Good morning, I hope you are all having a great day?
I’m on holiday and I’ve been recommended Freetrade, I’ve been doing a bit of reading and I wanted to learn a bit more about the platform.
I’m currently happy with my existing broker but the ongoing costs do slowly chip away at any revenue. You seem a great solution but I was worried if you are focused on shorter term day traders, or longer term investors?
From what I can see there is a limited selection of stocks currently, but that is being expanded, with a focus on US stocks, and trading these stocks each day. Does your platform trade the underlying investment or is this a similar platform to IG?
I hope you can help with my query, I’d be happy to provide more information if that helps.
Does this mean the platform does trade the actual stocks and shares? Meaning I would receive all dividends and be following the true price of the stock?
I’ve been burned on other platforms before, I would not want to waste anyone’s time.
The current range of stocks, trusts and funds is limited but has been expanding by request provided they are liquid. Shares of companies are limited to listings in the US and UK exchanges, but that will change I believe: listings in other countries will be included in time. ETFs are limited to the ones that follows European regulations, but there’s a fair chunk covering regions like Europe or China, others with focus on sector like robotics, and others with world coverage.
There are no CFD trading on the Freetrade app. No Forex.
We buy and sell shares in the underlying investment
Its aimed at long term investors. Short term traders need the best available spreads and the quickest execution time and in my experience Freetrade was not designed for this. And rightly so! The aim is to democratise investing so best to get newbie investors in the mindset of being long-term actual owners of the business. Furthermore, as far as I am aware, Free trade does not offer ‘margin’ which is a key aspect of short term trading.
And yes the platform does trade the actual stocks and shares. So you would receive all the dividends and the price would move up and down as per the market.
It is good to hear that this platform is designed with long term investors in mind. Your explanations regarding the differences between short term and long term platforms have been enlightening and clear.
The community is proving to be extremely valuable at helping me answer any queries by using the search, I have been reviewing what investments are available on the platform. I will need to compare my existing portfolios, or decide to run multiple platforms and divide the portfolios.
Aside from the price, and what is undoubtedly a very pleasant mobile application, are there any other key benefits I should be taking into account with this platform?
Fractional shares are coming soon, meaning you won’t have to purchase a whole share if the price is high
Instant deposits are coming soon for Apple Pay + Google Pay
You can see the team’s roadmap for other things coming in the future: Trello
Another benefit is the transparency + community, you can ask the team anything about the app on these forums, connect with other users and you don’t get that with any other platform. You can request shares on here too and the team will add them to the app in the future.
Thank you both for your comments. It appears there is much optimism planned for the future. This is a welcome change to the platforms I have used in the past.
This is certainly very different from any other platform I have seen before. It is becoming clearly to me why you where recommended.
I have been reading up on the ISA availability and what stocks are available. While the platform does not have the funds I have traditionally seen there appears to be an alternative, ETFs?
I do not think I’ll be able to make a decision on moving platform while I am away. There is still a lot of reading and researching I need to do, but this community is very new to me and extremely polite.
I hope we speak more in the future. My best wishes to you all.
