Vanguard Along Side FT

Does anyone have a vanguard account that they’re using along side of FT?

If so, are the costs the same? I am thinking of using Vanguard for ETFs and Trackers and then FT for the commission free trading on UK stocks.

1 Like

That’s more or less what I do, works quite well with the core-satellite strategy.

Vanguard’s fee is 0.15%, which can be cheaper than FT’s Isa if you don’t have much capital. Alternatively, you could use FT’s general investment account and pay nothing, but you have to be aware of the dividend and capital gains tax thresholds.

Oh nice. I did see the annual fee of 0.15%

I plan on putting £1000 / £1500 a month in. With a bulk deposit of £5000. That’s if I was going to use vanguard.

I like FT but the app isn’t that reliable, none of my trades sync correctly. Vanguard also have more offerings, also why buy vanguard via FT??

I wont be moving away from FT just maybe for bigger investments

At a certain point, FT will become cheaper because the annual Isa fee is capped at £36.

2 Likes

I also thought this. I guess over the long run FT will always be cheaper.

I just wish their app was more stable

This is very early days for Freetrade :freetrade:
The best is yet to come :boom:

2 Likes

Hey, drop us a DM if there’s any specific issue we can help with?

We shared a number of updates last night around the rollout of the Invest Platform. As well as delivering lots of new features, it’ll also improve the overall app experience and stability.

Sneak peek :eyes:

23

8 Likes

Does anyone know how small the fractional share buys can be in value ? I.e £1 ?

I use Vanguard for my ISA, firstly because it’s the majority of my investments/savings and i wouldn’t feel comfortable putting them in a new company, freetrade.

Also freetrade do not offer mutual funds and it doesn’t look like they intend to currently. All my isa is in Lifestrategy, very low commission.

I use freetrade for stock buying (obviously no commission) and this is more for fun. It will also be interesting to see if my stock picks beat my ISA return. I’m hoping that the benchmarking feature will allow me to compare to funds, but i can do it manually anyway if not.

This is why im going to open a Vanguard account…althought they say min investment is £500 per ETF. Are you able to drip feed the account as and when, once it’s set up?

There are three main reasons i’ve identified that make Freetrade cheaper than Vanguard in the long term:

Reason One

  • Vanguards platform fee is 0.15%, capped at £375.

  • Freetrade’s ISA is set to be £36 yearly, bear in mind alpha might cost more.

That yearly £315 saving would amount to a ~£26k return after 30 years, assuming a CAGR/Market return of 6%

Reason Two

Freetrade will enable access to ETFs other than Vanguard (Vanguard only offer their own ETFs), which may have a cheaper Total expense ratio.
e.g.

  • Rather than VWRL (TER 0.22%),
  • you could buy HMWO (TER 0.15%)

You’d save ~£12k by choosing Freetrade so you could choose the cheaper ETF given a market return of 6% and £1k invested monthly

N.B. There is more to an ETF than it’s TER, e.g. tracking error. Also, TERs could change over time

Reason Three

Fractionals mean that you reduce cash drag. E.g. If you have £50 more leftover to invest at month end, and your world tracker share price is £100, you have to wait until you have £100 altogether to deploy capital - meaning a month of missed returns - and that cycle repeats.

Whilst more laborious to calculate, (as this effect also applies to account minimums, reinvesting dividends, etc) i’d argue less cash drag easily compound into savings in the thousands as above.

Freetrade is yet to implement fractionals, a vast range of ETFs, etc - so for now these savings dont apply, and I use FT as my share dealng broker only. As FT matures, i’ll shift all my capital to them and proudly use them as my sole broker:+1:

5 Likes

Those are all great points, but how do you feel placing all your savings into a start up? Instead of a well established broker?

Doesn’t really matter. Even if Freetrade goes bankrupt, your assets are separately held and will never be touched. You can sell or transfer them after this hypothetical event.

2 Likes

A start up with FSCS coverage. Funds up to £85,000 are covered.

So, I feel pretty damned confident.

10 Likes

https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/stocks-shares-isa

This page has some details

Hi, I use Vanguard too and can confirm once you reach £500 you can drip feed Index and active funds (£5 at a time etc.). ETFs though have to be bought as single units as in Freetrade at the moment.

Vanguard are not that great either. They use a third party system and I had multiple times 1) missing dividends 2) failure to trade 3) for multiple days in a row 4) delays in paper form processing / transfers 5) compensation 6) additional compensation for miscalculated compensation.

Overall, I have had less issues with Freetrade and issues I had, were resolved timely and professionally, and a lot faster than Vanguard.

3 Likes