While it’s understandable that Freetrade has to make money somehow, locking the ability (for the Basic tier users) to buy more shares in stocks that are already owned is just plain dodgy.
There are people like me who keep DCAing into those stocks, yet the overall portfolio value isn’t high enough to justify paying £4.99 a month.
You could have instead spend a little bit more effort and let those stock owners continue buying more shares in the stocks they already own, still moving other stocks to a different plan.
As I already mentioned, it’s dodgy and will certainly affect my consideration of paying for one of the plans in the future vs moving my holdings elsewhere.
No. The charging structure for quite a long time has centred around specific indices. One example: stock fell out of FTSE350 (I won’t list all the indices) it automatically became Plus only and correspondingly a Plus only stock was moved into a Free stock when the share moved into the index. This has always been clear - if you read the plan details.
just because it has been the plan doesn’t make it a good plan.
If you remember their old model of executing trades at 3pm with a fee for instant trades, that was a MUCH better base to build off of. See my above example
I get what you are saying but where are you going to? Trading 212? Invest Engine? I can’t see a similar competitor at this price point. I am probably in a similar situation to you and I think I am going to stick and make the most of it. Early on that fiver a month is going to seem pretty significant until you build up your portfolio.
And correspondingly doesn’t make it a bad plan. ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ have to be defined. But in any case my comment is not whether a plan is a good plan or a bad plan.
I’m not going anywhere because I’ll stick to the free plan for time being. What I said was- when the time comes to pick the paid plan or choose an alternative platform, the way in which new plans were introduced will certainly affect my decision.
Early on that fiver a month is going to seem pretty significant if that fiver is relatively significant in someone’s portfolio, then they certainly shouldn’t be paying it- otherwise it would be a terrible investing strategy. You will be effectively losing on potential gains due to the power of compounding.
For exactly that reason people like Munger or Buffet tell passive investors that it is crucial to find the cheapest possible fund. They don’t say “Hey, that 2.5% annual fee is going to seem significant, but later it won’t matter because you will have accumulated more money”. Quite the opposite- they say “Over time that fee will compound, so make sure you pick the cheapest one you can get so effectively you lose less money”.
I don’t mean it in a bad way- really, it’s just that thinking “it’s significant but it’s ok” is not a viable investing philosophy.
this thread far too long to search for the question and answer
anyhow, im only basic as Im a cheap flake. the 1500 stocks we get has that gone up for down from before ?
have they taken anything away?
I believe its likely to bring it into the same kind of method as uk stocks. a set list is in the basic tier the rest aren’t. but I’m not sure what list they’re using for US stocks. its not the S&P 500
they’ve made a bit of a mess in the communication on the basic/general change imo
im pretty sure freetrade have only ever said trading would be commission free
If you wish to downgrade to basic you would need to sell down your position first, then contact money@freetrade.io who can move your fund into the GIA.
There is a fair amount of behavioral economic research about how monthly billing drives longer-term subscriptions. Annual billing makes it a decision to renew while monthly billing becomes part of your ongoing commitments.
I was thinking of the other effect of annual billing. It gives companies larger immediate cash reserves.
Monthly I can cancel any time. Yearly or multi year i part with money before it was necessary and the company gets a larger immediate influx of my cash
