All you need to know to buy and sell shares

Buying and selling shares online

There are many companies that offer online share trading services. To use them you must set up an account with them. Once you have done this, you can buy or sell shares at any time directly through their websites. Some of these companies, such as Barclays Stockbrokers or NatWest Stockbrokers, are high-street names that run their own share dealing service. Others, such as Fastrade are independant companies who simply exist to help people buy and sell their shares on the Stock Exchange. Typically these services charge a small commission fee for each transaction.

Buy and sell shares on the high street

Many banks and building societies offer a share trading service. This can be over the phone / by post, or by going into the branch. They offer pretty much the same service as the online traders, but without the simplicity of online access.

Current share prices

You can find out the current values of your shares on many websites. I find the least cluttered is the BBC website. The old-fashioned alternative is to look in a quality daily newspaper. Share prices are listed in large tables with complicated looking graphs surrounding them. The key is to know the unique code for your share's name.

What are shares?

Shares enable you to own a small part of a company. They quite literally mean that you "share" in the company's success of failure. If the company does well, the value of your share will increase, but if the company does badly, the value of your share will fall. Share prices are also influenced by the prevailing economic situation. Buying shares has an element of risk attached to it.

Companies usually issue shares to raise money. Once they have been sold, the owners of the shares are free to keep them, or to sell them to other people on the stock market. If you keep your shares, you can potentially benefit from company dividends and from the value of the share going up. A dividend is an amount of money paid out for each share from the company profits, usually on a twice-yearly basis.

It is claimed that 10 million people in the UK currently own shares. Investing in shares is best seen as a medium or long-term prospect. To reduce risk, it is typically better to have a small number of shares in many companies than a large number of shares in one company.

Page last updated on 11th December 2006