IMPORTANT: Why we had to limit the US market on 29th January (not our choice and we engineered a solution)

Pretty obvious whoā€™s controlling who in this situation though isnā€™t it? They havenā€™t been able to resolve via their banking partner for Monday. They are still in a position where they need to rely on backcoding a new system to try and workaround what they are given (admirable by the way) rather than the bank themselves returning service back to normal.

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Which one? :wink: Most if not all brokers have had problems to varying levels, some self imposed, others, like freetrade, had problems imposed on them.

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Although to be fair, it probably should work this way. :wink:

Iā€™m not sure this is over just yet. Many of the people using that subreddit have been emboldened by this crisis and trained by the crypto bubble to expect ever increasing returns with no fundamentals, so why not buy buy buy? Many people joining freetrade Friday are desperate to buy this stock and angry they canā€™t.

I wouldnā€™t personally buy GME or other heavily shorted stocks (which sometimes have some good reasons to be shorted), but the short squeeze might take a little while to play out - see VW for a historical example. Perhaps we have seen the high, or perhaps this was just a rehearsal for the high. You can guarantee if it does go very high though that retail traders buying near the peak and trying to get out will be unable to sell until it is too late. I just hope they donā€™t blame their broker for problems selling if the markets freeze up.

All the indicators for asset prices in general and the US stock market in particular being overpriced are looking pretty convincing to me (CAPE, ZIRP forever, low growth, increasing volatility and concentration - 5 all tech stocks being ~ the top 25% of the S&P, blank cheque companies, increasing manias, asset bubbles, retail investment at all time highs), and we are of course in the middle of a global recession caused by a pandemic, which should be driving prices down as profits will not recover for a while. So the fundamentals are damaged, while prices are hitting all time highs. This is just the sort of black swan event which can have repercussions far beyond the expected ones, so we may well see further disruption in the markets next week.

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Iā€™d like to point out that the disruption affected all members of free trade yet only plus members get their subscription refundedā€¦ what about the rest? standard members should also receive the same courtesy.

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So you want back what you paid for the whole service freetrade provides while it was down? I am sure freetrade will happily send you Ā£0.

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I definitely canā€™t sell. See Pending cancellation for 48 hours

Itā€™s now approaching 72 hours that they have been locked. I understand the market doesnā€™t open until tomorrow but this has been half of Thursday and all of Friday that I have been unable to sell due to a pending cancelled sell order.

Personally, I think Freetrade are doing an excellent job. This situation was foisted upon them and not of their own making. A relatively small company like :freetrade: shouldnā€™t reasonably be expected to have a backup FX provider when theyā€™re building out their product and working hard to improve in all sorts of other areas. I also use T212 and HL, but prefer FT and have my S&S ISA with them.

I have great respect for them working all weekend and refunding the January Plus fee to everyone. I donā€™t want it back, though. Iā€™d much rather they used it to buy one of their hardworking staff a nice :coffee: and some :doughnut:

Obligatory :rocket: and :large_blue_diamond: :raised_hand:

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You should contact in-app support. From my understanding all pending orders have been cancelled and many people have reported this on the forum, so if this has not yet happened for you, you should let their customer support know and they can fix it for you.

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Because they only have 1/18th their normal capacity. Thatā€™s the reason some shares are restricted.

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I already did this on Friday. Itā€™s still unread, so Iā€™m guessing itā€™s lost in the backlog.

Donā€™t get me wrong - I love FT and the service has been seamless for me until this. Itā€™s just that right now I feel quite helpless with no way to contact them to report what is to me a high priority issue, except to wait for a response to the in-app chat, or post something here in the hope that itā€™s seen by the right person.

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Yes, but FreeTrade ultimately decided which shares to restrict. They chose to restrict GME buys but to allow buys on others. Is that not some form of market manipulation?

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Theyā€™re getting through the backlog as quickly as they can. I donā€™t think your request will get lost so donā€™t worry about that, but yes I can understand its very frustrating for you at the moment so hope it gets sorted for you ASAP.

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You might not understand but even though there are lots of people wanting to buy GME, there will be even more that want to be able to trade normally across the whole market.

The fairest way is to redistribute the way they can utilise the fx problem that has been foisted on them by first making sure people can sell, and not force them to sell as others did. And thereafter, start opening up lower volume stocks to more and more people to keep things going.

What you have forgotten is that fx is for both sells and buys so potentially opening up just GME for trade could have taken the volume away from people being able to sell too. That would have been a far worse situation. Literally people would have lost money, not theoretically lost out on potential gains.

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Fair point, the ability to sell is more important. I just think they could have involved the community more in their decision. I do not like that they unilaterally decided which stocks people could and couldnā€™t buy.

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I understand that thought process, sounds as though with very short notice, there was much to do in order to even make that work so possibly no time to calmly ask for feedback unfortunately.

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Itā€™s a difficult decision and I assume they looked at the data and ran their numbers. Donā€™t forget that Freetrade also loses out on revenue by restricting FX trades, so itā€™s in their own interest to maximise trades for all users.

Hi Ryan, sorry about the delay in responding. :cry:

Can you send me a DM with your Freetrade email and Iā€™ll get that looked into for you now?

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Letā€™s imagine a timeline here.

Around midday Freetrade gets a call from its FX provider. They are informed their bandwidth is going to be severely restricted.

How long do you think that call could last?! A couple of minutes?! I doubt it. More like an hour if not more.

That puts us at 1.00 pm. Now management have to gather. Assess the situation. Consider the options. Find a solution. Thereā€™s 90 minutes left till the US markets open.

How long do you think that meeting would take?! A couple of minutes?! You reckon?!

Then thereā€™s an in-app message that has to be written. How long do you think that takes?! A couple of minutes?!

Do you honestly believe it would have been better to announce that information immediately?! Does immediately means straight after the information is dropped on their hands?! Does immediately means before management could meet and discuss the situation?!

Would it have been better, wiser even, for management to come to the forum straight after having a conversation with the FX provider to let us know what is going on and ask us what we wanted them to do about it?! In an hour?! Two at the most?! I donā€™t think so.

I think they did what they could do given the war like circumstances. Itā€™s not ideal. I donā€™t particularly like it. But I donā€™t blame them. Quite the opposite.

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I managed to buy 1 share of GME on friday, with the throttled orders, mine was one of the very few the get through. People need to stop blaming Freetrade for this, they let us know what they were doing as soon as they could and not them trying to manipulate the market.
Robinhood and 212 on the other handā€¦ who knows.

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