hey,
would be cool to have something like public.com’s social feature?
Just something simple for us to share our portfolios with other Freetraders / the public.
thanks 
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I’ll be honest I’m against the ideal of turning brokers into social platforms.
I think there’s a good balance to achieve by having a linked discussion board on stocks. But I don’t like the idea of integrating social media like aspects directly into the platform. It has huge downsides.
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Personally, I think a social element to brokers is a great idea; it encourages sharing of knowledge, ideas, etc. This very community is a shining example of this imo (a decent portion of my learning has been done on here) - integrating it into the app would only widen its reach.
I think the potential downsides (e.g. people blindly copying others’ portfolios) would be something FT would have to discourage. They’ve done such a great job of this already (discouraging day trading, etc) - i see no reason why they wouldn’t take the same approach with a social offering.
Anyway, to some extent, I think there will always be people that make very risky choices whatever you do/say. You can only hope that they learn from them.
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The threat is gamification, fantasy football but with stocks. Friends will push each other into more and more risky assets to be better than the others until they go bankrupt. Once the first person kills itself this way, freetrade will pay the price. Robinhood has scandal after scandal because of less gamification elements than this would be.
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To add. Social media is well known to be detrimental to a persons mental health, and I see no reason why tightly integrating social media like aspects to investing wouldn’t have the same if not worse effects.
Social investing (if we’re going to call it that) I expect if studied would show a large increase in risky behaviour and people taking actions without sufficient knowledge based on social trends.
Then theirs the accuracy of information which is a disaster waiting to happen.
Then theirs future regulatory considerations. The whole social aspect to investing is new but at the rate some platforms are going it seems inevitable that we may see tighter restrictions on it due to the potential harm it may cause.
On the other side, this forum provides some of those aspects, but there is a barrier to entry into the forum. You have to essentially opt in, and physically go here. Its not tightly integrated into the app, and cant directly influence your decisions while actively investing.
Knowing how damaging social media has been to peoples lives, im extremely cautious and would be very concerned if social investing was brought into Freetrade. Not to mention I actually like that Freetrade are focusing on investing and not social hype.
I completely understand why people like the idea of it in this day and age, but this isnt a game its real money. and friction is sometimes a good thing. I think its good here.
Nothing stops you sharing your portfolio now, you just actually have to put in a little effort to do so.
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You both raise some great points which i’ve taken on board (e.g. regulatory implications), but I must say I still think a social offering could do wonders.
I think Robinhood’s downfall was more a result of offering leveraged products to those that don’t understand the risk than a social offering. Public.com, for instance, has seen very little backlash despite having what I consider the strongest social offering of any broker. I think Seekingalpha is another example of a (quasi-)social network that works really well…
To reiterate, I believe the way a social offering would be implemented is crucial. If the app were to “front-page” the users that had seen the most gains over the past month, that would almost certainly encourage risky, short-termist behaviour. Conversely, there are many ways due-diligence and a long term mindset could be encouraged through social media.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, but just wanted to share my enthusiasm for the idea of “social brokers”.
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I think there’s a way of doing it if the investment platform was kept separate from any social aspect. I definitely don’t think discussing investing is bad, it’s the opposite. But the platforms that offer integrated social aspects I don’t think we’re fully realising the implications or impact of that yet. Social media is frankly known to be harmful, I can only imagine was adding huge risk on top of it would do. That’s where my view comes from.
But I do like the forum and it would be good to see more here.
I’d like if I could scramble the key amounts and just show people what I’m invested in and perhaps percentage. There’s a mode on the Emma app which does similar for banking.
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Might be good for share dealing clubs, if they’re still a thing (my parents are in one more for the social side although they’ve made no money from it whatsoever). But perhaps all being able to see the same portfolio and voting on what to switch in and out might be good.
Edit or at least a pot you can all contribute to where this is possible.
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