Money for nothing?

T D Waterhouse has introduced a new fee

It's bad enough when your shares are plunging, but being charged for the privilege of sitting back and watching them fall rubs salt into the wound.

One of the big names, T D Waterhouse, has joined the ranks of brokers which have introduced an inactivity fee - that's effectively charging customers for not doing anything.

The move concerns people who have bought shares through the broker and keep them in its nominee account - where the broker holds shares on your behalf.

T D Waterhouse is saying that if you don't do any trading, you will be charged a quarterly fee.

The people most likely to be affected are small shareholders - like the Working Lunch viewers who've been in touch with us about this.

Climate

But in the current climate it's those smaller investors who are likely to be waiting to see where the market's heading before they resume trading.

For share nominee accounts with less than £5,000 of cash or shares in them there will now be an inactivity fee of £11.75 per quarter.

The company says shares can be expensive to run and nominee accounts do involve administration costs for the broker in order to make things simpler for customers.

Angus Rigby: "We have to cover costs"

"There's a significant infrastructure we support so that our customers can do all of the activities we allow them to do," says T D Waterhouse's Angus Rigby.

But unfortunately we have to pay for that and we can't penalise the customers that are trading or are holding sufficient equities or cash so that we are covering our costs of providing all of these additional services whether customers trade or they don't."

How does this fee compare to other brokers?

Barclays Stockbrokers charges £9 per quarter which is waived if you trade

Charles Schwab takes £5 minimum per quarter

Selftrade has no charge

The Share Centre takes £2.50 per holding every six months.

But don't forget there can be other charges from stockbrokers as well.

One viewer tells us his holdings have already gone down so much, that if this charge is deducted it will take just two years for the total value to be wiped out.