My sell order(s) get constantly rejected and this is hitting my portfolio profit

  • Without a long caveat - to explain why there sometimes are not buyers and sellers - letā€™s just keep it simple*

There are always buyers and sellers. Thatā€™s the entire point of the RSP network. Legally mandated 2-way market in at least minimum exchange market sizes.

Pull up any Level 2 order book and look at BP. ā€“ itā€™s pretty active. Minimum market maker size looks like 3000 but I can see most big market makers are happy to take 10,000 shares and price pretty tight bid and asks.

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I just want to point out I am a big FT fan so all my saying should be seen as constructive critique. I was thinking what would have made me feel better as a FT user in that moment when your BP share gets rejected.

A free instant trade for the next trading day ?

Not sure if that is possible but I hope everyone can see that this would have been an ok compromise for those cases. Again just me thinking out loud here.

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This would be an excellent solution to the issue of having a trade rejected.

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I think ultimately, we need to be able to see more information as to why the order failed, i.e was it a technical issue? Or was it a liquidity issue?

That said, Freetrade say that the limited stock universe is in part due to their stringent approvals - which include a liquidity check, and thereā€™s definitely no way in which BP should suffer these issues.

I think being offered a free instant trade is a good idea, unless there is a valid reason for rejecting the trade, such as the price spiking/diving and it would be unfavourable to execute the trade.

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I got an explanation but I am still not happy (please see text in italic):

FT response:

*" Apologies for the delay here, Iā€™ve just looked into this for you and there wasnā€™t anyone who was willing to offer a reasonable price when we tried to complete your order, so we didnā€™t make the order, to ensure that you didnā€™t get a bad deal. *

*Weā€™ve explained why orders are sometimes rejected in more detail here. *

Weā€™re also working to add more detailed and automatic explanations in the app when your order is rejected"


Again my problem is that a platform should not decide what a ā€œbad dealā€ is. I should be fully in control to make my own decisions about what I want to sell and why I want to sell it. I would refer this action as a ā€œBig Brotherā€ or ā€œNanny Stateā€ behaviour.

Let me explain why I am so angry:

15:30(ish) I requested a sell order for BP (I can see that this is queued)
16:00: I am under the assumption that my trades will be executed soon (My BP shares still up 2-3% at that time all good)
16:15(ish): My sell order was rejected (My BP shares still up and I am still happy to sell)
16:20: I text FT team with my complan.

So you guys can see why I am so angry that FT decides for me what a ā€œbad dealā€ is and I was not able to execute my trading strategy.

Also yes I agree do the 1Ā£ trade its less than a cup of coffee but please also respect if I decide that my trading strategy is based on basic trades and that I am happy with that (also taking the risk that my shares might fall in value within the next 10-15 min while my order gets executed) but it should be the investor that makes these decisions not the platform.

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If this was an illiquid AIM listed stock, I can understand why there may be no one offering a reasonable price.

This is never the case with BP with volume in the millions.

When Freetrade implement limit orders, users should be able to determine what a reasonable price is.

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This is where being able to set buy/sell limits would be useful. looking at the chart BP dropped nearly 1% between 15:30 and 16:15.

While you would have been happy to sell, other users might not have wanted it to go through at that price. If youā€™d been able to set a lower limit on the sell price you could have made the decision yourself

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If this is the case then your strategy must include that your trades may not be made. Does it account for that?

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Then the other users should use instant order if they not willing to risk 1%
Basic buy order for cineworld rejected after price drop
Still no dividends after A WEEK from GS or BAC via freetrade
on a plus note we have nice looking insightsā€¦oh wait only for ios

After all this and the mess up with deposits i really not sure if i will stay with Freetrade

Hedging:

Using the megabus analogy. So every time I buy a bus ticket I might not get on the bus? So using a basic trade doesnā€™t mean your trade gets executed ā€” if thatā€™s the case ok but FT should advertise it like that ā€” I hope you agree with that

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That is weird Player1. BAC have definitely paid out anyway, I received them on the 28th at 6am on DeGiro

yes my other uk broker has paid out BAC just not freetrade :roll_eyes:

Hey, Iā€™m sorry to hear your orders failed. If you could send me a DM with your Freetrade email, Iā€™ll look in to your rejected orders with our Operations team.

We also have a post on order rejection here.

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I see it more like, you can pay to get on the bus now, or you can reserve a seat over here and weā€™ll shove everyone we can on at 4.

Like I said, that needs to be put into your strategy as it seems like itā€™s not, the 4pm trades are not guaranteed to go through, your taking a ticket for the free ride and hoping they get everyone in on the bell.

You even knew it failed before closing, you could have put it though for Ā£1 which if your strategy required a 4pm trade, just put it throughā€¦ I donā€™t get why youā€™d wait if it needed to go through that day.

Freetrade should probably put a bit more detail on it, how basic trades work and why they might fail. But honestlyā€¦ if you have important trades, then put them though when you need to.

Freetrade has a way to go stillā€¦ but relying on batch processing of trades for your strategyā€¦ just seems flawed?

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From reading the link in your comment, it says a trade will be rejected if there are no RSPs (retail service providers) willing to take the trade. Apparently caused by the price moving too quickly.

Seems like a bit of a flawed system. Not Freetrade specifically, but just if this is how brokers work in general.

Iā€™ve just read about Direct Market Access, would this have more/additonal liquidity? Some brokers use this system:

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agree we should not have to chase our dividends but after a week i gave up waiting and ask Freetrade payments are still being processed

When I use a basic order, I understand it to mean ā€œI want to transact at the market price at 4pmā€, I do not understand it to mean ā€œI want to transact at a the market price at 4pm if and only if it is within an unknown band to the current market priceā€.

I only want it to fail if there really arenā€™t enough buyers at the bid price.

I asked @adam whether the Freetrade Investment Platform would include Direct Market Access. I donā€™t think it is planned.

Iā€™d like it to, I asked because I bought an AIM stock at Degiro, and saw the published trades on the stock exchange that I paid a market maker a 4% fee, which is fucking outrageous.

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I totally agree with you, I donā€™t think my broker, Freetrade, should be deciding what is a ā€œbad dealā€ as it appears had happened from a comment from them above. This seems totally unprofessional and ambiguous.

As you say, if Iā€™ve opted for the free trade at 4pm, then thatā€™s my acknowledged risk even if the price drops 99% from when i placed the order. Iā€™d rather have a clear system and assume all that risk myself than have my order not go through because the price has dropped 1% and is now subjectively considered ā€œbadā€. Hopefully I havenā€™t misunderstood this!

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No you understood this 100% ā€“ good I am not alone with my thinking ā€¦

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