Rob Morgan, Charles Stanley Direct Chief Analyst On Being Voted Best ISA 2026

Holly Mead (00:03)
Welcome to Good Money Guide. My name is Holly Mead and today we’re joined by Rob Morgan, Chief Analyst from Charles Stanley Direct, which has just been voted best stocks and shares ISA provider in our 2026 investing awards. Hello. Are you very excited to have won an award?

Rob Morgan (00:17)
Hello, Holly.

We’re really excited, really excited. And it’s fantastic because this is an award that’s voted for by clients. It’s based on real client experiences. So, you know, very happy with that. And it’s a real reflection, I think, of all the hard work that’s gone into Charles Stanley Direct behind the scenes.

Holly Mead (00:38)
So for the uninitiated, do want to tell us a bit about Charles Stanley Direct and what sets you guys apart while you’ve been picked for this award?

Rob Morgan (00:46)
Yeah, well, I think we are, ⁓ we have an esteemed history at Charles Stanley and we do have a great deal of dedication to looking after clients. And I think when people are choosing a platform, it’s easy to think that the universe is very sort of homogenous in terms of the options that are out there. And I think we do stand out in terms of that personal touch and that customer service. And

We do really reward customers through consolidation as well. one of the benefits of using child standing direct is the more money that you have on the platform, the better deal it is essentially because you’ve got a £600 a year cap. It doesn’t matter how many different accounts you have, SIP, ISA, general investment account, it all comes under one cap, which is different actually to a lot of platforms. And we also don’t segregate charging structures between funds and shares.

So again, there can be a cost saving there. And we’re also one of the few providers to offer a flexible ISA, which is ⁓ of great benefit, I think, to people like entrepreneurs and ⁓ maybe a property developer or somebody like that who has a short-term need or an opportunity for taking money out of their ISA account and then replacing it, you have to do so by the end of the tax year.

but we’re one of the few providers that offers a flexible ISA which allows withdrawals and replacements without people losing their ISA allowance. So there’s little ⁓ nuances to the service like that, which I think probably fly under the radar, but they’re very, very important to people who use the platform. And finally, I’d add that we’re more than just a platform. Charles Stanley is also very well known for advisory.

services and wealth management as well. And we can offer that and we offer a stepping stone into that as well through our financial coaching service, which is conducted by real financial advisors and they will help you with any particular problem that you’ve got or you want to talk something through and they can signpost advice where necessary. But also it’s a sounding board if you need to go that extra mile and ask

a professional some questions.

Holly Mead (03:09)
So I Charles Stanley is one of the older players in the platform market, distinguished, if you will. ⁓ In the time that you’ve been there, what have you seen change in the way that your customers invest? know, the areas they’re interested in, the way they’re doing it.

Rob Morgan (03:26)
So I think probably the biggest change is moving from desktop to app. So when we launched the app, clearly there weren’t that many trades going through sort of mobile devices. It’s now about 25 % and it’s increasing all the time. So people are migrating to that as a means of trading and viewing their accounts. So that’s probably the biggest change. I suppose in terms of the investments themselves,

There’s definitely more international share dealing. So people more interested in US stocks than the UK. Charles Downey has obviously an esteemed legacy in stock breaking that goes back a very, very long time as one of the founding members of the London Stock Exchange. But increasingly, people are looking abroad and portfolios becoming more diversified into international stocks as well.

Holly Mead (04:17)
Now one thing that won’t have changed is we’re coming up to the end of the tax year and there’s going to be that flurry of people going, I haven’t used my allowance up. Where are people going to be putting their money this ISA season?

Rob Morgan (04:28)
Why is it a question? And they don’t have to make a decision right away. They can open or top up their ISA as cash and then make a decision later. I mean, what’s popular is certainly in the recent past has been tracker funds. So S &P 500 trackers or global trackers and that sort of thing. But I’m starting to see a little bit of change in the pattern of behavior and people are considering other markets like the UK and Asia and emerging markets as well.

Because there’s been a bit of an upturn in performance and people have started to realize that it’s not all about the Magnificent 7 in the US, there are other markets out there so they’re looking to diversify their portfolios.

Holly Mead (05:07)
You’re chief investment analyst, so we have to ask, where are you investing this ISA season?

Rob Morgan (05:13)
Well, Holly, I run a diversified portfolio and that’s, I’m sorry, a very boring answer. But ⁓ I do have a bit of everything. I mean, I suppose if you were to pin me down and say, what is the opportunity out there right now and where would I be looking to top up? I do think the UK is looking good. It’s had a good run, but actually in the small cap, in the small companies, ⁓ there’s not been much of an uplift at all. So…

And a lot of areas have sort of benefited from that rotation out of US stocks. I think UK large cap, Japan, Asia, that sort of thing, and Europe. But UK small caps really haven’t sort of moved. And clearly there’s some domestic issues to perhaps explain that. But there is definitely some value there. So that’s where I’d be looking.

Holly Mead (06:02)
And are you a last minute Lowry or do you drip feed in through the year?

Rob Morgan (06:06)
Well I try and put as much as I can in when I can, so I am a bit of a drip feeder but I tend to do it as sort of lump sums as the year evolves. ⁓ And try not to leave it to the last minute because anything could happen. ⁓ And particularly this year because Easter ⁓ coincides with the end of the tax year so it’s definitely important to get your ducks in a row before that.

Holly Mead (06:27)
All your eggs in a basket. All your eggs Down with the Easter analogy there. So I won’t put you on the spot anymore about where you’re investing this year, but I think we need to know some of your best and worst investment calls over your time.

Rob Morgan (06:40)
Yeah,

that’s a good question. There’s definitely been some good and some bad. And some really bad. I suppose, starting with worst, and we have to rewind here a very long way because it’s one of my first investments that I ever made. And that was in a single share back in 1999. And yeah, you know where I’m going with this. So it’s the dot com era. The boom, the bust.

Holly Mead (06:44)
Pretty bad.

Rob Morgan (07:08)
So I invested a thousand pounds ⁓ in a single stock that was floating in a little technology company and within weeks it was worth three or four thousand pounds. Such was the crazy sort of momentum in that market at the time. And I thought, fantastic, this investing game is pretty easy. And I then didn’t take any profits and I watched that the value of that share collapse to

I think probably around £50. Ouch. Yeah. It was a painful lesson.

So I think that probably taught me, okay, ⁓ momentum can work for a while, but if it’s not rooted in sort of fundamental value, then you can outstay your welcome. so, yeah, maybe my best one will probably be allocating to sort of under the radar areas, cheaper areas in a diverse portfolio, but keeping on the conviction when those areas are out of favor. And the one area that I have topped up…

Probably slightly controversially over the years is gold mining funds. So for a long time the gold price did absolutely nothing and I had this little position in my portfolio and I thought to myself, well these stocks are so out of favour. The gold bullion price itself is out of favour. There will be an uplift at some point. So I have consistently run that position ⁓ over the past three years.

that’s paid off and I’ve been able to take some decent profits finally. I have indeed.

Holly Mead (08:48)
And you’ve taken the profits this time. learn

it. Okay. Let’s take the heat off of you for a minute. What’s one of the most common investment mistakes that you see people making time and again?

Rob Morgan (08:59)
Yeah, I think it’s probably relying on past performance. So I think that’s really understandable because if you’re not sure what to buy, you turn to what’s done well in the recent past. But I do often think that, you you’re sort of giving exit liquidity to somebody else who’s already made a profit on that. And that can work for a while. Momentum can run a long period of time. But also some of the best opportunities come from things that are under the radar.

that are not being looked at. I think it’s being open-minded. Have something in areas that have performed well and have a widespread, but also look for areas that haven’t done so well and whether there’s some opportunities in there. And I do see portfolios sort of populated with ⁓ either stocks or funds that have done really, really well recently and particular funds in certain sectors.

and they’re all kind of aligned with each other. And I think that’s probably the mistake that people make and they end up with a, ⁓ you know, a portfolio that’s all facing one direction.

Holly Mead (10:04)
It can also end up quite sprawling as well. If you keep that looks good. I’ll have a bit of that, a bit of that. And before you know it, you’ve got more holdings and you can actually monitor.

Rob Morgan (10:12)
That’s the stamp collection syndrome that I call it. You’ve got to have something in every sector. You don’t have to do that. And I always think that 10 to 20 funds is actually better than 30 to 50 funds.

Holly Mead (10:28)
like Pokemon cards, but for investing. yeah, you need the shinies, obviously. And so one thing we do know that is important in investing is fees because they into our returns. Is fee pressure still on for ISA providers?

Rob Morgan (10:30)
Exactly, you want the powerful ones.

Yeah, I think it is. It’s a very competitive ⁓ marketplace out there, which is why we have what we think is an excellent and transparent charging structure with a clear fee cap that’s across each and every account. So it’s sort of fully clear as to what you’re getting. But yeah, the marketplace is extremely competitive, absolutely. So make sure, absolutely, you’re getting the best deal from your provider.

Holly Mead (11:13)
Do you worry ever that it’s almost gone too far the other way though and people are blindly choosing funds because they only cost six basis points without thinking sometimes it’s better to pay more?

Rob Morgan (11:25)
Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to sort of active management, ⁓ you know, the fees that you pay are very, important, but it’s not the be all and end all because it’s really important that you’re getting the asset class and the expertise of the manager that you want exposure to in that asset class. I think the fee pressure clearly for passives is going to be, ⁓ you know, much more mechanical. And we’ve seen that with providers just lowering their charges.

fund providers. And with active as well, there’s a knock on effect because they’re then competing against passives. But you’re always going to get that situation whereby if they haven’t got scale, it’s very, very difficult to charge anymore because otherwise they’re making a loss on the product. yeah, ultimately it comes down to what you as an investor are going to want. But yeah, certainly some products are going to be subscale and they’re not going to be competitive.

in terms of overall OCF because they’ll end up having fixed costs that are such that the assets under management aren’t enough to absorb all of that and you’ll get a very high percentage charge on them. And those sorts of products are something that should be avoided by people.

Holly Mead (12:43)
Now we are talking about ICES today and there’s been a few changes announced over the last few months to ICES. We know that the amount you can put in cash is going to be limited soon. We know that a lifetime ICES is being ditched. There’s potentially a new ICES going to be created. How do you approach that from a provider’s perspective? Because that constant chopping and changing, not only have you got to change your own offering, you’ve got to communicate that to clients. How do you approach that?

Rob Morgan (13:11)
I mean, we just have to roll with it. It’s down to, you know, what is the policy at the time? And I think there’s sort of second or third order consequences to this cash ISA thing, for instance, that people aren’t going to be able to invest potentially in money market funds and lower risk products, which seems like a, you know, ⁓ a very poor outcome for people who do want to de-risk in stocks and shares ISAs. So yeah, we have to adapt to the landscape.

And as a provider, as an industry, we have to do that. which is why actually being a platform in a very tightly regulated and ever changing landscape isn’t an easy thing. We have to be prepared for it.

Holly Mead (13:56)
And you mentioned money market funds there, but also earlier you spoke about, you know, keeping some powder dry if you don’t know where to invest yet, just get the money in the ISA. But I wonder if it’s going to change that as a strategy as well.

Rob Morgan (14:07)
Well, possibly, possibly. And certainly it’s not a good idea to hold onto cash for any length of time in a stock and shares ISA for the longer term. And that’s why there’s a cash ISA product out there. But yes, the rules may change regarding that because at the moment you don’t have any time scale by which you have to invest that cash. It’s entirely up to you. But yeah, we have to wonder what the mechanics of that will be. Will we

Will we be forced to tell people to invest that money? And we don’t know the answer to that yet.

Holly Mead (14:42)
Do you think it will, obviously the idea behind that is we need to get more people investing. Yeah. government thinks by limiting cash that will achieve that. What do you think?

Rob Morgan (14:54)
I that change on its own won’t make too much difference, to be honest. It’s a nudge rather than anything else. I mean, if it came with other measures, then perhaps, but I don’t think it makes an investor out of someone just because you remove a product from the landscape. You have to change the mindset as well because probably someone will look to premium bonds or some other cash product before they do investing.

without actually some other push into investing. I think, I mean, this is the thing about money market funds, actually, they’re almost a gateway into investing. if someone was in a position where they couldn’t invest in a cash ice because of a new limit, then if they said, if we were allowed to say, okay, well, there is this investment which is cash-like, that would introduce them to…

a whole new world of investment platforms and they would see the products that are on offer and they would be able to make a choice, an informed choice about whether they do want to up the risk ante or whether they want to stay safe in a fund. And it would kind of force that decision a little bit more granularly. yeah, I hope that we are able to keep at least some low risk products available to people that

provides a sort of alternative to cash in stocks and shares ices for that reason.

Holly Mead (16:22)
What’s one thing you think could be done to encourage more people to invest? No pressure. So solve public policy here.

Rob Morgan (16:30)
Yeah,

I mean, I think that’s something that’s obviously on the minds of a lot of people. It is difficult because if we compare the culture of the UK compared to the States, equity ownership is so commonplace, and even compared to this country, know, I’m thinking in the sort of 1980s and the 1990s, it takes that sort of catalyst of something happening.

around privatisations or something like that to get people interested and engaged. So has to be something I think quite big that changes people’s mindset. Because we have been beating the drum for a very, very long time. But if we can sort of get behind capital markets a bit more, encourage more listings on the London Stock Exchange ⁓ and actually have a ⁓ campaign whereby we extol the virtues of the UK market.

and the reasons behind backing UK businesses. I think that would go a long way.

Holly Mead (17:29)
Okay, we’ll get off of policy now. So if 2025 was the year of gold and AI, what are going to be the biggest themes this year in investing?

Rob Morgan (17:39)
Well, I’m tempted to say Trump in one word, it’s a theme in human form. I think it’s probably emblematic of a wider trend of what’s going on, which is a more siloed world. So we have a sort of Eastern trading bloc and a Western trading bloc, and it’s a fragmentation of supply chains and of political alliances. And that’s upending the

Holly Mead (17:42)
He is a theme.

Rob Morgan (18:07)
not only the commercial world, but the investment world as well. So increasingly that’s offering up opportunities. think the increasingly people are questioning the dominance of the US in terms of investment returns. And we’ve already started to see that. So I think that’s probably the theme ⁓ of this year and maybe beyond as well is people thinking beyond the United States and the dominance of those big tech companies and trying to branch out into

other areas and other opportunities. Because if we think about all the money that’s been sucked into that AI ecosystem, and it’s not just public markets, it’s private markets, it’s debt markets as well. Even if a bit of that money gets redeployed elsewhere, that moves the needle in a big way for other areas. So I would see that as the biggest trend out there.

Holly Mead (18:58)
So anyone using their Charles Stanley app, I think we all get into a rut with apps and just do what we know. What’s one feature or thing they could be doing with their app that they might not be to have a more successful investment experience?

Rob Morgan (19:12)
Yeah, it’s a good question. think it relates to sort of the opportunities that are out there. I do see a lot of portfolios that are dominated by the same themes. There’s a lot of US and global tracker products, but it’s just understand that the universe of investments are out there. There’s literally thousands of funds that out there. There’s probably too many funds to be perfectly honest with you, but there’s…

a whole world of different investment opportunities. There’s investment trusts that can be very specialist. There’s all sorts of different fund sectors and it’s being very open minded to the different sources of returns that you can get from different elements and different types of investment and different styles. And yeah, don’t have all of your eggs in one basket.

Holly Mead (20:00)
I mean, it’s hard, think diversification is almost harder than ever because of that US dominant. So someone might have a US tracker and a global tracker and tech fund and think they’re fine and they’ll actually own the same stocks three times over.

Rob Morgan (20:14)
That’s right. That’s the illusion of diversification, whereas kind of you’re all crowded on one side of the boat with that ⁓ combination. But that’s a combination that I see quite often in client portfolios and in portfolios that I look at from a ⁓ submission to a newspaper or something like that, an article. So it is commonplace and it’s because people have got confidence in that.

it’s really important to diversify and look at other areas that are less in the spotlight and ⁓ that aren’t over-roamed.

Holly Mead (20:53)
So for someone who is looking to improve their investing or just money knowledge, what’s a book you always like to recommend?

Rob Morgan (21:01)
There’s so many good investing books. I think the one I would pick out is one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, who was a very, very successful fund manager at Fidelity in the US in the 1970s. And he wrote a book, it’s a bit dated now, but it has some important lessons. He’s got loads of practical advice in terms of selecting stocks and how to categorize companies. But more than that, he encourages people to think, where have I got an edge?

and actually has kind of some encouraging advice around private investors having an edge over the professionals. Often the professionals sit in their ivory towers, poring over figures and company reports and that sort of thing. But actually as a person out in the world or specializing in their own particular industry, people can have a real edge in understanding what’s going on in the front line. And using that knowledge, you can actually be ahead of

the trends, whether that’s through your kids ⁓ having a new product that they’re interested in or whether it’s something in retail or maybe it’s something in the industry that you work in. And I think that’s a really, really important lesson to invest broadly, but also if you’ve got specialist knowledge, use it.

Holly Mead (22:20)
Yeah, think there’s that invest in what you know idea isn’t there and obviously you can’t put everything in that, but yeah.

Rob Morgan (22:29)
So I suppose I’d be more likely to invest in a financial services company because I know the landscape. equally, if you work in pharmaceuticals or oil or something like that, you’ve probably got quite a bit of knowledge about that industry. And if you’re not already investing in that, it’s something you probably have an edge in without even knowing.

Holly Mead (22:51)
So overall, if you had to give people one tip or piece of advice to be a better ISA investor, what would that be?

Rob Morgan (23:00)
well, it’s very difficult. think probably comes down to ⁓ the biggest mistake that I see, which would be sort of relying on past performance. So don’t go on that. Actually go on a ⁓ look at a wider range of kind of ⁓ investment opportunities beyond that, because I think fixating on that is going to be

you know, detrimental to you for the long term. You’ll make much more use of your ISA allowance if you do that. And secondly, don’t take too little risk when you’re too young. I think that’s probably a mistake I made myself. And you probably, if you’re still building up your ISA portfolio, you can be quite aggressive, but equally don’t take too much risk when you’re ⁓ about to draw on that money or might be ⁓ about to draw on that money because, you know, that’s when you need to start really thinking about tempering risk and lowering the volatility.

So adapt your risk for the age that you are.

Holly Mead (24:01)
So you mentioned before Charles Stanley directs been around for a while, but this is an industry that’s constantly changing and evolving. what is coming up for the company out any features you’re adding or doing.

Rob Morgan (24:12)
Yeah, so we’ve got open banking starting on the app, which we’ve ⁓ introduced. And yeah, we’re constantly upgrading that as well. And we’re going to be doing a lot more. I can’t tell you too much more about that. But yeah, constantly working, improving, and ⁓ also making sure we’re fully competitive as well.

Holly Mead (24:37)
Well thank you so much for your time and congratulations again.

Rob Morgan (24:40)
Thank you so much, it’s wonderful to have this award.

Holly Mead (24:42)
Thank you for joining us. And if you are a Charles Stanley Direct customer or have any thoughts, then do head to the Good Money Guides review page and let us know.