Reviews on A J Bell

A question about : Reviews on A J Bell

Evening,

Following my last post on here, I have shortlisted A J Bell to manage my ISAs. At the moment, I have funds with HL and with my plan to move into ITs, I am looking to

1. Sell all my funds within the HL ISA to have Ј22k in cash
2. Initiate a cash ISA transfer with AJ Bell
3. Once transferred, bulk invest Ј22k across 3 or 4 ITs
4. Start regular monthly IT investments through A J Bell

AJB dont have any account management fees for ITs except for Ј1.5 regular investment charges. In addition, if I ever decide to move back into funds, they charge just 0.2% compared to HL's 0.45%

While I have read comparisons and internet reviews, I wanted to ask the experts here about AJB's services in terms of portfolio analysis showing geographical split, record of previous investments etc similar to what HL have and probably what AJB does not provide. I know they dont have dividend reinvestment yet but that is fine by me

Thanks
DV

Best answers:

• I have a SIPP with them with a bunch of ITs, funds and individual shares.
  I don't worry about the divi reinvestment because as you say, you can set up monthly purchases in a range of funds or largecap shares or ITs for Ј1.50 a pop. So if I get Ј50 of divs here or there I won't necessarily want to buy Ј50 of that specific fund or share anyway, I'll just roll it into my next purchase of whatever I was going to buy that month. It is very easy to set/ edit the monthly purchases to just do a different thing each month and if you have enough cash on hand it will execute and it not it won't. So you can just set to buy Ј100 of ABC Trust PLC and it may fail two or three times before finally executing when you have over Ј100 in your cash account so you only pay the Ј1.50 once. Pretty easy.
  The portfolio analysis is pretty basic, I use excel to track my own dealing. For research they have a link to morningstar services. From your porfolio listing (which just shows for each line of stock the total cost, current value, total Ј up/down, total % up/down, % up down today), you can hit the xray button and the morningstar tool will do a look-through.
  It will have the same flaws as other tools though in that some of your holdings particularly if you are using investment trusts will be 'other' or 'unclassified'; for example all of my APEF, all my Harbourvest, half my Henderson Value Trust, 60% of my Advance Frontier, 20% of City Natural Resources, 14% of Ruffer etc just says it's Other rather than shares or bonds. You'd inevitably get that with HL too of course.
  With some spreadsheets and export of my transactions listing or cash account (export to CSV is dead easy) it's relatively easy to do my own IRRs or cash multiples etc as well as track income if needed, but a bit time consuming. I am not really one for relying on the provider's tools. The table of data in the portfolio summary doesn't tell me for example when I first invested, just that it's up X%. I prefer to see my own figures that it's up X% but in context has done that in half the time of the investment above. Of course, if you only have 4 IT holdings rather than 30+ portfolio components with a load of individual shares, your information needs are not going to be astronomical.
  The mobile dealing app generally works OK given the limited screen area in which you're working when on a phone - although occasionally crashes and is not designed to access all parts of the site (e.g. amending regular purchases you need to be logged in to the full site).
• Never used HL for anything other than an IPO purchase, so direct comparison is difficult other than the fact I would say the AJ Bell interface is more basic. No fancy graphics/fonts, just clear info.
  I use AJ Bell for my S&S ISA investing monthly into ETF's and IT's purely due to the low cost (Ј1.50/trade and no custody fees). It's very easy to search and select your choices for monthly reinvestment and provided the cash is in your account before midnight the day before, the trades will just happen automatically and you get a message with the transaction receipt.
  When I opened my account I transferred in from a cash isa (nationwide). It required a form to be completed and posted off. I was emailed when they received it and again when the transfer was complete. Took around 10 business days.
  Dividend payments just sit as cash once paid, so can be reinvested as part of your regular monthly selection, so doesn't bother me at all that it's not automatic. In fact, I prefer the flexibility.
  Overall very happy with them and think they are hard to beat for regular investment.
• I use A J Bell as my ISA manager too.
  Their website is pretty basic and has a few quirks you have to put up with. But if you're investing for the long term you will struggle to find another provider with their low fees.
  Their portfolio analysis and research tool is a"white-labelled" version of the Morningstar portfolio tool. They have a feature called x-ray that looks at all the holdings in your portfolio and sees what the fund/IT/ETF's underlying investments are. It then has breakdowns by exposure to Regions, Asset Type, Industrial Sectors and Investment Style (Growth/Blend/Value)
  As a newbie I can't post links but you can google:
  morningstar uk portfolio xray
  The only flaw is that the reference data for some funds can be missing or iffy. Especially the case for a lot of my ETFs where it doesn't know what the underlying investments are and puts them in an UKNOWN sector/region. Not sure about how good their data for investment trusts is.
  Overall I'm happy with A J Bell because of their charges, range of investments and in spite of their website.
• I use sippdeal and have done for 7 years, started with my small sipp and then transferred my husbands large sipp, which I manage. I buy and sell shares within the sipp and I am very happy with them and their share dealing service. I vested the sipp for my husband in 2009. The website is fine and share dealing is problem free. I am happy with them. I don`t need any additional info from them as I use my own charting/portfolio software
  I had a problem or two right at the beginning but I e mailed Andy Bell and had prompt replies, no problems since. Charges are low. The ifa, who we had for one year prior to joining sippdeal, wanted to charge 6%, sippdeal charge peanuts
• Thank you all for the detailed reviews. Clearly A J Bell can meet my needs for the immediate future. I initially looked at T D Direct but since I am moving to ITs there wasnt a lot to pick between the 2 platforms. But AJB only charges 0.02% compared to TDD's 0.03%
  Onwards to AJB and good bye HL
  Cheers
  DV
• Thanks for the reply bowlhead99
  1. Yes, TD Direct have expanded their scope of regular investments and support a very similar list of ITs compared to AJB
  2. I have gone through the entire list of supported ITs that AJB provide for monthly investment and it meets my needs
  3. Thanks for pointing out that AJB charge for buying and selling a fund. If I go down the route of investing monthly in funds then this will prove costly even if their annual platform charges are 0.03%
  4. If I transfer from HL I will do it as a cash transfer. The horror stories of 2 platforms working together to move funds across is not something I want to live with plus many of funds with HL are are their negotiated TERs which adds to the complexity. Cash transfer out is my best option, quick and fewer hassles
  I will PM you when I confirm my transfer, happy to giver your referenced and sharing the spoils if you wish to
  Cheers
  DV