I think at the moment asking Freetrade to do things like Options is asking it to sprint, before itâs learnt to run, or even walk or toddle
So much other stuff it needs to do first that would benefit 99.9% customers, not the one in a thousand that might use it.
Also I would bet that the trading experience of the average FT customer is low, so would lead to a lot of people getting burnt, if people donât fully understand the tools. Something like a practice mode etc would be useful in training and vital if they plan to have a CFD section.
I mean atm we have things like converted ÂŁ instead of the actual GBX where you canât see the actual amount, no clear bid/ask, no live prices, no limit/stops and squiggly charts that are fine for long term years of investment, but no good for day/swing trading or seeing any accurate movement.
So Options are about four thousandth on the list of things to do.
This is a fair point about risky AIM stocks. When FT do come to have more info on stocks it would be nice to see things like volatility and market cap so that people can make decisions based on that. Arguably there is a lot more risk in individual stocks than most realise, and thatâs another point for encouraging indexes, even if they are far less exciting.
Re the problem with the Robinhood UI, this would be the biggest difficulty with including complex things like options - how to explain them and present them to the customer, when they are most useful used in complicated ways (like calls and puts in concert), and may put the account into a huge negative balance for days (over a weekend say) or lead to unexpected losses because of fees etc. Itâs just very hard to get that right for people who donât know what theyâre doing (i.e. the majority of us).
Tagging some stocks as more risky/volatile is a lot simpler than trying to explain options like calls and puts and how to use them to retail customers, so I do think FT is best to concentrate on the many millions in the UK alone who should be investing but are not, rather than those who want to use sophisticated financial instruments. You probably know what youâre doing with options, but most people would have no idea where to start, just investing in stocks at all is a novelty to many.
Anyway, weâll see what they decide, but complex trading strategies probably are not on the radar till they get the basics done so I doubt weâd see them in the first few years. Iâd rather they spent time on things like autopilot which will benefit the majority.
I do like the idea of tagging specific stocks, on the FT rival you have popular, dividend, growth, high volatility, low volatility, speculative to group them.
What would be good is a simply wall st style of indicators that help give some insight into things like market cap, fair price, PE/PEG/PB/ROE etc
Just so it improves the random that one sounds good approach without any DD.
I tend to agree that options shouldnât be a top priority and that most people who should be investing arenât. That is why I donât understand why Freetrade seems to lean more towards individual stocks rather than ETFs, which by definition are less risky.
I think it would be useful to see some more labelling but I donât want Freetrade to start arbitrarily labelling stocks. What would be great would be the stock exchange clearly labelled in top left, or whatever, and a disclaimer about AIM (i.e. less disclosure etc.)
I agree that options shouldnât be a priority and if they ever have them I would simply ignore the feature. But I think AIM listings are fine as they are, everyone has to manage their own exposure to risk.
I wouldnât use the word âcrashingâ as the vote occurred in June 2016 it has been a known factor for quite some time.
There is an argument to be made that this will mean the UK will grow faster as the EU is behind the curve on a number of things. There is no single market for services within the EU and this has been a major handbrake on UK growth. The EUâs economic policies were set up to support a world of steel and coal manufacturers with little being done since to support the growth of new industries such as tech, biotech etc.
It is very telling that on all the replies to this thread the thing most people agree (see the likes on my post above) that they want to see on Alpha is a live pricing quote system. This is probably followed by stop losses and limit orders and holding currency in separate accounts. We already know that the currency account is not going to happen any time soon and I think that this is ok for now.
However, I feel that unless live quotes, stop loss and limit orders are there, the launch will cause serious disappointment for a lot of people regardless of any other bells and whistles.
I remember Adam or Viktor saying along the lines of âthat we want Alpha to be so good you will just want to have itâ.
I am probably not the only one who probably wouldnât see any use for Alpha if it didnât have those 3 things.
I would like for Freetrade to float me my unsettled balance. So once I have sold out of a position I would be able to withdraw the money straight away. The unsettled money can be redirected to freetrades account once settled. I have been waiting 2 days to withdraw money sold at 15:00 on the 16th of June still canât access the money hopefully tomorrow!
The other danger and one I feel is just as likely is that customers will be put off both the brand and Plus/Alpha product on launch as things like live quotes, stop loss and limit orders are available as standard on multiple other brokers for free - so why pay Freetrade for them?
The argument would go you pay for the whole package with a transparent fee rather than based on your number of trades and as ETFs rise in prominence the number of trades people are executing is falling and so actually other revenue streams begin to look more attractive (i.e. a regular annuity style monthly fee). This enables brokerages to move away from investment bank style, volatility driven, earnings.
Yeah thatâs correct but I would like Freetrade to float me the money via other funds to the same amount as the unsettled stock sales. Maybe even charge a fee for it. Because you basically have your money stuck for 3 days otherwise.
