I am fairly new to Freetrade and have been purchasing some US stocks recently. I still cannot understand how exactly the conversion fee from GBP to USD works. For instance:
Is the 0.45% baked into my āInvestment gain/lossā information displayed in the app?
Does that mean that I have to have āInvestment gain/lossā of above 0.45% when selling in order to break even?
Is the price per share displayed in the āBuyā activity after the 0.45% fee?
Can I see the purchase price per share in dollars somewhere?
Welcome to the community! Iāll keep this as brief & informative as possible.
The 0.45% is not recorded as a loss.
The 0.45% conversion rate is applied to buy & sell orders so everything else being equal, you would need to have made a gain of 0.9% in order to break even.
Itās not a fee, itās a conversion rate (all brokers use a conversion rate) & yes it is.
Can someone explain to me whatās going on here. If the average price per share I have is $239 and itās now at $253, how is that only an increase of Ā£4.88?
If youve got several thousand in your freetrade you can show a bank then i guess you could. Banks just want to know how much deposit you have and how much regualar income you have coming in.
Different lenders will have different criteria. But for example, Nationwide will consider dividend income.
I consider it highly unlikely anyone would consider the current value of your portfolio though. Theyāre not going to take a risk on the market falling. Youād probably need to sell to get your deposit as cash.
Taking dividend income into consideration is probably the best option Iām going to get. So I will prioritise building my portfolio over house deposit. Especially as Iām bearish on the housing market right now anyway.
I think that is wise. I have a minimum balance cash Lisa. But itās not being used currently as I donāt want to tie up my money in such a restrictive product. I was planning to make a maximum deposit (Ā£4k) at the last tax year end before I decide to buy, along with my partner doing the same. Hopefully I wonāt have to sell down too much of my portfolio!
Remember buying a property will result in capital appreciation over time which will likely result in a greater yield than puting a few thousand in Freetrade. So it worth buying a property. Hopefully if you still have a Freetrade account and taking dividends this will help offset part of your mortgage payment.
I might have a hole in my knowledge here, but I donāt see home ownership, the house you live in, as an investment.
Nobody pays you rent, and if your house does increase in value and you decide sell, most likely the whole housing market has too. So you have to downsize to actually see a profit.
So I personally donāt class a house as an investment unless itās a buy to let. Iād rather have a stock portfolio if I had to choose. But as I said I might be missing something.
Youve got to live somewhere so worth buying as rent money pays someone elses mortgage. Most houses double in value every 10 to 15 years. So if you get a 15 year mortgage the house is paid off and doubled in value since you bought it. Property is a good investment but i can see ones home can be a liability but like i said youve got to live somewhere so may as well buy.
On money into stock market vs property: property has horribly big transaction costs, needs maintenance, is illiquid, but as Steven says leverage is cheaply available (mortgages). I believe that long term growth averages slightly favour stocks.
Maybe I am being a noob here:
I have some shares (admittedly not many) in Barratt Developments since January and March. On their website the ex dividend date was the 11th of April and the payment date was the 7th of May. I havenāt to my knowledge received the dividend payment. Am I missing something?
Thanks!
Hi So Iāve got a Freetrade Basic account on Android and yet to buy anything. A few questions I have:
I didnāt see any option for Stocks & Shares ISA in the onboarding?
To get a Stocks & Shares ISA, does this require going on chat to ask nicely (I canāt see anyway in the Android app to open this)?
Do you then have a Basic dealing account and also a Stocks & Shares ISA account to switch between (or Basic account is converted)?
If I did start using the basic account and later want an Stocks & Shares ISA, would I need to sell every single share and rebuy? (Or is there a Bed & ISA processs to handle this?)
Why has Freetrade picked specific companies on the LSE ? And not just listed all of them?
Why only the main market, I canāt see any AIM? I understand most probably wouldnāt want to rely on free the 4pm buy, but the Ā£1 would be ace than the Ā£9.95 it costs me.
