with Hoodless Brennan for a few months now, cheap (8 quid) and I've had no problems. So far.

Fool.co.uk , £10 trades, no account or inactivity fees, reasonable corprate actions service.

Ditto

Same here and no reasonable response from customer services.

How does barclays stand up?

i saw a post on moneysavingexpert that hoodless benan are not very reliable during peak times...

plasternipple said:

I've been with Hoodless Brennan for a few months now, cheap (8 quid) and I've had no problems. So far.

Click to expand...

mate do you encouter problems when you place stop limits or buy in penny shares?

I use E*TRADE for active trading in my Self Select ISA

To date, I have not had a problem trading at any time of day at best price and my limit orders have been filled too without issue both buying and selling. Best and limit are the only orders at present but they tell me other orders are coming on line this summer - Stop Loss, trailing SL etc.

Only once in 3 months has the site been down when I logged in and this was on a weekend. Customer support are also very responsive via email and in my experience phone wait is low, although I have had little cause to ring them.

The key for me are the commissions. Each calender month fees are:
Trades 1-5 £11.95
Trades 6-19 £9
Trades 20+ £7

Once you qualify for a commission level, you keep it until the end of the next calendar month, meaning you don't have to re-qualify at the start of each month. This means I would normally get £7 as I usually trade 20+ times a month, but at worst that would be £9.

There is a small £4.13+VAT monthly inactivity fee unless you trade once within 3 months. My Self select ISA monthly product management fee is £2.13+VAT, which is small beer for 20+ trades at £7 imho.

Also for 20+ trades you get free access to live streaming and market data, and they are introducing revamped tools with free Level 2 data, coming soon.

I am considering taking out a SIPP with them as soon as I have tested their transfer in ability by moving an older ISA over to them.

Overall, it is excellent value for money for anyone who trades at least 5 or 6 times a month and wants a no fuss system that does what it says on the tin.

Thanks for all your advice.... I've registered with Hoodless and Brennan and looking to get the paper work done pretty quick.

With regards to Selftrade, they've started new term of business by introducing a annual managment fee of around £40.25. I can only see this as being a bad business strategy.


Management fee details as follows:
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Dear Mr XXXXX

Your annual statement pack, sent to you by post and separate secure message, includes notification of forthcoming changes to our Terms and Conditions, information about the introduction of an annual Management Fee set at £35.00 plus VAT, and details about additional information being added to our website to help support your investment decisions.

The new Management Fee will come into effect from 1 July 2009 and cover all your separate portfolios. It will not be charged to your account until August, when we will also give you three free trades to use in that month.

Whilst you will effectively see your annual costs rise by £40.25 (allowing for VAT at the current 15% rate), you will receive free trades worth £37.50.

A special page has been added to our website to give you more information about these topics - please click here or visit Terms 09 / Selftrade. Should you have any questions about these changes do please call us or send a secure message.

I appreciate that changes to the way in which we charge for our services are never welcome. However, I do hope you will feel the new system is more equitable for all users of our services and that the fee maintains our policy of setting a clear, transparent and competitive price for our services. I hope, too, that you will take full advantage of the free trades and new information sources to help manage your investments.

Paul Greetham

Chief Executive