FCA study on Trading apps (Gaming and Gambling)

Freetrade not named in this article, but not beyond the realms of possibility that itā€™s one of the ā€œfour trading appsā€ referred to that have fallen under FCA scrutiny.

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Itā€™s worth reading the article on the FCAā€™s website directly, as that gives more context. It doesnā€™t appear to be calling any trading apps specifically, but rather all trading apps.

I have had other apps installed which send multiple notifications a day about how such and such a stock, or crypto currency has gone up. Compared to that, thereā€™s very little little in the way that could be considered gamification on Freetradeā€™s side.

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Nonsense,it is beyond the realms of possibility that freetrade is one of them!

BTW, for similar reasons it is not a good idea to make recommendations to buy and sell at specific prices on the community forum. It is not a good idea to talk about your portfolio in gaming terms. Glorifying daily ups and downs has a negative side to it - it is not what long term investing is about.

All of these things that you may think are harmless are inclinations towards gambling and if you are vulnerable increase your tendency to take risks that you shouldnā€™t be taking.

People might be interested in viewing Why I Don't Reveal My Portfolio (And My Thoughts on YouTubers Sharing Stock Picks) - YouTube

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There isnā€™t any Gamification on Freetrade as far as I can see. it doesnā€™t give you any score or irrelevant notifications or any other Dopamine triggering stuff based on what you buy. It only gives necessary information

It isnā€™t even all that good for very short term trading, itā€™s not designed for it. Contrast with something like a spreadbetting site where you can watch candle charts updating by the second, Now I can see how people can develop risky behaviours using those

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Interesting read. Iā€™d imagine FT is one of the apps but it is far from the worst offender (Iā€™m looking at you eToro). The only ā€˜feature of concernā€™ that Iā€™ve seen on FT is the use of confetti (for free shares I think).

@bitflip makes a good point about the role of this forum. Iā€™ve long worried that people could be investing in relatively exotic things like hydrogen, helium and song royalties on the back of threads here.

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Guilty as charged. I remember years ago on the investor calls, when Adam/Vic and other Freetrade staff would answer Q&As from the forums, that I was pushing for gamification. I thought it would make investing ā€˜funā€™ for noobs and drive sign ups and engagement.

They were dead against the idea and were obviously correct with that stance.

Basically, do the opposite of whatever Iā€™m doing or suggesting and youā€™ll be alright. :cow: :skull_and_crossbones:

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