Own a stake in companies large and small
Direct share ownership can bring you worthwhile returns as an 'owner' of the company you could see the value of your shares rise or fall! and can get a share of the profits too.
Through your Selftrade account you'll be able to buy a stake in UK and overseas companies, and buy and sell other types of shares Exchange Traded Funds and Commodities for instance that work like shares but give you the benefit of a broader investment.
Not all companies are equal they come in various sizes (from the UK's biggest in the FTSE100 index, to smaller, typically newer companies traded on the AIM or PLUS markets).
In this section of our site you'll find details of which companies make up various Indices and Sectors: click on the Index or Sector name to see a comprehensive summary, its performance and the constituent companies.
Plus, our Share Selector enables you to find individual companies that match your preferred criteria, from a simple name search to a combination of different criteria.
Search for individual companies >Our International Markets section gives you the opportunity to trade in leading European and international shares. All are dealt in sterling and settled through the UKs CREST system so its just as easy as dealing in UK shares. Some are tradeable online just look out for the trade now tick (
) against the company name whilst others (indicated by the 
symbol) are traded directly via our dealers.
Companies are grouped into various indices as a measure of the overall performance of the market, ranging from the best-known Footsie (the FTSE100) grouping the UK's 100 largest companies based on their market capitalization, to the FTSE Fledgling Index which groups the smallest.
As well as being a useful way of tracking performance over time, Indices provide a way of 'benchmarking' one company's performance against its peers.
Another useful way to compare companies is by sector. Here groupings are made not on size but on business activity: the market is divided in 38 different sectors. It's also useful to compare one sector with another because at different times and in different economic conditions some will perform better than others.
Who's who:
Exchange Traded Funds, despite their name, are not Funds at all, but shares continuously traded on the London Stock Exchange just like any other share. But there the similarity ends, for ETFs track the performance of the indices, sectors or asset classes they follow, in much the same way as a Tracker Fund would but generally at lower cost.
Similarly, Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs) enable you to invest in gold, oil, agriculture even 'lean hogs' - without having to buy and store those commodities.
What's available:
Permanent Interest Bearing Shares are similar to Bonds in that they pay holders a fixed rate of return. Issued by Building Societies, they are traded on the London Stock Exchange in the same way as other shares although typically have a minimum investment level and are priced in pounds rather than pence.
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Selftrade is a trading name of Talos Securities Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA Register number 208271) and is a member of the London Stock Exchange and PLUS Markets plc.
Data Sources: AFX, Bondscape, Dow Jones, FIDES, FTSE, LSE, Morningstar (conditions apply)