How to Buy BP Shares UK – Beginner’s Guide

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Based in the UK and looking to buy shares in BP (British Petroleum)? If so, you’ve got numerous FCA-regulated brokers to choose from. In this article, we show you how to buy BP shares in the UK.

Find a UK Stock Broker

BP is listed on the London Stock Exchange, so you will need to find a UK broker that gives you access to FTSE 100 shares. You will need to look at a range of metrics before signing up – such as how much the broker charges, what payment methods it accepts, and whether or not your money is safe.

To help you along the way, below you will find three popular UK stock brokers to buy BP shares from.

1. Plus500

Are you more interested in ‘trading’ BP stocks? If so, you may wish to partner with a CFD trading platform like Plus500. Plus500UK Ltd is authorized & regulated by the FCA (#509909) – and its parent company is listed on the London Stock Exchange. On top of BP share CFDs, Plus500 gives you access to thousands of other instruments. This includes UK-listed firms, as well as those based overseas – all via CFDs.

As you will be trading stock CFDs, you will not own the underlying shares. Instead, you will be speculating on which way you think the price of BP will go. As such, you will have the ability to go both long and short. Additionally, stock CFDs at Plus500 also permit leverage of up to 1:5 (more on other asset classes). So, a £100 balance would allow you to trade £500 worth of BP share CFDs.

Plus500 also offers a user-friendly trading platform that can be accessed via your web browser – so there’s no need to download or install any software. When it comes to pricing, Plus500 offers commission-free trades on all stock CFDs, and it costs nothing to deposit and withdraw funds. Minimum deposits start at £100, which you can do with a debit/credit card, Paypal, or bank account.

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2. IG

IG is a UK broker that offers both share dealing services and stock CFDs. So, if you want to purchase BP shares and benefit from regular dividend payments, you can do so. IG charges £8 per trade for new accounts.

You can get this down to £3 per order if you placed at least three trades in the prior month. If you want to trade BP shares with leverage – or you want to short-sell the company, IG permits this via CFDs. Regardless of which investment stream you go with, you will be using one of the longest-running brokers in the UK space.

Launched in 1974, IG holds licenses with several regulatory bodies – including the FCA. Accounts can be opened from £250, and supported payment methods include a UK debit/credit card or bank account. Finally, the platform also gives you access to more than 10,000 equities across dozens of stock exchanges.

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Open an Account and Deposit Funds

Once you have selected a UK stock broker that meets your requirements, you will need to open an account and deposit funds before you can buy shares. As such, we are now going to show you what you need to do to get started today.

To get the ball rolling, head over to your broker’s home page and elect to open an account.

Then, you’ll need to provide the following personal information:

• Full Name
• Home Address
• Date of Birth
• National Insurance Number
• Email Address
• Phone Number

FCA-regulated brokers will now be required to collect some verification documents from you.

This will include your:

• Passport or Driver’s License
• Recent Utility Bill or Bank Account Statement

In terms of payment methods, most brokers accept the following:

• Debit Cards
• Credit Cards
• Paypal
• Skrill
• Neteller
• UK Bank Transfer

How to Buy BP Shares

Once your account has been funded, you can then buy BP shares straight away. The easiest way to do this is to enter ‘BP’ in the search box at the top of the page. Once you see BP load-up, click on the ‘TRADE’ button.

Then, you will be presented with an order box. This allows you to specify how much you wish to invest, and at what price. As such, all you need to do is enter the amount you want to invest in the ‘amount’ box, before confirming the position.

Overview of BP Shares

As the name suggests, British Petroleum – or simply BP – is a multinational oil company with its headquarters in the UK.  Launched in 1909, the firm is now a publicly-listed company – meaning that you can purchase its shares with ease. Although BP also has a presence on both the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, the company’s primary listing is on the London Stock Exchange.

Due to the sheer size of the wider organization, BP forms part of the FTSE 100 index. In terms of the company’s stock performance, this has been hit and miss over the past couple of decades.

Not only did this result in fines of just under $19 billion for BP, but its share price declined by almost 50% in the space of just two months. Much like the vast bulk of the oil and gas industry, BP has been hit particularly hard by the global coronavirus pandemic. While its stocks were trading in and around the 480p-mark at the turn of the year, BP shares went as low as 222p in Q1 2020.

With that being said, BP had been paying a rather high dividend yield until the coronavirus pandemic came to fruition. This exceeded the 10%-mark, which did well to offset some of the losses encountered by a dropping share price. However, its most recent dividend payment of Q2 2020 was cut by two-thirds.

Why Do People Invest in BP Shares?

On the one hand, investor sentiment around BP shares has been anything but positive in recent quarters. Sure, the coronavirus pandemic has hit the wider oil and gas industry hard, but it hardly performing well before this.

Conclusion

In summary, BP shares are worth just a fraction of what they were before the infamous Deep Horizon Oil Spill of 2010. In response, management has been upping the ante with a super-generous dividend policy that peaked at a staggering 10.2% yield.

Sure, this had to be cut by two-thirds in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the impact of the virus has affected the entire oil and gas spectrum. Ultimately, it’s important to do your own research and determine whether you believe BP will return to the lofty heights of 2010.

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