International Investing in the LSE/FTSE

Hi, thought I'd start a thread for anyone who invests in the UK stock markets or is interested in doing this. I have a monthly income in the UK which I use to buy UK shares. I try and buy "dividend dogs" and higher income payers rather than shares which will increase in value dramatically (although both is nice) as I am not planning to sell these shares but to keep them and use their income as part of my retirement income. This also avoids triggering CGT events.

FTSE investing for people not resident in the UK can be a problem, I have found that the company SVS securities (www.svsxo.com) is very cheap and easy for me to trade shares, to be allowed to have an account there all I needed was a UK bank account.

So far I have met with mixed success, one of my picks has gone up by 30% in 6 months, others have gone down, but they are all good dividend payers and right now I am getting over 5% yield from the portfolio as a whole. I have included some ETFs in the mix also.

So if anyone would like to join in this discussion, post away!

JB

 

JB, Good strategy. Some nice non cyclical / consumer staples dividend growth stocks on the LSE including Unilever, British American Tobacco, SABMiller and Diageo. I typically own LSE stocks by US ADRs but in future may add some direct holdings in the future. Keen to see your ideas.

 

The holdings that I currently have in various quantities are - BKG, GSK, LRE, MKS, RB, RDSB, RTO, STAN plus the ETFs VUKE and VMID. I reinvest all dividends. Your purchase of Unilever was always a consideration but as I already own GSK I wanted to diversify. BAT I have looked at, also Imperial Tobacco, but I just don't feel comfortable investing in a tobacco company regardless of the statistics. Diageo was also one I considered and might still consider for a future purchase.

JB

 

Mostly in cheap (less than 0.3% fees) FSTE 100, 250 trackers, a bit in corporate bonds, and a smaller bit in individual stocks -
LON:SSTY LON:GLE LON:FRP LON:CGS LON:FLK LON:BMT LON:IPO LON:SAF LON:TON LON:NG LON:CIC

Current watchlist

LON: PTD LON:VGAS LON:RPT LON:QED

 

Juts to tie this into the ETF/LIC and High Yielding Shares threads (without intending to go off topic): I remember attending a Peter Thornhill seminar in 2009. IIRC he didn't believe Intl exposure was a requirement for Aus investors BUT he had ties to the UK and I believe some funds left over there and was looking with some interest at (not recommending) City Of London Investment Trust, an Investment Trust (closed end fund), reasonably high yield with slowly increasing dividends for 45+ yrs in a row and a relatively low MER of approx 0.35%

 

From my understanding there isnt an Aussie ETF that covers the FTSE?

 

Good stuff JB. Fair enough re Tobacco stocks, you will need to sell VUKE though to stay consistent, BAT is its 4th largest holding I'm starting to do a little work on Glaxo at the moment, has some challenges for sure but looks cheap.

@The Butler , had a looks ok but it's run by Henderson (HGG.ax) rather than internal management. Will dig around a little more. From what I understand though, the UK listed trusts are quite similar in approach and management style to our LICs. Not like US closed end funds which almost universally seem to suck.

@radson IEU seems to closest option ( euro 350) but not ideal at all.

 

I won't tell anyone if you don't!!!!!

Pleased to see that one of my "dividend dogs", BKE, has been promoted to the FTSE 100 : "In UK market news Berkeley Group will become the latest house builder to join the FTSE 100 following the quarterly reshuffle of the indices which will see it replace Weir."

JB

 

@The Falcon Yeah I have IEU and was topping up during the Greek 'crisis. It's interesting that we can get ETFS for SIngapore and Taiwan and not UK.

 

Indeed..and South Korea wtf. I imagine these are very thinly traded!

 

007 do you have a UK address and citizenship? Or is more required?

 

Hi @Heinz57, I have UK citizenship, but in order to trade shares with SVS all I needed was a UK bank account. I do not have a UK address.

Currently I am keeping UK revenue/cost completely seperate from AUS revenue/cost.

JB

 

Looks like a FTSE ETF is on its way

https://www.vanguardinvestments.com...ernational-fixed-and-regional-equity-ETFs.jsp

 

Nope. Don't confuse "FTSE" as used here, being the London bourse, with "FTSE" the index operator. Those ETFs are just using FTSE indices for Europe and Asia ex JP. Much like one can buy FTSE RAFI ASX200. There is still no UK specific ETF on the ASX unfortunately.

 

ah ok..my bad.

 

Resurrecting this older thread.

I have plenty of share investing experience on ASX but none with direct investing overseas.

Looking at investing in at least one investment trust eg CTY (at opportune times) listed on LSE. Will be going through local online broker NABTrade. International trading account currently being setup.

Anyone got any advice or tips on this?

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi. Do you have a UK bank account? If so you can trade on the FTSE with svsxo.com at only £7.95 per trade which is a lot cheaper than trading in Australia.

JB

 

No unfortunately. Want to keep it simple with local trading bank account even if a little more expensive. NABTRADE's fees seem quite good, basically the same as local trades. The exchange conversion fee on trades and dividends will no doubt have an impact but also appear competitive.

INTERNATIONAL ONLINE TRADING FEES:
... Up to and including $5,000.00 = $14.95
... $5,000.01 - $20,000.00 = $19.95
... Over $20,000.00 = 0.11% of trade value

Custody:
... No trades per year = 0.50%p.a. of average daily balance over past year, payable monthly
... 1+ trade per year = Free

AUD equivalent for both trade value and brokerage rates

EXCHANGE RATE
In respect of any foreign exchange conversion NAB undertakes on your behalf, NAB may charge you a spread.

Currency Fee
All International trades will incur a foreign exchange conversion spread of between 0.50% to 0.80% of the trade transaction value.

From Whirlpool Forum:

So seems like NAB might be ok.

 

I am also with Nabtrade @austing but when I checked yesterday, it seemed I wasn't able to buy investment trusts like City of London CTY:LSE because they aren't on the Nabtrade list. Maybe they're available if you call?

 

Oh,

I just rang them. The operator I spoke to didn't think so either. But is going to check with their International area on Monday. Sometimes due to tax complications certain listings are excluded.

If it all gets too hard I think I'll give the UK LICs a miss. It was only going to be a small part of the portfolio anyhow so if it's not simple to manage it's not in. I'm always thinking of my other half as well in case one day she might have to manage the finances.

Will wait to see what the outcome from NAB is but doesn't look promising.

NOT HAPPY, I can feel a Grump attack coming on.