Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:19:27 +0100
From: GSV Three Minds in a Can 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: FTSE tracking ISA advice

Bitstring <4b3iifFuroqiU1@individual.net>, from the wonderful person 
Simon Finnigan  said
>Hi all,
>I'm looking to invest a regular amount of money (about £50 a month at the
>moment) into a FTSE tracker ISA.  It is with the intention of being a long
>term investment, at least 5-10 years, with the expectation that it will
>continue longer term than that.  I'm looking for advice on the best tracker
>(i.e. one from a company that is well administered, easy to deal with and
>has low charges). I'm a customer with the Halifax and would prefer to stick
>with them for the ease of logging into one place to keep track of all my
>money, but this is not essential.  I have not currently invested any money
>into any form of ISA this year.
>
>If it helps, I am a civil servant and a member of the prospect union, which
>seems to favour Liverpool Victoria for financial matters.  Due to my job it
>is difficult to get onto the civil service portal, hence the request for
>advice.
>
>Anyone able to point me in the direction of the best deal?  Checking on fool
>shows L&G and Fidelity, with Fidelity offering the lowest charges.  Are
>there any better companies to go with/

You may find even lower charges on the Edinburgh Fund Managers UK 
Tracker Investment Trust - the downside being that the shares can sell 
at a discount to NAV (or indeed a premium). However do you really want a 
tracker .. cheap, yes, since a tracker can be adequately managed by a 
mentally impaired rodent, however you =will= have invested in all the 
large, overpriced, companies which subsequently come a cropper - even it 
you track the FTSE all share, an unreasonable proportion is in half a 
dozen large companies. If you track the FTSE 100 it's even worse.

-- 
GSV   Three Minds in a Can
Google may be your friend, but groups.google.com posters definitely aren't.