How to Buy Standard Life Aberdeen Shares UK – With 0% Commission

Standard Life Aberdeen plc is the largest fund manager in the United Kingdom, with over £540 billion in assets under management. This company has a long and storied history of investing in a wide variety of assets, including shares, real estate, private markets, and more.

Yet despite the recent surge in global markets, Standard Life Aberdeen shares have been stuck in park since crashing in March. To be sure, the company’s share price has recovered from its spring lows, when the COVID-19 pandemic sent the London Stock Exchange tumbling. But Standard Life Aberdeen shares remain more than 50% below their price at the start of 2018.

So, is it a good idea to buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares right now? In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about buying Standard Life Aberdeen shares and show you how to get started with a top online broker.

Step 1: Find a UK Stock Broker That Offers Standard Life Aberdeen Shares

Standard Life Aberdeen plc is part of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. As a result, it’s hard to find a UK broker that doesn’t let you trade shares of this company.

However, your choice of broker should be about more than just whether or not you can buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares. You also need to consider whether your broker charges account fees and commissions, which can eat into any profits from your investment. We only recommend 100% commission-free stock brokers with low trading spreads.

In addition, it’s important to consider whether you can buy shares outright, engage in CFD trading, or both. Long-term investors typically opt to buy shares since there are no rollovers or overnight fees involved. Short-term traders may prefer to buy Standard Life Aberdeen share CFDs since they can be traded with leverage and are highly liquid.

Finally, make sure to give any prospective broker’s trading platform a thorough test run before committing. It’s important to make sure that you’ll have access to user-friendly charting software, a mobile trading app, and news and research to help you trade.

With all that in mind, let’s take a closer look at two of our top recommended brokers you can use to buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares in the UK:

1. Plus500 – UK CFD Broker with Tight Spreads

Plus500 is a widely used and much-loved CFD broker that offers trading on more than 600 share CFDs and a handful of ETFs. All trades are 100% commission-free, and Plus500 offers some of the lowest CFD spreads we’ve seen from any UK broker. That makes it especially suitable for traders who want to keep all of their profits, instead of giving up a significant share to the brokerage.

This broker’s trading platform doesn’t have a huge number of tricks up its sleeve, but it covers the basics well. The charting interface is easy to get started with and offers around 90 technical studies. You also get access to an economic calendar, a news feed, and the occasional piece of analyst research.

One of our favourite things about Plus500 is that it comes with very advanced price alerts. You have a lot of flexibility in setting alerts, and they can be pushed to both the web trading interface and to the Plus500 mobile app. That makes it easy to trade on the go, especially compared to brokers that only offer alerts on your computer.

Pros:

Cons:

72% of retail investors lose money trading CFDs at this site

Step 2: Research Standard Life Aberdeen Shares

Before you jump into buying shares of Standard Life Aberdeen, or if you’re considering similar shares like Legal and General, Eaton Vance or JP Morgan, it’s important to do your research on the company’s past performance, current valuation and future forecast.

Standard Life Aberdeen shares have been declining since before the coronavirus pandemic, so there’s more to this company’s story than just a single bad year. We’ll take a closer look at Standard Life Aberdeen shares to help you decide whether they’re a good buy today.

Standard Life Aberdeen Share Price History

Standard Life was first established as an independent insurance agency in 1825, and 100 years later re-established itself as a mutual assurance company. For most of the 20th century, Standard Life was a multi-purpose conglomerate. It had a health division, a banking unit, an insurance arm, and an investments division. However, after going public on the London Stock Exchange in 2006, the company began to sell off most of its non-investment divisions and increasingly acquired investment units from competitors.

In 2015, Standard Life pivoted decisively towards investing. The company announced that it was establishing its own wholly owned fund and financial advisory service. In 2017, Standard Life became Standard Life Aberdeen when it merged with rival Scottish financial services firm Aberdeen.

Standard Life’s share price reached an all-time high shortly before the merger with Aberdeen. Share cost 557 pence apiece in mid-2015 amid the shift to being a financial services company. Shares fell to a trough of 298 pence the following year, but recovered to as high as 500 pence in the wake of the merger agreement.

Since the merger was completed though, Standard Life Aberdeen has faced difficult questions from investors and a gradual erosion of interest. The company announced that it was selling its foundational insurance business in 2018, and then later that same year announced that it was seeing enormous outflows from its investment funds.

The outflows continued unabated into 2019 – over the first half of the year, Standard Life Aberdeen saw clients pull nearly £16 billion out of its investment funds. At the beginning of 2020, the company’s shares were trading around 330 pence.

Investor sentiment soured even more with the global financial panic that set in at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. Standard Life Aberdeen shares fell to just 210 pence in March. They recovered to 280 pence as the stock market recovered, but fell again to just 240 pence per share last summer. Today, Standard Life Aberdeen shares trade for just 276.5p – around 15% below the level they traded at prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Standard Life Aberdeen EPS, P/E Ratio & Market Capitalisation

Standard Life Aberdeen is one of the largest public companies in the UK and is part of the FTSE 100 index. The company has a market cap of £5.35 billion and controls more than £540 billion in client assets.

For 2019, Standard Life Aberdeen reported an earnings per share (EPS) of 19.3 pence and a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.94. This is somewhat expensive compared to the average price-to-earnings (p/e) ratio of 21.18 for the FTSE 100. Today, however, the shares carry a P/E ratio of just 7.30 – making them look like a bargain.

Standard Life Aberdeen Shares Dividend Information

Standard Life Aberdeen is generally considered a good dividend stock. The company has paid a dividend since 2006 (for Standard Life, prior to the merger) and it last raised its dividend in 2018. The dividend is currently paid twice per year, with the end-of-year dividend payout roughly double the interim payout.

The dividend yield has varied with Standard Life Aberdeen’s share price, but it has never fallen below 4.5%. At the current share price, the dividend yield is a whopping 5.3%.

Should I Buy Standard Life Aberdeen?

Standard Life Aberdeen’s woes have been made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, but they started long before the global shutdown and market crash. At the current discounted price, however, an increasing number of analysts and investors point out that this fund manager could be an undervalued stock.

So, should you buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares? We’ll dive into the bulls’ case for this company.

Impacts of Coronavirus on Standard Life Aberdeen

Standard Life Aberdeen had already been shedding share value before the coronavirus pandemic. However, when the markets crashed, so too did the value of Standard Life Aberdeen’s funds. At the same time, panicked clients pulled money out of the company’s funds, which dramatically cut back fund management fees.

As a result, Standard Life Aberdeen was hit hard by the pandemic. The share price dropped precipitously, from 325 pence to 177 pence at the bottom of the crash.

The company’s shares have recovered somewhat since March as sentiment around the global market and analysts’ future outlooks have improved. However, Standard Life Aberdeen remains somewhat subject to the market’s volatility and remaining uncertainty over the strength of the economic recovery. If the recovery fails to last, the company could see another drop in its funds’ values and consequently another share price decline.

Building Financial Strength

The coronavirus pandemic has served to mask a turnaround that’s been slowly underway at Standard Life Aberdeen. After reporting billions in client funds leaving in 2018 and 2019, the company managed to stem the tide of outflows to a significant degree in 2020 – even in the midst of the pandemic. In fact, the company is projecting a 17% jump in profit for 2021. That would put the forward price-to-earnings ratio under 20 at the current share price, which is downright cheap.

Ultimately, the company’s turnaround is based on its ability to perform. Nearly three-quarters of the company’s investments have outperformed market benchmarks. That’s a huge selling point for keeping current clients and attracting new ones, which bodes well for the company going forward. At the same time, new efficiency measures at Standard Life Aberdeen have helped cut operating expenses by 11%.

Intact Dividend

Another thing that’s noteworthy about Standard Life Aberdeen is that the company has kept its dividend unchanged and on track for this year. In the current market environment, that’s an enormous feat. Most of Standard Life Aberdeen’s competitors have slashed or suspended dividends to save cash. In contrast, Standard Life Aberdeen feels confident enough in its finances and cash flow to continue its payments to investors.

Step 3: Open an Account and Deposit Funds

If you want to buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares, the next step is to open a new brokerage account.

Navigate to the broker website and click ‘Join Now’ to open a new account. You’ll need to enter a new username and password for your account, then fill in details like your name, email address, and phone number.

The broker also requires you to verify your identity in compliance with financial regulations from the UK government. You can complete this step online in just a few minutes. Simply upload a copy of your passport or driver’s license and a copy of a recent financial statement or utility bill.

Next, you need to deposit funds in your new trading account. The broker requires a minimum deposit of £140 and accepts a variety of popular payment methods, including:

• Bank transfer
• Debit or credit card
• Neteller
• Skrill

Step 4: Buy Standard Life Aberdeen Shares

Now you’re ready to buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares through the broker. Head to the broker’s dashboard and search ‘Standard Life Aberdeen.’ When the company appears in the results list, click ‘Trade’ to open a new order form.

The order form is what you will use to place your order for shares.

When your trade is ready, click ‘Open Position’ to buy Standard Life Aberdeen shares.

Standard Life Aberdeen Shares: Buy or Sell?

Standard Life Aberdeen isn’t without its warts. The company is still in the process of realigning its business fully around financial asset management, and it still has to recover from two years of massive client outflows. However, there are reasons to be optimistic about this company.

Standard Life Aberdeen has proven that it can perform in the market, which should help bring in more clients and more money for its funds going forward. In addition, Standard Life Aberdeen has cut costs and boosted its bottom line even in the midst of the pandemic.

At the current share price, it seems as if the market has not yet taken notice of these improvements. The shares have a dividend yield of over 5% and a P/E ratio of just 7.30. In addition, the shares are still trading 15% below the level they held prior to the pandemic.

When you consider all of this, it looks like Standard Life Aberdeen shares are priced to move. We think Standard Life Aberdeen shares are a buy right now and that the company could be a top performer in the FTSE 100 over the coming year.

The Verdict

Standard Life Aberdeen shares have shed a lot of their value over the past several years. While there’s no guarantee that this company will regain its former market capitalization, Standard Life Aberdeen remains a highly respected company with an enormous client and asset base. On top of that, the company has proven during the coronavirus pandemic that it is able to perform well even in an uncertain market.

Right now, many analysts and investors believe that Standard Life Aberdeen shares are undervalued. If the company’s own profit projections for next year turn out to be true, it’s entirely possible that the shares could see a quick upward correction. For investors willing to take a risk on this firm, Standard Life Aberdeen shares are a potentially strong buy.

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