Stock price query

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1

Hi,

I am new to Freetrade and I am using it as a hobby. I have repeatedly seen a stock I invested in increase in price above that which I paid, confirmed by green text telling me how much I will make. I then have (multiple times) gone to sell, only for the order to give me less than I originally invested? Why is there this difference and why am I shown misleading numbers on the app?

Thanks for the help!

2

Do you mind me asking which stock it is?

3

This might also help understand what’s happening

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5

It was just a cheap stock I was watching fluctuate between a few pence to see how it all worked. I put it down to human error on my part the first time but after it happened multiple times I assumed I was missing something.

6

Thankyou for posting this. I have given it a read, am I right in thinking therefore the “spread” is what is causing this discrepancy? As Freetrade are showing an average but the market is trying to buy lower?

Thanks again!

7

It could be. It’s hard to know without the specifics.

If you think it could be incorrect you can ask support for a best execution report and they’ll look into the transaction for you and confirm if anything went awry.

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8

If you don’t want to say which stock it was I can’t be much help. Freetrade don’t charge a spread but that does not mean that you will get the live price. The live price is only the average of the transactions so actual transactions can vary.

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9

If you use something like IG spread bet account for the exact price (Freetrade is 15 minutes behind the live price). Using IG Trading account you can see the realtime live prices including the spread i.e what you can actually buy and sell the stock for. Freetrade aims to get as close to these prices when they execute (buy/sell) your orders.

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10

Hi!
Thanks for the reply. I wasn’t intentionally withholding I just didn’t remember off the top of my head :slight_smile: it was EVR holdings? If that means anything to you haha. Is there a better way of accessing the live price in that case then? And how can you use the app for non long term investing if the numbers given are not accurate?

Cheers again!

11

Use IG spreadbet account. You wont need to fund it to get access to the live prices

13

I have had a look into it- not one for singing up to things without some research but it’s a good option. Thankyou for the suggestion! I’ll look into it some more

14

no probs, there are other options out there as well that will show the Buy and Sell price (bid & offer). have a look around.

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15

Thanks for the follow up. I might contact support, I just feel a little silly as we aren’t talking about losing my life savings. Just trying more to learn what I did wrong in order to get better at using the interface overall

16

I wouldn’t worry about it, they’re a friendly sort and will help you out.

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17

Sorry I was not suggesting the app pricing was wrong. It is just as wrong as any other form of pricing (i.e. that is not the exact price available to you). How much is the difference? 1%? 2%? EVR has a pretty back week last week and so would have seen a lot of volatility. The price on Freetrade is delayed by 20 minutes so you may have just had a string of bad luck.

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18

So what we are learning here is that long term investors prefer to buy in dips but buying in dips on FreeTrade is risky due to not knowing what price you are buying or selling at?

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19

Absolutely correct. From the app alone you do not get an accurate live price nor an exact execution price until too late.

TO CLARIFY: The price given is accurate but there is typically a 15-20 minute delay plus the latency within the application so you are never seeing the actual price in the market at that time. A lot can happen in 20 minutes as we have seen recently.

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20

There’s a bit of info here:

As usual wild speculation and non-factual information is occurring and being posed as fact.

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21

I unfortunately did not record the pricing but they were very small. An example was I bought at 0.345, checked yahoo investing app and free trade which suggested I would gain something like 8p if I sold (I think it was at 0.38 something) and so put in a sell order which came through at 0.332 and gave less than the numbers suggested. Is there a free site in which the data is up to date that doesn’t require signing up? Perhaps I am just unlucky! Haha

22

Thanks for this. Two minutes still seems like quite some drag particually for the current market? And when I’m only trying out stocks that are fluctuating by 1p :laughing: