Trading in ISA's

Can someone please comment on some issues I have regarding self-select ISAs. I'm particularly interested in ishares ETFs

Can someone please help me with some of these questions? I've had all sorts of confusing emails from various brokers.

-Are all ETFs free of stamp duty in the UK?
-Are account management charges for a self-select ISA only applied to your whole account - not each year's individual ISA wrapper? ie, A #50 annual management charge doesn't increase to #100 if you hold an ISA in each of two tax years.
-Most ishares are quoted in GBP, EUR, or $US. How does this affect my GBP broker account if I want to trade in an ishare quoted in EUR (eg- DJSC, DJ Euro STOXX smll cap) or %US (eg- IASP, Asia property fund)
-What do you do with an ISA when you want to sell and leave the money in cash until a buying opportunity comes along? Does your broker offer a tax-free ISA account for your self-select ISA cash? I assume the rates will be much less than current cash ISA rates (ie-6%)

I currently trade OEIC index funds within an ISA free of tax and charges, but position sizing is too tricky without an easy switch into cash. I've been looking at using ETFs within a self-select ISA instead.

Thanks for any replies.
 
1. As far as I am aware they are all free of stamp duty, but I would not bet my house on it.

2. Yes you pay a single account management charge. So best to bring all your ISAs together.

3. Prices in different currencies are handled behind the scenes either by the broker or the marketmaker - I'm not sure. However at the point of sale you will be given a price in pounds. Apparently these prices normally include a small commission just in the same way as using your credit card abroad. You will need to check with your broker what it is (If you trade using direct access then there will be no commission because you have to physically hold the currency that you are trading in).

It is quite possible to have cash in your stocks and shares ISA although the rules about how much you can have and how long you have it for are a littly murky. I think as long as you can argue that it is your intention to invest with it not leave it as cash then you should be ok. Whether the Inland Revenue ever both to enquire of your broker what people hold in cash in their ISAs - I don't know. It is not possible to get the excellent rates you get from a cash ISA - you will get whatever your broker pays out on cash. cash in a stocks & shares ISA is taxed at I think 20% but you don't have to declare it on your tax return.

Most brokers will also allow fund holdings so if you transfer all your holdings in then you will not need to convert them to ETFs immediately.

Overall can highly recommend making the change.

John.
 
I have traded ishares ETF's for a couple of years now and I can say they are a good way of trading the indicies just like trading any other share.So far I have only traded the FT100 fund which is ISF.L.
There is no stamp duty to pay when buying only the standard cost per trade and dealing online is equally as easy as buying stocks.The spread is around 0.2% and trades can be done at around £10 with some brokers.
The sale of ETF's in ISA's goes into a deposit fund within the ISA itself but the interest on money pending future investment probably won't be high eg 2-3%.The managers will always get you somewhere !!.
Regarding money on deposit within the ISA there seems to have been a change in heart since 2000-2003 downturn as I was always receiving letters reminding me I had money on deposit.
The reminders normally turned up 90 days after deposits of cash were made but since the collapse of the markets this hasn't happened .I'm guessing either plan managers or the inland revenue have backed off because they may have been forcing investors back into markets at the wrong time.At the end of the day these plans were introduced to enhance saving so I'm sure the government wouldn't want investors pulling out because they didn't have control of their own investments.Basically I wouldn't worry to much about money on deposit with the self select ISA.
Management fees seem to be either a percentage or a maximum cost in £'s per year eg £200.
Merging all plans together seems to be the logical way forward and I'm sure the PEP and ISA merger isn't far away .
Pity about having dividends taxed but over the years a build of cash can easily take you over the Capital Gains Tax threshold so ISA's can play their part this way.
 
Broker Recommendation Please

Hello folks, when I was new to investing I opened an ISA with T D Wasterhouse and after poor experiences with them quickly moved on to Selftrade. Through the acquisition of knowledge my investment horizons have broadend and consequently I need to upgrade to a broker more accomodative to me needs. I want to trade ETFs listed on the major US exchanges such as Proshares.com double leverage offerings. I envisage starting by position or swing trading and then once competant moving onto intraday trading. Not having had experience of this before I have listed some of the criteria I think will be necessary and desirable:

1)The platform must be suitable for intraday/swing trading
2) At least US stocks and ETFs must be tradable online with direct access being preferable.
3) Limit orders must be a standard feature in addition trailing stops is preferable.
4) No or low foreign exchange spread on dealing (holding foreign currencies in an ISA is disallowed AFAIK)
5) Real time charting

So if anyone can give me a recommendation for a suitable broker or point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

TIA
 
Hello folks, when I was new to investing I opened an ISA with T D Wasterhouse and after poor experiences with them quickly moved on to Selftrade. Through the acquisition of knowledge my investment horizons have broadend and consequently I need to upgrade to a broker more accomodative to me needs. I want to trade ETFs listed on the major US exchanges such as Proshares.com double leverage offerings. I envisage starting by position or swing trading and then once competant moving onto intraday trading. Not having had experience of this before I have listed some of the criteria I think will be necessary and desirable:

1)The platform must be suitable for intraday/swing trading
2) At least US stocks and ETFs must be tradable online with direct access being preferable.
3) Limit orders must be a standard feature in addition trailing stops is preferable.
4) No or low foreign exchange spread on dealing (holding foreign currencies in an ISA is disallowed AFAIK)
5) Real time charting

So if anyone can give me a recommendation for a suitable broker or point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

TIA

Anyone.......... ?
 
The only account that I know that offers direct access within an ISA is i-dealing. I have been very impressed with the customer service I have received from i-dealing, well to be honest from a chap called Gary Duckworth - I don't know what the rest of them are like.

You are right that it is not possible to hold dollars within an ISA so these are converted back into pounds each evening and unfortunately the exchange rate used is not very competitive.

When I last checked they didn't offer trailing stops but the number of brokers offering this seem to be increasing so hopefully in the future ...

No real time charting. But you can of course get this independently.

So i-dealing doesn't tick all your boxes I'm afraid - but it does off dma within an isa.

I think you might have to do on your own dirty work. Start working through the brokers and see if any does everything you need - then come back and give us a table of what you found out! You might want to work through them in the order of customer satisfaction from the t2w.com review section

John.
 
The only account that I know that offers direct access within an ISA is i-dealing. I have been very impressed with the customer service I have received from i-dealing, well to be honest from a chap called Gary Duckworth - I don't know what the rest of them are like.

You are right that it is not possible to hold dollars within an ISA so these are converted back into pounds each evening and unfortunately the exchange rate used is not very competitive.

When I last checked they didn't offer trailing stops but the number of brokers offering this seem to be increasing so hopefully in the future ...

No real time charting. But you can of course get this independently.

So i-dealing doesn't tick all your boxes I'm afraid - but it does off dma within an isa.

I think you might have to do on your own dirty work. Start working through the brokers and see if any does everything you need - then come back and give us a table of what you found out! You might want to work through them in the order of customer satisfaction from the t2w.com review section

John.

Thanks for the reply John, I have n't had much luck in getting ANY to my enquiries here,
hopefully that will change with your helpful contribution.

I've looked at a few brokers already but did n't write anything down so would find it dificult to recall their features and compile a table. I looked at the review page on T2W but I think I only saw ODL there unless I'm mistaken (I've been doing that much research of late I'm on information overload) Of the discount brokers I believe idealing is probably the cheapest one with direct market access but unfortunately the DMA is only for the LSE and not US markets where I want to be. Same with etrade as far as DMA is concerned.

I think I'm probably going to have to go a bit more up market to get that. ODL and M F Global are on my radar screen at the moment as I believe they offer DMA to the US but are obviously a bit more expensive than the discount brokers. Not a problem if their service is good.

More urgently I'm also trying to sort out a broker for my SIPP account for which there are more choices. You will see my enquiries on this elswhere on T2W, I'm nearly sure Interactive Brokers is the most suitable one for me on this front just (need to firm up on that though). I have n't decided on an administrator partially because I don't know who exactly they will work with. Their investment choices are awesome and their charges equally so but unfortunatley they are not ISA plan managers. The search goes on.
 
just resurrecting this thread ....................can someone let me know if any decent brokers allow you to wrap your CFD accounts in an isa ?

I am demoing CFD's on LMAX at the moment and wondered if I could solve the tax problem on any potential profits made ?

also a decent CFD's / sipp route will do as long as they move through the new pension rules next year........i'm 55 now so could use that route for profits made .......

I am scalping forex so thats probably where the issue is ..........I can see Hargreave Landown offer CFD's but they would have a heart attack if I wanted to wrap a forex CFD scalp account in there ?

N
 
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I don't think you can trade CFDs in an ISA.

In fact spreadbets are basically tax free CFDs so I would just pick a decent spreadbet provider. ProSpreads I think are pretty good.

John.

just resurrecting this thread ....................can someone let me know if any decent brokers allow you to wrap your CFD accounts in an isa ?

I am demoing CFD's on LMAX at the moment and wondered if I could solve the tax problem on any potential profits made ?

also a decent CFD's / sipp route will do as long as they move through the new pension rules next year........i'm 55 now so could use that route for profits made .......

I am scalping forex so thats probably where the issue is ..........I can see Hargreave Landown offer CFD's but they would have a heart attack if I wanted to wrap a forex CFD scalp account in there ?

N
 
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