Best Share Dealing Accounts Compared & Reviewed

There are a number of UK investment providers that offer execution-only share dealing, including:

• • Hargreaves Lansdown
  • AJ Bell
  • Interactive Investor

Yes, it’s possible to have a joint share dealing account. However, not all providers offer this.

Some brokers that do offer joint dealing accounts include Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, and Interactive Investor.

Yes. Historically, shares have delivered excellent returns for investors over the long term.

There are two main ways of making money from shares. The first way is through increases in stock prices. If you buy a share and its price rises, you can sell it for a profit. For example, if you buy one Amazon share for $3,000 and Amazon’s share price rises to $3,500, you can sell it for a $500 profit (less trading commissions). This is known as generating a capital gain.

The second way you can make money from shares is through dividends. Dividends are cash payments that companies pay to their shareholders out of their profits. Not all companies pay dividends to investors but many well-established companies such as Unilever, Diageo, and GlaxoSmithKline do. Dividends can be a good way to generate passive income.

One of the easiest ways, however, is to simply invest in great companies for the long term. This is the approach that many top investors such as Warren Buffett and Terry Smith take.

The best shares to buy depend on one’s financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon.

Those who have a long-term investment horizon and are risk tolerant may wish to consider investing in growth stocks. Growth stocks are those whose underlying companies are growing faster than the market average. Examples of growth stocks include Amazon, Tesla, PayPal, and ASOS.

The advantage of investing in growth stocks is that they can generate very high returns. Tesla, for example, delivered a return of around 700% in 2020 alone. On the downside, growth stocks can be quite volatile at times. This means that there’s a higher chance of incurring losses in the short term.

Those looking for portfolio stability and/or passive income may wish to consider investing in dividend stocks. These are stocks that pay their shareholders’ regular dividends. Dividends are cash payments that are made to shareholders out of profits. Examples of dividend stocks include Unilever, Diageo, and Legal & General Group.

One advantage of investing in dividend stocks is that they offer two potential sources of return – capital gains and dividends. This means that it may still be possible to profit, even if share prices are falling. Another advantage is that they tend to be less volatile than growth stocks. The downside to investing in dividend stocks is that typically, they don’t generate high returns.

When building a share portfolio, it’s important to look outside the UK market and diversify internationally. While the UK stock market offers some excellent investment opportunities, it only represents around 4% of total global stock market investments, and many of the world’s most dominant companies such as Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon are listed overseas.

Further reading: What are the best UK shares to buy and trade in?

There is no difference between stocks and shares. They are the same thing. Although, shares are mainly and English term, whilst stocks is more American.

Yes. It is important to note that the price of shares can go up and down and there is no guarantee that just because a share has gone up in the past, it will continue to do so.

The most direct way to buy shares is via a share dealing platform, whose business is to transact share dealing efficiently for customers. If you don’t want to pick shares, it is best to buy an index fund with a wide basket of shares.

The main cost of buying shares is the shares themselves. However, there are three types of costs associated with buying shares:

• Commission
• Account fee
• Stamp duty

A share dealing portfolio is the collection of stocks that you hold across your accounts. How you structure your portfolio will depend on your circumstances. For example:

• Cash flow – do you need cash out of the account every year?
• Budget – do you wish to invest regularly, say, adding a pot of money every six months? If the sum to invest is too small, watch out for fees that might eat up all your returns.
• Capital losses – what is your loss tolerance? If you dislike wild swings in your portfolio, sticking to more ‘boring’ sectors may be more appropriate.
• Knowledge – do you have a lot of knowledge in any particular area/sector that can be capitalised on? Sometimes, you can find great stocks while working in a niche area.
• Time to research – if you have no time to research companies, find someone else who knows.

The answers to these questions will set the broad perimeters of your stock investment operations.

If you do not want the hassle of picking shares or balancing your portfolios, you might be better off just buying a few ETFs that track the broad stock market, such as the FTSE 100 ETF (ISF) or S&P 500 ETF (SPY) or a managed portfolio through a robo-advisor.

With a share dealing account, you can:

• Place orders to buy and sell shares.
• Monitor your portfolio. You’ll be able to view all your holdings and your profit and loss figures.
• Access investment tools and research. Most platforms today offer some form of research, along with investment tools such as financial data and charts to help you make investment decisions. However, research and tools vary, depending on the provider.

Buying and selling shares through a share dealing account is typically quite straightforward. Every share dealing platform is slightly different, however.

To buy and sell shares, you will first need to fund your account. This can usually be done online through a card payment. Once your account is funded, you will have the ability to place trades.

Note that shares can only be bought and sold when the stock market is open. For UK shares, this is between 8:00am and 4:30pm. Overseas markets have different trading hours.

With most platforms, you simply search for the company that you would like to buy shares in (e.g. Lloyds Bank, BP, Amazon, Apple, etc.) and click through to its page. Here, you’ll receive a quote for the stock.

Then, it’s a matter of entering the trade details, such as the number of shares you want to buy, and confirming the trade. Once the deal is completed, you’ll receive a contract note with all the details of the trade.

For example, let’s say you want to buy Lloyds Bank shares through Hargreaves Lansdown. The first step is to search for Lloyds Bank and then click through to its page.

Then, you hit ‘deal’ and enter the trade details.

Once you have entered the trade details, you click on ‘Place a deal’.

The easiest way to sell shares is through an online broker. Through this type of broker, you can sell shares in minutes. The costs associated with selling shares through an online broker are generally very low.

There are a number of reasons people sell shares. You may want to consider selling a stock if:

• You have made a significant gain from it and you would like to bank the profit.
• The stock’s valuation has risen to an excessive level.
• Your investment thesis has changed and the outlook for the stock is no longer as attractive as it was in the past.
• You need to rebalance your portfolio.
• You need the money from the investment or will need it in the near future.

It’s important to remember that shares are a long-term investment. Most financial experts recommend that you hold shares for at least five years. Generally speaking, the longer you hold your shares for, the better the chance of generating good returns.

In simple terms, it goes to the person who sells it to you. However, the process is more complicated as the stock exchanges provide an anonymous matching service known as the order book, where buyers and sellers can buy and sell shares anonymously. When you buy shares, you pay your money to your stock broker, who pays it to the exchange, who pays it to the stockbrokers of the sale of the shares, who pays it to the seller.

Through a share dealing platform, you can buy shares from companies in almost any country in the world. However, the majority of shares that UK investors will buy are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Most banks will provide a stock brokerage service. However, you will not be automatically signed up to it and will have to open a stockbroking account like with any other providers. There are some circumstances where buying and selling shares through your bank may be useful. For example, probate issues, or selling an old certificated share.

Share dealing involves buying and selling shares. Shares are investments that represent ownership in a company. When you buy a share, you become a part-owner of the underlying company and are entitled to a share of its profits.

CFD trading, by contrast, involves betting on the movements of share prices via Contracts for Difference (CFDs). CFDs are financial instruments that enable traders to profit from a stock’s price movements without actually owning the underlying stock. With CFDs, you can trade in both directions and also use leverage to increase your exposure.

CFD trading is much riskier than share dealing, particularly if high levels of leverage are involved. With leveraged CFD trading, even small price movements to the downside can lead to large losses.

Different types of shares exist for you to invest in. The two most common ones are:

• Ordinary shares – part-owner of the company with a vote in company matters, like compensation, merger and acquisition.
• Preference shares – owners receive dividends ahead of ordinary shareholders. Typically, preference shares carry no voting rights.

Normally, you would buy ordinary (common) shares.

Yes, you can buy commodity ETFs, which track the price of a commodity like gold.

You need a stockbroker to buy shares online.

The stock markets are most liquid around the opening and closing bells. This is when the most deals are done, which means there is more liquidity, which reduces the bid-offer spread, giving better prices.

With investing, it is generally considered a good approach to start as soon as you can. The longer you are invested in the market by buying shares, the greater your chances of increasing your gains over the long term are.

In theory, yes, but the price you pay for that share may well be less than the commission and costs of buying it.

The fastest way to buy shares is through a stockbroker that provides direct market access (DMA).

No, individuals cannot buy shares directly on the stock exchanges without a broker.

We have written a guide based on the best stocks for UK trading.

If you want to buy shares in a specific company, you first need to check that the company in question is listed on a stock exchange. The main stock exchange in the UK is the London Stock Exchange and consists of over 1,000 stocks from 100 countries. There are small exchanges such as the AIM Market, which has around 850 companies worth over £104 billion.

Once you have chosen a company listed on the London Stock Exchange to buy shares in, you need an account with a stock broker to help with the purchase.

Yes, we provide a list of trading signals that may indicate that a UK share is worth buying, including:

• Shares that have recently had a daily breakout
• Shares that have recently climaxed (either at the top or bottom of a range)
• Shares that have recently displayed a “hi-lo” pole
• Shares with an overextended point and figure spike or tail
• Shares that have a short or medium-term reversal signal
• Shares with a recent moving average crossover
• Shares that are trading at 52-week highs
• Shares that a trading a 52-week lows