Freetrade Features I'd like to see

Id rather they did one thing really well rather than add crypto/bitcoin. There are so many places to buy bitcoin from already. Adding something like greyscale bitcoin trust or mining stocks and then bitcoin etfs in the future, all make sense. Becoming a crypto exchange is somewhat diverting focus away from becoming a great stockbroker. I say this as someone who buys crypto and holds it on other platforms. I dont see the point in freetrade allocating resources to it, would rather see them increase their stock universe.

Things i would love:

  • Self invested JISA would be a game changer.
  • ability to hold usd for us stocks
  • investment pies for lazy dcaā€™ing my portfolio
  • getting stocks listed faster, especially growth and innovation stocks like nndm is shocking to not have for me, been wanting it for months.
  • web interface

I know im repeating stuff here, these make a lot of sense to me.

Not sure about the lisa? I can get a lisa elsewhere, I hope freetrade keeps its focus on doing the few things it does well/better and unique offerings rather than trying to be a financial catch-all and diluting its resources/focus.

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Good idea but keep in mind this isnā€™t allowed in an ISA

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True, was thinking for dual or tri currency in the GIA. EURO could be the third but would rather they focus on current stock offerings and expanding into europe.

  1. Ability to short
  2. Options trading

Hey, welcome to the community :wave:

Iā€™m afraid Freetrade have said theyā€™ll never offer option trading but you can however find ETFs that short the FTSE 100 and S&P500 if youā€™re a plus member

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There is so much potential for Freetrade to improve and expand their interface and services but I do think we have to be patient.

Freetrade is a new company and has implemented many improvements which community members have already suggested.

Iā€™m in no doubt that Freetrade listens and acts upon what members ask but these things take time to develop. You only have to look at the careers section Careers of Freetrade and the amount of jobs they are advertising in time of recession and pandemic.

This speaks volumes to me of an expanding business. I dont know about other industries but I do know that my organisation has a recruitment freeze at the moment and only offering interal vacancies.

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Loving this topic, lots of great suggestions! I agree that, even though crypto is here to stay and grow, itā€™s unregulated and very volatile, so I donā€™t think it should be (at least for now) part of the offer.

One thing that is important to mention is that Freetrade does have limited resources for development, and I am sure they are looking internally at each feature in a matter of effort/return ratio. For example, SIPP, LISA, etc are UK focused. Whatā€™s the return of that in terms of number of users, if we are considering the EU expansion?

In my opinion (I can be wrong, it happens occasionally :innocent:), the highest return features are:

  1. Robo advisor (It catters to a vast audience that is not, and doesnā€™t want to be, proficient to investing)
  2. Website
  3. Expansion of stock universe (including easy ā€œretirementā€ investing e.g. Vanguard LifeStrategy)

:money_mouth_face:

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Agree the last points ā€” features wont make a unicorn, it is producer set & whatā€™s FT can earn revenue off.
Very Keen on SIPP, am frustrated that the new SIPP offering notes you cant currently take benefits, you would need to transfer out. I would hope that by the time anyone needs to take it this is resolved, but would nice for FT to communicate the roadmap on that before you go in to take up the SIPP.
EU expansion agree is key for company growth, although personally slightly less worried.
JISA - i think would be a great addition. Maybe the current client base demographic is not that strong top support this space, but I think for a lot of the client base when they have kids, they would take up JISA, even if it is small increments being invested. I personally would keen to do the full JISA limit it for two kids.

On other features I think Price alerts is the most useful feature that is currently missing.

Gamification could dissuade many. Many of us are time poor as it is, so being distracted on gamification as you are trying to review your portfolio and make serious investment decisions would not be good.

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I would love to be able to see the value of my USA shares in dollars because sometimes it says my investment is a bit down but its just because Pound gone up or tells me Iā€™m up when share price gone down because Pound gone down :slight_smile:

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For UK tax purposes it would be nice if freetrade was able to offer a downloadable pdf file or excel spreadsheet with all of your trades within each tax year. This would make it easier for investors to work out their capital gains tax. It could maybe show you a estimated calculation of how much capital gains youā€™d be likely to pay or whether or not you need to fill in a self assessment form, it would make a daunting task a lot easier. Not sure how feasible this would be though.

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Another broker has a great feature where the impact of FX fluctuations is broken down as part of the overall valuation:

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Vanguard did this when they first launched their SIPP but now, they have the full offering, eg drawdown etc. Iā€™m sure in time, Freetrade will offer same.

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Thanks. I expect that is what they will do, but it would be nice that FT at least try & manage expectation - declare it as an intent, maybe note it is on a two year (or whatever) time scale etc. But thanks for response and letting me know re Vanguard.

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Just an add to my earlier post.

  • |'d pay for extra for real time data, would save me refreshing google to check the actual price before I buy/sell.
  • Also larger sell limit orders, 200% cap is low if you are long on a stock. Freetrade Pro maybe?
  • A desktop option, even if its just a wrapped app for desktop use or browser based, mentioned this before actually.
  • Recurring deposits so I can auto deposit say 200 monthly, easily export share data en masse for tax return.

Also backtracking on bitcoin a bit - it can be slow to get bitcoin funds into freetrade - a quicker way or achieving this would be great. If I could sell bitcoin and have it in my GIA within an hour would beā€¦excellent. Could GIA eventually have account number and sort code for faster payments? or is that not possible.

Also sidenote - has anyone tried freetrade on the m1 macs? Iā€™d buy one purely for that if it works.

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Agree with all that. BTW you should get Yahoo finance, its realtime and doesnā€™t need refreshing.

The sell limit definitely agree with, I feel like there must be an operational reason for this, because other brokers have done it. Also allow more than 2 of each type per stock!

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Had no idea it was real time, checked out the mac stocks app (powered by yahoo finance) and it is apparently real-time data so thanks for the tip. Useful to know, was reluctant to pay for real-time data all the time considering the low volume of trades I do.

Being able to see average price paid in both GBP and the currency in which the equity is traded. Unless Iā€™m missing some magic button, it currently only displays in GBP. Maybe make it so when you tap the ā€œaverage price paidā€ is swaps between GBP/other currency?
Ideally this would use live FX estimates.

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Iā€™d love it if your portfolio operated like your own personal etf, and each month you could put an automatic recurring 100/200-pound deposit in, and it would automatically split this between your positions and increase your stake in each company you own either equally or proportionately.

This would be possible already with US fractional shares and UK fractional shares coming soon.
It would also be a great way of growing positions equally and getting more people to deposit into their freetrade/ isa/ sipp

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What do we want? Positive news about new features! When do we want it? NOW.

It would be lovely if Freetrade could release the odd positive update,it really gives you an uplift in spirits,a bit like the clocks going forward on Sunday. Surely to God it is not asking too much to have a feature update or anything update every couple of months.

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JISA PLEASEEEEšŸ˜

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