If your broker goes bust, you may have to pay to get your shares back

Some customers of bust broker Beaufort Securities could suffer unexpected losses as their accounts may be plundered to pay huge administrators' fees.

Stack of silver coins with trading chart in financial concepts and financial investment business stock growth
(Image credit: Sakorn Sukkasemsakorn)

Some customers of bust broker Beaufort Securities could suffer unexpected losses, says John Stepek.

When you invest with a stockbroker, your assets are ring-fenced from the broker's own. This means that if the broker goes bust, your assets remain intact, and the company's creditors don't have a claim on them. There may well be a delay in getting your money back, and the value of your assets may fluctuate during that time. But in principle, your assets should still be there. And if it turns out that this ring-fencing wasn't being observed by the broker, and that money has been lost or stolen, then the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) covers up to £50,000 of any shortfall.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.