So on our last p&o cruise I got talking to a fella. He told me if you buy 100 carnival shares the main benefit is on board credit. Carnival own a few cruise lines. A 14 night p & o cruise you can get £150 on board credit. Bought 100 shares in May £7.75 each. Of course main reason is on board credit so the price of the shares are now £12.50.
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So if you sold those shares now you will have made £475 less the broker fees. That’s your next 3 cruises and the £150 extra spending money covered and your money back. Planning holidays further ahead than that is a bit presumptuous because people, tastes and circumstances are always changing; and that £150 credit won’t be worth as much then as it is now.
Haven't been on for a while and notice the interest in alternatives to HL. I finally switched to them this year, having been a customer since 1991. I've moved to Interactive Brokers, the US discount broker.
Main benefits - lower/comporable admin fees, despite having to pay a separate SIPP administrator - lower trading commissions - typically £3 for a UK stock, usually $1 for US and sometimes free, no minimum volume - much, much lower fx costs - they effectively allow you to run a multi-currency account and switch between ccys at bank rate; Consequently, I'm still booking US trades at $1.30/£; and, e.g. buying, say, 10k of Microsoft for $1.02 fees all in. - decent interest on cash balances; e.g I've been getting 4.83% on dollar deposits for months - diret market access means I generally get a much better price than I would via HL (thought see below) - incredible reporting and risk management - professional level but easy to understand, e,g. will chart your holdings allocations again a benchmark and show where you are out- and under-performing that benchmark on a really easy to understand 2-d chart - proper performance reporting and all sorts of nuggets like it will project your dividend income and give you bundled access to all sorts of fundamental analysis and news
Disadvantages - you have to wait the 2 days for a stock to clear and settle before you can use that cash - a lot of people might find the interface complicated, though the web interface I think is pretty clear (difficult one for me to judge, as I spent most of my adult life designing and building trading systems) - having to set up a separate SIPP admin - aggro initially but worth it in the end - some illiquid UK stocks are a little clunky to trade - direct market orders can sit there all day; whereas HL (and IG) take on the risk on your behalf immediately. - you have to pay for market data, but then the data is better and it's always been refunded with maybe 2-3 trades a month.
Comments
Main benefits
- lower/comporable admin fees, despite having to pay a separate SIPP administrator
- lower trading commissions - typically £3 for a UK stock, usually $1 for US and sometimes free, no minimum volume
- much, much lower fx costs - they effectively allow you to run a multi-currency account and switch between ccys at bank rate; Consequently, I'm still booking US trades at $1.30/£; and, e.g. buying, say, 10k of Microsoft for $1.02 fees all in.
- decent interest on cash balances; e.g I've been getting 4.83% on dollar deposits for months
- diret market access means I generally get a much better price than I would via HL (thought see below)
- incredible reporting and risk management - professional level but easy to understand, e,g. will chart your holdings allocations again a benchmark and show where you are out- and under-performing that benchmark on a really easy to understand 2-d chart
- proper performance reporting and all sorts of nuggets like it will project your dividend income and give you bundled access to all sorts of fundamental analysis and news
Disadvantages
- you have to wait the 2 days for a stock to clear and settle before you can use that cash
- a lot of people might find the interface complicated, though the web interface I think is pretty clear (difficult one for me to judge, as I spent most of my adult life designing and building trading systems)
- having to set up a separate SIPP admin - aggro initially but worth it in the end
- some illiquid UK stocks are a little clunky to trade - direct market orders can sit there all day; whereas HL (and IG) take on the risk on your behalf immediately.
- you have to pay for market data, but then the data is better and it's always been refunded with maybe 2-3 trades a month.