The main issue for me has always been the fee for a trade and the need to have a minimum balance or whatever
This is often cripplingly high. I mean, if you're just putting £100 on, you'll wave goodbye to £10 for each trade you make. Even if you just buy one stock and sell it one year later that's £20 gone plus any capital gains taxes.
I know the stock market is for people making long term investments with big lump sums, but for people at the bottom, the barrier to entry is too high
The incremental minimum for buying the S&P 500 Vanguard fund is $100. Minimum of $1,000 in an account. Cost 0.05% per annum. That's not much of a barrier.
That 0.05% is for accounts worth more than $10,000. It's 0.17% otherwise (so still low). Vanguard also charges accounts with less than $10,000 in a fund a $20 service fee (clear information about the availability of the lower cost 'Admiral' shares does not seem to be readily available, but it seems for index funds it may be the case that you have to maintain an account at Vanguard).
Most brokers also have some range of mutual funds with no trading fee.
Building up funds over time is probably a better use of small amounts than trying to earn percentages trading them. For one thing, even an amazing annual return on £100 isn't going to cover a whole lot of your time.
