InvestEngine: Portfolio Investing For The Long-Term

Free trading apps have opened up the stock market to many first-time investors. But what happens when the initial surge of enthusiasm fades, and these newbie investors realise that chasing the latest hot stock may not be the route to riches they hoped?

InvestEngine reckons that what many savers really want/need is the accessibility and low costs of app-based investing plus help to build and manage an investment portfolio for the longer term. Launched in 2019 by Simon Crookall, who previously co-founded Gumtree, the classified ads website, InvestEngine is carving out a distinctive proposition in the online investment space.

Here are 4 need-to-knows about InvestEngine…

A Free DIY Investing App AND an Ultra-Competitive Managed Portfolios Service

InvestEngine DIY is a commission-free investment app which, unusually, also has no account charges (even on its tax-free ISA). It offers a choice of more than 150 exchange traded funds (ETFs) handpicked for their low costs and quality by InvestEngine’s investment experts. (Note that as with any investment platform, the ETFs have their own annual charges and buy/sell market spreads.)

If DIY investing isn’t your bag, InvestEngine also offers a Managed Portfolios service where it builds and manages a portfolio of ETFs to suit your risk level. For this ‘leave it to the experts’ service there’s a management fee of 0.25%, a very low price point that undercuts most robo-investment and portfolio management services out there.

Portfolios Not Punting

With InvestEngine’s Managed Portfolios service, an online questionnaire assesses your risk appetite and then suggests an appropriate investment portfolio for you.  The InvestEngine DIY platform also helps users spread their investment risk and build a diversified portfolio for themselves. It gives access to best-in-class ETFs which provide instant diversification in their specific markets, avoiding the risk of picking individual stocks and shares.

And users are encouraged to think in portfolio terms by setting percentage weights for their chosen ETFs, equally weighting each ETF in their portfolio, or having more in some ETFs and less in others, according to their personal preference. These portfolio weights then come into their own with the platform’s innovative investing features.

Innovative Investment Features

InvestEngine offers a number of market-leading innovations in the DIY investing space, with its ‘smart top-up’ and ‘one-click rebalancing’ features especially worth checking out.

Its smart top-up automatically invests new cash based on the weights you’ve set in your portfolio. And what’s really smart is it prioritises the ETFs that have become underweight as a result of the stock market’s ups and downs. The effect is to bring your portfolio back towards your chosen allocation, helping you stick to your investment strategy.

Meanwhile, one-click rebalancing allows users to reset their portfolio’s investments to their chosen weights without requiring extra cash, automatically creating the right combination of buy and sell trades to bring their portfolio back into line.

For Small Businesses as Well as Individual Investors

While most investment platforms and apps are focused on individual investors, InvestEngine is also available to limited companies and partnerships who want to make more of their business cash.

InvestEngine’s Business Account has the same ultra-low charging structure as its tax-free ISA and Personal Account for individuals. Businesses also benefit from a free LEI (Legal Entity Identifier) number for the first year.

Want to find out more? You can give InvestEngine a try via web or app and earn yourself a £50 Welcome Bonus when you create your first portfolio (minimum investment is just £100).

With investing, your capital is at risk. Investengine (UK) Limited is Authorized and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority FRN [801128]