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 thereās spread but why did freetrade confirm at .62? The shares stayed at .62 until market close on Friday and didnāt dip to .55
Shouldnāt the price shown include the spread ?because I wouldnāt have sold at .55.
Please donāt come in saying the usual āmaybe stocks and shares isnāt for youā etc please just help a complete and utter noob who until last week hadnāt even looked at anything remotely like this. Iām sorry if I come across as thick but Iām not ignorant Iām here to learn
Can you share the company and time of trade? Someone here will be able to confirm what happened but it sounds as if youāve confused the freetrade message at the time of placing your sell order.
Freetrade donāt state live prices, so they wouldnāt āconfirmā 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.
I think your situation itās 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 itās 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 donāt have much liquidity, thereās 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. Iāve 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 youāll benefit from it in the long run. If you donāt like reading, thatās great, you now have an excellent reason to spend time watching YouTube videos
Ahhh I see, so the price I was looking at will have been an earlier price ? Doesnāt 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 itās now 16:05 doesnāt 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 ?
So what if Iām 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 thereās millions of people in the world doing it at the same time and that moves prices
So say Iāve 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 itās saying price is from 5mins ago @ Ā£1 a share still and I confirm and Google still showing Ā£2 then Iāll 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 hasnāt updated to the current realtime price?
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 canāt 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.
Getting real time prices from the LSE seems to be expensive. I donāt 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 donāt 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 canāt be bothered think about indexing. And learn about fundamentals and valuations anyway.
Hahaha I understand thereās more to it, Ā£1 to Ā£2 was just a clear example. Iāve only been messing about with Ā£40 and low priced shares just to get a feel, I have to start somewhere
I think thatās actually a clever approach. Playing around with small sums. Itās 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
