Theres n00bs then there's me

Ok just a quick question.

I was just testing the water the other day and I had some shares and wanted to sell.

I clicked sell and clicked all shares and went to review page and it said so many shares selling at current price of 0.62 clicked confirm and it sold them at 0.55 now I understand thereā€™s spread but why did freetrade confirm at .62? The shares stayed at .62 until market close on Friday and didnā€™t dip to .55

Shouldnā€™t the price shown include the spread ?because I wouldnā€™t have sold at .55.

Please donā€™t come in saying the usual ā€œmaybe stocks and shares isnā€™t for youā€ etc please just help a complete and utter noob who until last week hadnā€™t even looked at anything remotely like this. Iā€™m sorry if I come across as thick but Iā€™m not ignorant Iā€™m here to learn :grin:

Cheers Andy

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Iā€™m confused. You were willing to sell at .55 but not at .62? Isnā€™t .62 higher than .55 hence a better price for the seller?

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I messed it up, I have amended it, sorry :cry:

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Can you share the company and time of trade? Someone here will be able to confirm what happened but it sounds as if youā€™ve confused the freetrade message at the time of placing your sell order.

Freetrade donā€™t state live prices, so they wouldnā€™t ā€œconfirmā€ a 0.62 price as such, they would have said something like 15 minutes ago the price was 0.62,do you want to proceed.

If you can share a few more details the community will definitely help.

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Ok that makes sense. Donā€™t need to be sorry.

I think your situation itā€™s not unique in the sense it happened to others.

In my case I had it of all kinds and flavours. I had situations like yours, where the price was worse for me, I had situations where the price was exactly the same, and I had situations when the price ended up being better for me.

The price you see just before taping the sell/buy button itā€™s indicative only. It is not a guaranteed price. It is delayed by 15 minutes give or take. When you tap the button sell/buy Freetrade goes out and try to find the best price available for your order. And it will execute at the best price it can find. And that can be similar or very different from the indicative price we saw just before placing the deal.

Some stocks donā€™t have much liquidity, thereā€™s not many people buying or selling them and that makes it harder to get thin spreads. I wonder if your case could be one of these.

The way to find out is to check the records on the LSE to try and find your trade and see if an anomaly can be found or if everything was normal. Iā€™ve never been bothered to check my trades on the LSE

Now, if you really are a complete noob, may I suggest you read a bit before engaging in stock picking? I believe youā€™ll benefit from it in the long run. If you donā€™t like reading, thatā€™s great, you now have an excellent reason to spend time watching YouTube videos

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Ahhh I see, so the price I was looking at will have been an earlier price ? Doesnā€™t that mean that I could miss a deadline?

I mean say I look at my shares and notice they have shot up and I click to sell at the higher price and it comes up with a confirmation and says price correct at 16:00 and itā€™s now 16:05 doesnā€™t that mean I could have just sold my shares at a loss instead of a gain if the shares have fallen between 1600 and 1605 ? Surely when you click buy the app should refresh to the current time and give an exact price? Or am I missing something ?

Yes it does mean that.

The exact price is given after the deal is done. Before you get an estimate only

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So what if Iā€™m watching in real-time on say Google finance and my stocks shoot up this second, I then jump on freetrade straight away and sell, will that give me the real-time price ?

If Google Finance gives you real time prices, then yes. But not necessarily. The price displayed is the price of the last transaction on record. It is not a guarantee of the price that comes next. You are looking at Google Finance, you place your deal and 5 seconds have passed. Then Freetrade goes out to get you a deal. Another 5 seconds. Meanwhile the price may have changed dramatically because thereā€™s millions of people in the world doing it at the same time and that moves prices

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Ok, so just a bit more detail to that,

So say Iā€™ve got both freetrade and Google finance open and Google is showing a rise from Ā£1 to Ā£2 and I click sell on freetrade but itā€™s saying price is from 5mins ago @ Ā£1 a share still and I confirm and Google still showing Ā£2 then Iā€™ll sell at Ā£2 a share or somewhere near that depending on the spread rate and as long as the price is still Ā£2 even though freetrade hasnā€™t updated to the current realtime price?

Thanks for your time mate

Freetrade will ways get you the best price in the market at the time you choose to buy or sell.

That price may have moved however quite a bit from what it shows in app because freetrade canā€™t show live stock exchange prices unless it pays Ā£4 per person to the LSE.

Having Google or some other closer to real time price chart open at the time you want to deal is a very sensible thing to do.

And is exactly what I do too.

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Thank you so much you have been very helpful, I understand nowšŸ˜Š

I donā€™t know how real time Google is.

Getting real time prices from the LSE seems to be expensive. I donā€™t know if Google pays for it.

On the other hand, if I see one stock going from Ā£1 to Ā£2 in a matter of minutes I duck and sit on my hands and stay put. 100% increase in minutes is too much for my poor heart.

But if you really are new to thisā€¦ I donā€™t know manā€¦ it sounds to me as a dangerous approach.

Focus on price is important so long you have a long term perspective. If you want to pick stocks learn about fundamentals and valuations. If you canā€™t be bothered think about indexing. And learn about fundamentals and valuations anyway.

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Hahaha I understand thereā€™s more to it, Ā£1 to Ā£2 was just a clear example. Iā€™ve only been messing about with Ā£40 and low priced shares just to get a feel, I have to start somewhere :man_shrugging:t3:

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I do this as well. And I also use the quotes from HL cuz I have my LISA with them. Bloody 11.95

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Thank you both for taking your time and replying :grin:

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I think thatā€™s actually a clever approach. Playing around with small sums. Itā€™s a cheap way to get yourself educated. One of the most important learning subjects being the control of your emotions

Got to go know. Must be up by 6 and am late for me nap

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Google Finance is as close to real time for UK and US shares as you can get without paying for the data.

Yahoo Finance is real time for US but delayed 15 minutes for UK.

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Just keep your eye on this issue to see if it happens again. Iā€™ll see myself

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