Freetrade vs IBKR - US S&S

First Time Investing 🐣
1

I have had my US stocks on Freetrade for a year however since the monthly price increase for my ISA account, I wanted to look at other platforms/brokers that may work out better financially especially if I was to sell and bank my S&S in the future.

Questions -

  1. Is Freetrade still completive to IBKR and other brokers such as Trading 212? Are there any better suited brokers for US S&S?

  2. Could I transfer my ISA portfolio which consists of 2 different stocks to another broker without selling the shares first and having to buy them again on the new broker?
    If so, how?

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  1. You need to look up the tariffs to determine if it is best for you. For the numbers I have there is no doubt that IBKR is a very cheap option for US shares (nb. FX is also very good).

  2. Yes. Depends on the receiving broker. Some brokers don’t allow this and insist on cash only transfers. But brokers like II and HL will accept both cash and share transfers. I don’t know the situation with IBKR. You don’t need to do anything yourself for the brokers that accept shares. You just have to instruct the receiving broker to do the transfer. Usually this means filling an online form/instruction mandate. The rest usually happens invisibly (they deal with the transferring broker). The process can take 2-3 days to several weeks to complete.

3

The grass isn’t always greener. I opened an IBKR account not long back. Although it’s uber cheap for US stocks, particularly for four- or five-figure orders, the platform would give an aspirin a headache.

I thought IBKR’s app was awful too and stopped using it entirely.

On your second point, are these positions in US stocks? I think I’m right in saying Freetrade doesn’t allow transfers out of US-listed securities from Sipps.

I’d be surprised if that was different for Isas but I suppose it could be.

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Correct, my stocks are US based and all held in my ISA

5

@rehpot is completely correct you can’t directly transfer US stocks from any Freetrade account. (The reason is that they are held by Drivewealth additionally there is the issue of Fractional shares i.e. even if they were not held by Drivewealth but were Fractional then you would not be able to transfer them).

Your receiving broker in this case would ask you what you want done i.e. sell non-transferable assets and transfer cash or just transfer what can be transferred without selling plus available cash.

Btw, Charles Schwab is an excellent broker for US shares. But if we are talking ISA - you can rule it out.

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