Selling shares advice

[garystu1965]

Hi,

I have a couple of shares certificates that I am ready to sell.

What's the cheapest/quickest way to sell ?

They are worth about £20,000 at the moment and someone at work says it's best to get them transferred to an online trading account first but it will take a few weeks.

The shares have been accumulated through a regular works savings scheme. Would I have to pay stamp duty on them.

Someone says you can trade for only £20 a transaction but the leaflet I got for one company says 1% transaction fee. That sounds a bit steep.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[wemorgan]

I use Hargreaves Lansdown.
Here's their share dealing charges.

 

[Rory]

For a one off deal your bank might easiest.

I used Barclays Stockbrokers (don't bank with them) a few years ago and they sold Canadian shares on a fax of the certificate, and I then had to mail it up them.

Stamp duty only on purchases.

 

[carnut]

If you have the certificates you can walk into any high street broker ( not bank) ( see Yellow pages for your area) and sell them almost immediately; if you cant do that then your bank is most likely to be the easiest and possibly the cheapest option ( eg HSBC online banking) but can take up to 15 days before you can trade.

Bearing in mind the volatile market the change in price over time can be far more than the brokerage charge!

Do you really want to sell right now?
do you want to sell fast?
then go for the fastest and forget the charge...2 shares of a total of 20K will not incur much in a % charge compared with the probable price change over the time you will take doing the deal

 

[Smiley]

Brokers hate the paper certificates these days so I would think you will pay about £200 commission to sell like they are. Cheaper would be to transfer them to a nominee (ie on line) account. To do this you will need to set up an on line trading account with either your bank eg HSBC or with an on line trading facility eg Hargreaves Lansdown. Google for others. The trading fee will then be about £15. The beauty of that would be that you could afford to sell a proportion of them without incurring hefty charges if you consider the current price to be low.

If this is all in one stock and it represents a big proportion of your assets then you are right to sell even if you want exposure to shares - you should then invest some or all of the money in a good fund of shares to spread the risk. Dont be like the guy who had his entire life savings in Bradford and Bingley shares!

 

[rf065]

Given the current financial climate, I would hold on to them until at least next year if you want the best price. Albeit, you have not said what shares you hold, so they could also be worthless by then.

When to sell is always a difficult decision and requires a lot of thought and just as much luck.

Russ

 

[garystu1965]

Given the current financial climate, I would hold on to them until at least next year if you want the best price. Albeit, you have not said what shares you hold, so they could also be worthless by then.

When to sell is always a difficult decision and requires a lot of thought and just as much luck.

Russ

The shares are in a Pharmaceutical company.

 

[crockers]

Usually seen as a defensive stock in times like this...............along with tobacco...