Absolute Beginner. S&S ISA questions

[JMAngel1]

Vanguard seems popular reading on here but Trading 212 seems to get rave reviews?
Once I decide on the platform, how do I go about deciding on which companies to buy shares from?
Is it cheaper to choose them myself as I understand if I go with a managed fund, charges will apply. Or are both of these platforms DIY with no managed funds?
If DIY, can someone point me in direction of a good simple website that will help me choose where to invest?
Thank you!

I think the first step is to decide what you want to invest in and then decide which platform is best suited to that. The platform charges vary. Some may be cheaper for shares and more expensive for funds.

Vanguard only allows you to buy vanguard funds, not individual shares. Trading 212 does but last time I tried, it wasn't open to new customers.

Both are DIY in the sense that they don't offer financial advice but if you choose to invest in funds, there will be underlying costs associated with them (fund managers don't work for free). These are taken out of the fund rather than charged directly to you.

Having said that, if you choose funds that take a passive approach (just buying all the shares in a particular index without assessing how each company is going to do) the management charges are minimal, usually

Thanks very much.

If you've never invested before I'd STRONGLY suggested you don't go straight into shares.

Stocks go up and down a lot on a weekly or daily basis. Many people get burnt once and never come back. Take Netflix as an example. A lot of people would look at this as an established, well know and growing business. Foolproof first investment right? It is currently down 38% in a month....

Investing in funds is a better place to start. Put a few hundred quid into a couple of tracker funds investing in different regions and get a feel for it first. This spreads your investments around - you'll still have a little bit of Netflix stock, but you'll also have everything else in the index to balance things out.

Try to invest little and often - another very common mistake is that people invest a lump sum and then never add it. You need to keep paying in to smooth things out and ensure you keep the discipline of buying assets even when markets are down.

Costs are almost irrelevant for you at this stage. Even the most expensive providers are charging roughly 0.5% for the platform fee. So that's £50 a year on a £10k investment. You could cut that cost down to 0.2% or less with a cheaper platform but it's only a saving of £30 you'd make. Worrying about charges is a red herring when you'd getting started. The more important thing is getting a provider you find easy to use and that is comprehensible to help you get started.