Brokers

The Vultures are Circling – Woodford, Carpetright et al

With the demise of the Neil Woodford’s empire and the winding up of the Woodford Equity Income Fund, investors are looking for whom to blame – other than themselves of course for investing in his funds. One target is Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) and other fund platforms who had it on their recommended or “best buy” lists, including long after the fund’s problems were apparent. Now lawyers are only too glad to help in such circumstances and at least two firms have ...
2nd November 2019 Read more

Woodford and Hargreaves Lansdown

To follow up on my previous blog post over the collapse of Woodford Investment Management and how to avoid dud managers, the focus has now turned in the national media upon Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.). Investors who have lost a lot of money, and now won’t be able to get their remaining cash out for some time, are looking for who to blame. Neil Woodford is one of course, but what about investment platforms such HL? The Woodford Equity Income Fund was on ...
18th October 2019 Read more

Another Update on the SVS Special Administration

Since my last update, there have been several significant developments: Leonard Curtis have published a "Statement of Proposals", setting out their plans for returning client money and assets A creditors' meeting has been held and a creditors' committee has been appointed Scammers have been trying to defraud SVS clients Another firm, Reyker Securities, enters special administration   Avoid the Scams Sadly, in cases like this, scammers will often prey on the worries of clients of failed firms, suggesting that clients might lose all or ...
14th October 2019 Read more

An Update on SVS Securities

On 5th August the FCA announced that broker SVS Securities had entered Special Administration. Once again, as in the case of Beaufort Securities, this is a situation that will cause great concern and, at a minimum, some inconvenience, for SVS clients. Whilst a firm is in special administration, clients are not able to trade securities held on their behalf, or access money held on their behalf, including dividend payments. It is disappointing that it has taken until 12th September for clients to receive ...
14th September 2019 Read more

Broker Charges, Proven VCT Performance Fee and LoopUp Seminar

The Share Centre are the latest stockbroker to increase their fees. The monthly fee for an ISA account is going up by 4.2% to £5.00 per month with increases on ordinary share accounts and SIPPs also. This is the latest of a number of fee increases among stockbrokers and retail investor platforms. The Share Centre blame the required investment in technology development and “an increasing burden of financial regulation”. The latter is undoubtedly the result of such regulations as MIFID II ...
9th June 2019 Read more

Chas Stanley Prices Crest Membership At Ridiculous Level

Charles Stanley have sent out a letter to all their customers who use Personal Crest accounts that in future they will be charged £504 per annum (inc. VAT). Although the company stopped offering the service to new customers some time ago, existing users have in some cases been paying nothing to be a Personal Crest member. They clearly want to get rid of all such users of their service, include those using the low-cost Chas Stanley Direct platform because £504 is ...
19th May 2019 Read more

Offer for Share Centre Canned and Changes at Charles Stanley

Interactive Investor Services have announced they do not intend to make an offer for the Share Centre (Share Plc – SHRE) as previously mooted. That’s probably a relief for users of that platform. But users of the Charles Stanley (CAY) broking services may have concerns as the company announced this morning that they are going to simplify and standardise their service to cut costs and improve the service to clients. Some staff will be cut but the impact on customers is not ...
9th May 2019 Read more

FCA Makes Platform Switching Easier

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today announced some measures to improve competition in the platforms market. Experienced investors who use electronic trading platforms will be well aware of the problems of switching to another provider if they are dissatisfied with the service, wish to move to a cheaper provider or for other reasons such as consolidating on one provider or spreading their risk over several. It simply takes too long to move “in-specie” holdings from one platform to another  ̶  ...
14th March 2019 Read more

Missing Dividends

I talked about having too much cash in my ISA and SIPP accounts in my last blog post. But in fact it’s not as much as it should be because dividends on my ISA holdings in JPMorgan Japan Smaller Companies Trust (JPS) did not arrive as expected. They should have been paid on the 7th November, and were on my direct holding on the register but not on my ISA ones. The ISA ones are held in two different ISA accounts ...
22nd November 2018 Read more

Too Much Cash, Wey Education and Patisserie Accounts

Are you stacked up with cash in your ISAs, SIPPs, and direct portfolios? As a dedicated follower of fashion (if the markets are falling as investors sell, then so do I) it is of some concern that the cash is not earning any interest. There was some relatively good news yesterday from soon to be listed A.J.Bell Youinvest. They are increasing the interest they pay on cash held in portfolios. Previously you got 0.05% on balances more than £50,000. It will ...
22nd November 2018 Read more