I took a chance with this platform because I’d heard some good things. I also bought Plus.
I queued an order on Friday for AMC at $47. It was scheduled to be processed at 15:00. Instead it only got processed at 15:22, during which time the price rose drastically, giving me $55 a share.
Why did this happen? Why does it not give you the option to cancel or revert to the lower price if the issue is obviously with how slow Freetrade were in executing said order?
Yep, pretty sure it’s not at the exact time, but from there on depending on the stock.
Maybe give the execution policy etc. a look:
You should be conscious to accept the risk associated with this type of instruction. Freetrade will not be liable for losses incurred due to the selection of the Basic Order type, save any assessment made by us that we have fallen short of our best execution obligations.
I would suggest any volatile stock should NOT be bought in this way unless you are prepared for a wildly different price on execution 
Set an alarm for 2.30pm and buy manually is what I do.
I bet if the price had fallen we wouldn’t have had a topic created…
Pretty sure it was cheaper at 15:30, than it was at 15:00, wasn’t this a good thing?
What do you mean set an alarm for 2.30? I know that’s when the market opens. But the order only got processed at 3.22.
Despite your snarky response, it’s more about having complete trust in a platform to execute trades on time - buy and sell. If they cannot - due to processing inefficiencies, that does not bode well for investments. Especially a platform like this, not as established as HL or Fidelity or Vanguard or even eToro.
These are basic business principles. Think through your post next time.
Thank you.
I mean that is when the market opens but when you pre-order it doesn’t order at 2.30. You could set alarm for any time, it was just an example time as you mentioned the pre market price so I assumed you wanted closest to that possible. It could still have changed lots by then though of course.
The price at which a Basic Order is executed will depend on the prevailing market price at the time the trade is executed. This may work to your advantage or disadvantage due to the inherent nature of a moving market.
If you want to buy at a specific price, you have to use limit orders which are only available with Plus.
Using a market order can be a lottery at the best of times, when the price is highly volatile, it’s simply not worth sticking to market orders. It’s unfortunate your order was delayed. Probably the system was really busy at the time - just after a market opens, orders can be incredibly slow. With a limit order, at least you know your order will either not complete or you will get the price you asked for or better.
It looks like you queued an order to execute at the available price at the time of its execution, not that you queued an order to execute at $47?
The price was above $51 at 3pm. As mentioned by @ralf if you were looking for a specific price you should look to use limit orders
It depends on why your investing, a few $ difference doesn’t matter as much if your not trying to time the market.
The execution policy says these orders are run shortly after the cutoff not on the cutoff
If has nothing to do with timing the market or not. When placing a market order, you have no control over the price. If you want control over the price, you must use a limit order. As I said, in a volatile market, the price can fluctuate wildly, and using a market order is not recommended for that reason. Also, on a low volume stock, you’re more likely to hit someone else’s limit order at the price they want, not necessarily the price you want.