When you donāt get the dividend on time, itās an opportunity cost. I canāt exactly remember the details but I have been in the situation where Iāve been expecting a Ā£30 or so dividend and have wanted to buy a stock that was going cheap that day but couldnāt because the dividend was about two days late. Same applies if it is the day before the ex-dividend date on the stock and your dividend that was due two days ago still hasnāt arrived, you miss out on the opportunity to accrue even more dividends since you canāt buy that stock before it expires. Even if you donāt find anything you want to buy, youāre still missing out on accruing interest in your account, ok itās not much, but every little adds up. I donāt expect the dividend to be there that exact minute or even the same day, but if itās a UK stock, I certainly donāt expect it to be delivered more than 24 hours later.
Now I hope other forum members would back me up when I say that Iām generally very positive about FreeTrade, I love how they offer access to the market at such a cheap price (and yes, Ā£5 per month is cheap for such a good package!). I find them very friendly when I contact support and generally everything in the app is easy and works very well. Yes there are some really annoying niggles like some inaccurate average stock purchase price but Iāve got round that by logging everything in Excel as well. So generally, Iām not wanting to move away from FT.
However, the delay in dividend payment is a red line for me. Iām already angry at having missed certain opportunities and I will not be doing this imminently as I hope FT will fix this issue in the near future, but I will be looking around for alternatives if this problem continues indefinitely!
It wasnāt the delay that was necessarily the issue for me. It was the degradation of service with no information on cause. Which Gemma has now provided more info on whatās happened.
Now we know whatās causing the issue and why more clearly and what their next steps are to bring it back to proper service.
Worth noting that itās not just a few days either. And without more info (and with tbh) we now need to keep more careful track of dividends to make sure we know if itās a delay or if they havenāt been paid
I can see your point on this , i have noticed some of my dividend payment have come though 2 to 3 day later than its expected. And a buying opportunity comes on that dividend payment day.
As the dividend i receive is at a small amount at the moment its not a big issue for me making reinventing opportunityās the dividend back into my holdings.
But as my holdings grows and dividend payments increases to the point were the dividend payment could make a big difference/ good opportunity on that day would be great if the payments would be payed on the payment date.
But like all the best investors in the world say we carnt time the market.
Its unfortunate that its a good buying opportunity on dividend payments date and carnt buy more.
Its good that the issue has been identified and looked at by FT team and there looking to sort this issue out. And in the future less likely this issue will happen.
Because unfortunately I donāt have spare cash lying around that I can readily upload to FreeTrade in order to make purchases. While I put whatever spare cash I can into investing, unfortunately the plan I made to invest Ā£250 per month into my ISA which was realistic when I made that plan unfortunately now isnāt with the costs of utilities and other things going up. So because I canāt put aside very much at all, Iām pretty dependent on my dividend payments. Unless there really isnāt anything I wish to buy, my ISA cash balance is pretty much always zero.
Luckily I had good investments elsewhere that I transferred into FT so I have some good months where I get reasonably substantial dividends which I will be able to multiply over time if I am clever about where I invest them.
Thank God for forward preparation, and hopefully there will come a time when I am able to put a regular investment into the ISA again!
Ironically the delay in the natwest dividend meant things I had it earmarked for had gone down in price so freetrade inadvertently saved me some money. The reply from the freetrade employee reassures me they are taking this very seriously and hopefully things will flow more quickly in the not too distant future.
Sorry, I really donāt understand the question. The Ā£30 I named in my example was a dividend I was due to receive. I would have wished to use it to buy something else had it been available in a timely manner.
I can see what you are saying but with it being an ISA, I do not want to be withdrawing money from there, not unless FreeTrade make it into one of those accounts where you can return withdrawn money in the same tax year (Iāve forgotten what they are called). I realise itās not likely, but that might lead me to not be able to use my full tax allowance should I be fortunate enough to top up to Ā£20,000 in the next tax year.
I know some people may not see it as a big deal, but I do not see it as good customer service and I will not put up with it indefinitely.
The best thing to do with dividends is not rely on them which I seem to see a lot doing like āI must receive my dividends or I cannot buy my food shop this monthā kind of desperation.
Yes I agree with you. We shouldnāt presume what customer motivations are here. For example, we can imagine that some people in retirement depend on dividend timing. Whether that is good or not is really not my business. But as a business it is reasonable that customers expectations are met.
So what youāre saying is there trying to rely on these businesses always dishing out set amounts of dividends always hummm. I mean sure do it but if the company folds and or we have a recession like now and the companies stop paying out such high dividends or else completely stop then what?
Iām guessing they have rainy day funds or maybe they would cut back on something else to offset thw lack of dividends, maybe they reinvest somewhere else who knows.
Nothing to do with the invested companies, itās to do with freetrade. A bit of charity goes a long way.
People are upset or annoyed rightfully for whatever reasons they have for the degradation and unreliability of freetrade paying out dividends promptly and on time.
Itās not the companies not paying on time. Itās freetrade not paying on time.
