No harm done 
we all want the best from Freetrade.
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I disagree that you should not be trading a lot. I started out by building what I thought was a highly diversified portfolio. I understood after a while that I needed to focus on less stocks and also different ones as well. So I have been reshuffling. Had all these trades been payable or had I been capped in the nĀŗ of trades, IO would not have been able to make the best of it. Itās not day trading and i will gradually be less active on the platform as my portfolio consolidates but capping the nĀŗ of free trades would cripple my investing facility.
Indeed pal. One thing everyone can agree on for sure!
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I was surprised when I read this since $30k by itself is not sufficient. The actual details are here:
https://hellostake.com/disclosures/accredited-investor/
To obtain such re-categorisation through Stakeās platform, EU Retail clients must have at least $30K USD of assets in their Stake account and provide evidence that they satisfy at least two of the following criteria:
- Number of Trades : During the last 12 months, there were at least forty (40) trades (including at least 1 per quarter) in stocks or ETFs or similar products, in a Stake account or another brokerage or share dealing account;
- Portfolio Value: The Client holds a portfolio of financial instruments (including cash) that exceeds EUR 500,000 (or equivalent);
- Employment History: The Client works or has worked in the financial sector for at least one year in a professional position which requires knowledge of products it trades in.
- is easy to game with free trades but not the rest
Edit: This is a bit off-topic so happy to move it to another thread.
Interesting. I have a totally different perspective. I always lumped Stake, Revolut and now-defunct RobinhoodUK together as not real competitors to Freetrade. I see Stake and Revolut as just frontends for the Drivewealth API and I suspect RobinhoodUK would have ended being a similar frontend for RobinhoodUS.
They donāt understand the UK market where tax advantaged accounts (ISAs, SIPPs) are key. FT does. And so does T212 so I see them as a bigger threat.
Itās evident freetrade need to implement more features, improve the app and its current offering (isa & general account) first;
ā¢Better topping up with more variety (automated & roundups).
ā¢More resourceful & intuitive insight section tab with more rich & personalised info for investors.
ā¢An attentive customer service with greater understanding of the pain points for investors so that they have a greater experience buying stocks.
ā¢Get the app to operate at a faster level where the live pricing, charts & navigation just flow smoother.
ā¢Other features like autopilot, dividend reinvest, rebalancing etc would be great but is optional.
ā¢Keep broadening the stock universe.
ā¢Better stock search.
That way plus can have a better value offering like;
ā¢Limit orders & stop losses
ā¢More advanced insight features and analysis.
ā¢Price move notification
ā¢Market & Portfolio summary notification opt to be end of day/week
ā¢Riskier stocks access with more chance of upside (Include AIM)
ā¢Different regions with more specialised products I.E Emerging market low volatility dividend EFT
ā¢Autopilot with more choice of functionality.
ā¢Curated stock discovery. I.e trending stocks
if freetrade is going to offer features in plus that is offered elsewhere for free it needs to have other features that is unique in how they work. These features will have to be innovative in how they work inside the platform ecosystem. You can always charge a premium in that way. Itās still early days for plus and it will likely get better. But I will have a more in-depth review once I decide to try it out.
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Itās self certification
No physical proof needed
Bung $30k inā¦ tick boxesā¦ enter
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I see what youāre sayingā¦
Now thatās a great approach to Plus!
Full(ish) functionality whilst limiting number of free trades for basic/ISA. I do t care if the limit is 5 trades a month as long as the option is there for additional trades at Ā£1.
Full functionality and unlimited trades in plus.
Sure I might sometimes spend more than Ā£10 on special trades, but limiting trade types, functionality and access puts my back up.
I donāt like subscriptions. Id rather pay more on a pay as you go model.
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For what its worth I will add my two cents here as well.
As it stands I think Ā£9.99 is a bit steep for the currently announced features of Plus. I think the Ā£3/month is fantastic for the ISA but Ā£6.99 seems too much to pay for the additional trade types, stock categorisation (āCovid-19 stocksā does seem gimmicky and also a bit presumptuous that the broker would necessarily know what these are) and customer service (top customer service ought to be standard IMO and from what others have said it is already).
I think as others have said to make the Plus really attractive I would like to see:
- USD account facility so that one does not have to pay the FX fees for each trade (though I fear thatās a key aspect of the business model at this point, but if Plus is improved the firm can pivot the model to the Plus subscription)
- For the Stop loss/buy etc to be GTC (if they are not already?)
- Live prices and more information on each stock such as analyst consensus (Stake added this a few weeks ago)
- Portfolio analysis tools
I am less concerned about the creation of a stock multi-verse because I get the point that if you are willing to pay close to a Ā£120 a year you are likely to be a more sophisticated investor who understands the risks of AIM etc.
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Considering that it takes a significant amount to pay for the subscription can short selling be included as part of the subscription? Anyone interested?
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T212 is not a long term competitor to FT.
The actual pie that FT needs to go after in order to get a large enough scale are the balances in HL or other large stockbrokers/wealth managers.
In HL there are many people in the U.K. with SIPPs with Ā£100k+ and currently are paying in some cases over Ā£1k per year in various fees for trading and holding mutual funds.
FTās success will be from having a model for Ā£10-15 a month which includes ISA, SIPP and LISA for this flat fee.
As it stands FT doesnāt offer the functionality I need for any of these products so I just use my account for some small stock purchases.
There will always be competitors who offer things cheaper, but ultimately the greatest balances and assets are with the larger provided not companies like T212 and the largest savings for consumers will be when they can move everything across from these legacy platforms at some point in the next 1-2 years.
As it stands right now FT has some additional development to meet the requirements of larger investors in any case as right now the ability to auto invest and information on shares and funds is not as detailed as the larger platforms - whilst this may not seem important to some, for those with higher value portfolios and older investors, this level of detail will be important.
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This is the right direction IMO and where all the money is. Compete with HL who charge millions of investors hundreds or thousands a year in fees.
Plus wonāt feel complete till SIPPs are there too but at that point if it covers ISA, SIPP, JISAs for Ā£10 a month, it will obviously be good value compared to competitors or buying these products individually.
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RupertSS, I think you wrote an excellent post and I Totally Agree with what you had to say. I was under the impression after reading the New/Updated T&Cās that the rollout (to non-early testers/users) of FT Plus was going to be 10th Aug but I notice that you mention that it has been put back until Autumn, I havent read/heard that. This would be quite disappointing but I would rather wait longer for FT Plus to be a better product, than it to be rolled out earlier and not be so feature rich or such a polished product, especially when it is going to be Ā£10 per month.
I also read that you said the Plus rollout had been put back a few months. Do you (or anyone else) have any more details of when the New FT Plus Release Date will be??
Was interested in the limit orders but Iām not going to pay Ā£7 a month for them. I will just use an app to send notifications when an entry price is reached instead.
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Analysis consensus I think is a quick and easy win for Freetrade for sure.
People keep mentioning USD accounts but this is technically and legally very tricky. Cash can only be held in ISAs in GBP so the functionality would have to be turned off in the ISA account but enabled in others.
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OK so Iām not familiar with SIPPS, is the Ā£9.99 monthly fee including purchases of stocks within this. I looked at Hargreaves Lansdown yesterday and basically they charge for buying, selling, plus admin charges/transfers in/out. It was an horrendous amount of money to have a SIPPS with them.
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Freetrade does not currently offer a SIPP but I believe it is being worked on as we speak.
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Iām likely to give the plus account a try for a few months. Happy with the new order options and am sure the features will continue to increase over time.
Curious what happens happens if people chop and change between plus and standard, does it affect your pay walled stocks that have been purchased, does it affect any stop loss orders etcā¦
Agree with the comments above that paywalling whole markets, it is much cleaner than individual stocks. Maybe include IPOs as well.
With freetrade targeting more medium to long term investors Iād like to see much better portfolio performance monitoring, start small and continually improve, but this saves time or money when comparing against doing it manually or other subs like sharesight/simply wall st and would help justify the cost and encourage people to hold the subscription for longer.
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Saying on the plus page that ISA is completely free when paying for subscription is a bit of a stretch.
Also, the roadmap still says that plus is expected in summer.
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