Share Dealing: How To Buy Shares From The Stock Market

You’re here because you want to know how to buy shares from the stock market. The easiest and cheapest way to buy shares is online from a ‘share dealing platform’ (see platforms to try). These platforms allow you to buy shares from listed companies.

Once you have an account, you can search for the company you want to buy stock in. You can buy and choose a quantity or value. You’ll just need to deposit money into your share dealing account to cover dealing charges and total cost of the shares. A breakdown of the transaction should be given prior to buying the shares. Once the transaction has been processed the stocks will be added to your portfolio.

It’s important to note that stock prices are live. This means they can change slightly between submitting the order and the confirmation. Be prepared for slight variations. A stocks price is determined by supply and demand from prospective buyers and sellers. There can be a surge is a stocks value on any given day because of the increase in demand or supply.

In short, you can buy shares from stock markets around the world by opening a share dealing account or general investment account. Once you can build up a portfolio of individual shares from stock markets.

It’s also worth bearing in mind, using a platform to buy your shares means that rather than directly purchasing the shares yourself, you pay the platform to buy them for you. This often comes with the benefit of being able to purchase fractions of shares, which you might otherwise have found too expensive to do.

However, a side effect of this is that usually the shares are legally owned either by the platform itself or a nominee company, and you become what is known as a beneficiary owner.

As you are not the legal owner of the shares, this means that, in the rare event of the platform collapsing, you wouldn’t have ultimate control over your shares. In this case, your assets (for example: shares, funds) would either be transferred to another broker or sold and the cash returned to you.

For this reason, most platforms keep your assets separate from theirs – known as ringfencing – so that, in theory, they wouldn’t be able to touch them even if they went bankrupt.

Selling shares is just as easy as buying them. Each platform’s website will work slightly differently, but the principle is the same for each.

When selling, you can choose either number (for example, sell 500 or all shares) or value (sell £500 worth of shares). Once you place the deal, you will be shown a quoted price for the sale of the shares, though again this can vary between getting the quote and the sell order being carried out. Any money you have made from the sale will show in your shares account.

Before looking at share dealing platforms, it’s worth you knowing that you can invest up to £20,000 in a stocks & shares ISA. Doing so means you’re sheltered from various taxes that are often charged on investments made outside an ISA. For full details, read the Stocks & Shares ISA guide.

As a beginner investor wanting to buy shares from the stock market, you may want to choose a platform that suites your needs. For example, some of the platforms such as Fidelity have higher fees per trade but this would potentially be cheaper than paying a % commission fee. if you are buying £10,000 of stock in Amazon or Apple this would cost you £7.5 on Fidelity. On the other hand if you paid a 0.35% commission fee it would cost you £35.

What is the best platform for buying shares from stock the market? This is comes down to personal preference. Personally, after testing out some of the platforms. My personal favourite share dealing platforms are either Lightyear or Freetrade. This is because their fee structures are the most clear. I feel comfortable using the platforms knowing that there are no hidden costs. The user interface of these platforms are also great, so I know exactly what I am investing in.