Want to buy shares but dont know how

[Careradvice2019]

For the mumsnetters that know about shares ... I know absolutely nothing about where to start in buying shares but the market I'm interested in will continue to grow and grow and grow..this I believe is fact ... however, the particular company I want to invest in has quite good growth expectations.. I dont want to invest much .. very little in fact, about £200 as a safe gamble but I do believe the company has the potential to do quite well, also.its American so I dont know about taxes etc.I've looked at Hargreaves Lansdown as a potential (trader /broker / .. see what I mean i dont know what I'm doing .... how do I go.about buying shares in.the particular company and should I do.it blind and by myself .. I don't want to miss out like I did with bitcoin when I wanted to invest about 3 years ago. I've been watching this company with interest and projectors show in 1-3 years it could increase by 72 percent.
Shares I think at the moment are worth about $27 to buy and i could invest about £500 but would like to play it safe with about £200.

HL is an easy option to get started. You pay fees per transaction so the more you buy, the lower the fees as a % of the transaction. On tax, if you are uk taxpayer, you will need to fill out self assessment to declare dividend income over the allowable threshold and to pay CGT over the allowable threshold. Fill out a W8BEN to expect you from US tax.
Out of interest, what is the company you are looking to invest in.

I'll cut to the chase:
If you don't know how to buy shares, you are not ready to by shares.
#200 Is a ridiculously low amount to invest anyway. Even if your anticipated gain of 72% were to materialise, most of it would be eaten up by charges.
Educate yourself about the stock market, by all means. But as a novice investor you'd do better by drip feeding into an Index linked unit trust.
Look at Virgin, Halifax, Legal & General, AJBell as possible platforms via which to invest. Moneysavingexpert, Moneysupermarket and Lemonfool are websites that provide information about investing in equities.

You can use your share ISA account then you don’t need to pay tax. HL is a good platform for beginners.

So long as you can afford to lose the money, I don't see the need for snarkiness, go for it (ofc don't go investing your life savings or anything you can't afford to lose!). I'm by no means an expert and it's not my only savings/investment vehicle but I have a few shares here and there, it's fun to put in small amounts of money (that you can afford to lose) to specific companies and see them grow/decline.

What you want OP is a self-invest stocks and shares ISA so you don't have to pay tax on any interest earned (so long as you haven't maxed out your ISA allowance already). Here is a good article on the best ones out there, HL is not a bad choice but it depends on how many transactions you think you'd be making.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/stocks-shares-isas/

Once you have the ISA set up and you have deposited your cash, you should simply be able to search the company name (so long as they are publically listed of course) and purchase/sell/track your shares pretty easily - the account should have a help function/how to guide if you can't immediately work it out.

Do look into other more stable savings/investment accounts as well of course for your main savings, if you haven't already.

@maxelly what a brilliant and generous reply! Wow

I haveshare dealing Account with Halifax, takes a couple of weeks to set up if I recall but easy to transfer money in and buy or sell in seconds.

I do agree that 500 isn’t much as you pay fees to buy and sell.

I have just cashed all my employer sharesave schemes in as the option to buy price was twice as much as the current crashed price per share.

I then used the funds and bought shares at the lower price in my company.

Hi,
Im also thinking to start investing in shares. Just very basic questions. Do we always need an investing bank account to buy shares? Can I do transaction with current account?

Hargreaves Lansdowne carried on plugging Neil Woodford's funds to their investors long after the sensible money had moved out.

Interactive investor is a good platform to use as well. I use that as well as HL ( to maximise tax free element of stocks add shares ISAs)
I would say only use money you could afford to lose and don’t invest money that you May need to take out at a certain time because if the market drops and you HAVE to cash in you could lose quite a bit.
You also need to be vigilant and keep an eye on things, maybe download the Yahoo Finance app. For example I sold most of my shares just before the big drop at the beginning of lockdown and if I had left it a few days I would have lost quite a bit of money

@FlowerArranger

Have to disagree. They might know a lot about the company but not how to buy the shares. Everybody needs to start somewhere and a £200 start seems like a sensible way to go about it.

I have a stock and shares Isa with Moneyfarm and I also use Freetrade to invest in stock that I pick myself ,you can start with just a few £ to get your head around it.
Monevator and Moneysavingsexpert are great to get free information.
If you want to sign up to Freetrade you get a free share worth up to £200 when you deposit some money if you use the referral code below
code=Y7VB57FXF7 sender=ZMtccwdh
Feel free to send me a dm if you want more info.

Agree with above.
If you don’t know how to buy a stock, then a single company prospective stock is not a good way forward.
It not being harsh, it is the reality. Either buy a low cost tracker fund, or out £10 on 50 long shot horses.

After dealing charges and stamp, even with a 72% increase, your gain will be minimal. Very little upside with huge downside.

I would also ignore all the spammer with their ‘free’ codes.

Set up with HL or AJ bell for free.

First of all @fromdownwest I am not a spammer!
The OP is free to do her/his research and choose a platform that suits best. I have researched different companies (AJ Bell and HL included) before choosing where to invest my money and Freetrade was the best platform FOR ME as I can invest in ETFs and single companies stock. We can just give the OP some advice out of our own personal experience but at the end of the day the decision to take the plunge or not and which company to use it lays with her/him. What I don't appreciate is been called a "spammer" by someone that doesn't know me and what I am about!

I recommend Vanguard.
I put in 300 a month, they have very low fees,
The stocks are from the top 100 In the FTSE. 100. You dont have to guess which companies are going to do well.
Easy -easy and I’m not a business guru, husband found them and raves about them
Think the guy who devised it is on Utube doing a talk which explains the methodology

@windmill26 - Relax, it was merely a comment.

Just took a look at your 'recommendation' a flat fee of £3 p/m.

So the op would be paying 1% fee per month? I appreciate that they should do their own due diligence, but recommending a flat fee platform for someone investing £300 does not appear overly transparent. It's not like you would get anything out of the referral code I imagine.

@fromdownwest I am relaxed .I don't appreciate been labelled a spammer.
The £3 p/m is the fee for the stocks and shares ISA ,the basic account to buy shares is free.

Freetrade; Free Trades ,Free Basic Account ,Free Exit Fees

and this is why I called it spamming...

Agreed , this is spamming mine is not.

I consider any link there the poster gets some kind of kickback should be considered spam. OP do your own research but be mindful that people suggesting links where they benfit are going to be biased. In fact if I were going to use one of them I would signout bypassing their referral link out of general principle.

I started investing a few months ago. I was shocked at the amount you need to invest to make it worthwhile. I use interactive investor but the prices are similar for most platforms I looked at. Basically the platform fees are £10 a month (including one trade, other trades £8). So even if you just use the monthly trade you need to make £120 a year to break even. Since dividends are such low percentages you need a big investment to make it worthwhile.

MoneySavingExpert has a guide to opening a stocks and shares ISA here.

I use Interactive Investor. I like the mining shares, Fresnillo, Rio Tinto, Kaz minerals, etc because they go up and down and up and down with the commodity prices.