I keep reading the same type of posts about users getting screwed.
If a number of people complain about the same thing, there is a problem. I agree with them. I think there is a problem.
FT is not marketing to serious investors, its the young retail crowd. In many cases they donāt have experience, so it is up to FT to hold their hands. To make it very clean on execution that the prices are 15 minutes out of date, that the last price was a last trade price not a price they can deal on.
If they are buying, then show indications on the offer, not mid or last.
FT doesnāt give an indication of bid and ask. This is very poor . Esp as some retail chase penny stocks where bid/offer could be 10%. They need to know this as part of their investment decision. FT is failing them.
Please sort this out before the regulator does it for you.
I very much agree, though Iād say itās an issue of reputation and retention, not of regulation. If youāre going to market to newbies with no trading experience, I think itās the decent thing to do to give them more support. Educated customers will keep trading; people who get confused and think theyāve been ripped off will leave and spread bad reviews.
Freetrade is developing some educational resources such as those linked from the menus at the top of this forum. Could the app help to link to these, in the same way it directs people to the forum for discussions about companies? Without cluttering the UI too much?
And is there anything Freetrade can do about communicating pricing better? I donāt mean real-time pricing, but some way of explaining to newbies that the number they see on the app is not like a price tag in a supermarket!
What Iām getting here is lots of references to providing training/education to inexperienced investors who in fairness quite like the low cost experience.
The issue is, once youāve educated them and explained what Bid / Offer spread is, explained how thereās live prices and 15 minute delayed prices, explained how the Level 2 order book works, youāve now got an educated investorā¦ and educated investors can see the limitations of FT.
The info is there, most are too lazy to research/read it and are just hoping to jump on the rocket to the moon without realising itās not that straight forward.
Exactly Nicko, for some itās not enough that Freetrade provide a service which saves new investors hundreds if not thousands of pounds a year vs competitors.
There is only so much you can do. If youāre using the platform to invest in reputable companies then the 15 minute spread is irrelevant in 99% of cases. However, if you are using the platform to try and day trade Argo Blockchain or any other volatile small cap then you are going to have problems. However, that is the same with any broker unless you pay for level 2 data with a separate provider.
Iād also argue that losing money trying to day trade when you first start out is a lesson in itself that you canāt just waltz in and make money straight away, especially not punting on small caps.
I could be the first person to moan about a lot of things, but at the end of the day FT is not a Financial Advisor. Everything on their site is clear when it comes to prices, you even get warning when prices havenāt updated for some time. Educational pieces would be beneficial to many, however even with the best education possible you can never guess/time the market, and anyone losing money as a result will find it easy to blame the obvious choice. The provider!
If we want to keep this platform as an EDLP model for investors, then it needs to be with individuals to do their own research and seek individual and independent financial advice. Its really not difficult to open a separate tab for Yahoo Finance or Google the share to see the live price.
Live prices would be great, unfortunately it seems they cost a lot of money per user. I guess Freetrade could consider a paid add-on to allow live prices but it gets really complex if youāre covering several markets and day trading penny stocks really isnāt their focus (nor IMO should it be).
What Iād like to see which I feel is even more important for investor education is default time scales upped to a year, historical data covering more than a few years, and log graph options so that investors are encouraged to look at the long term performance of a stock, rather than track the price daily or by the second which is not very healthy unless you plan to buy/sell daily.
One month is the wrong timescale for almost all investors/traders Iād content - too long for traders and too short for investors.
People should only invest in equities what they are prepared to lose, or invest for the long term time horizon (5+ years).
Weāve got a culture recently of every man and his dog buying GameStop and Argo Blockchain in order to get rich quick.
This is not FTās fault. Investing comes with a lot of risk. People need to learn about how to manage risk for themselves - thereās a lot of courses out there such as on Coursera that provided education on portfolio management.
When the whole GameStop thing was in the news, I got a full page announcement Popup in my HL app, saying something like think carefully before investing in āpopular stocksā or speculative crazes.
And HL is meant to be a more āseriousāinvestment appā¦ where ppl supposedly known more about investing
They didnāt have to do it, but I think these things can be a good reminder
It may not be his fault entirely that you couldnāt drive, but from a completely pragmatic point of view, if he runs a nationwide car dealership that sells lots of cars to young kids who do the same thing that you did, he (and other car dealers who will get lumped in with him) will start receiving negative press, and sooner or later someoneās parents will start a pressure group demanding that people show a driverās license before buying a car. Itād look better for the car salesperson if he had a few big posters in the showroom reminding the kids to drive safely.
I think some of the comments are getting a little off my point and some are simply not helpful.
I am not suggesting live prices, or a lack of educational material available.
What I am saying is that there are a group of inexperienced users who cannot be bothered to educate themselves, but when things donāt go as they expected they are very vocal and like to complain. The risk is too many of them complain to the FCA and make life harder for the rest of us.
In startup world, one of the first things we learnt was the user is always right. I think there are simple things FT can do to make it more obvious or easy for both themselves and their users. Although these users are āwrongā, the fact that they end up in this situation means there are problems.
sure but thatās up to him. It would be nice, but he was under no obligation to be nice.
We have gotten into a pattern as consumers of feeling entiteled to dictate which services a business provides and doesnt because we are āpaying customersā. There is a vast difference between requesting a feature, and straight up demanding it with hyperbolic language such as āPlease sort this out before the regulator does it for you.ā
Sure itās good practise to listen to customers, but if a company doesnāt want to, then unlucky.
