Thatās an interesting way of looking at it. I tend to see it as the Ā£10 a month as bulk buying my trading costs and anything else on top of that as a free bonus which will get even better over time. I appreciate that doesnāt work for everyone, especially those with lower pot sizes.
To balance that up Iād say there are other things Iām more concerned about right now. Iām an investor in Freetrade and I want to see it do well but Iām not a mad fan, there are a few things that need work, the lack of reporting is really poor, the pricing when you buy and sell is well below standard, and launching a SIPP without in specie or any idea what will happen post retirement is certainly giving me pause.
Say Iām all out, ISA, SIPP and Plus. Thatās Ā£17. Ā£10 for the sipp, Ā£3 for the ISA and Ā£4 for plus. If I make 4 trades a month thatās Ā£1 a trade.
Of the options (i can guess who youāre referring to), im more comfortable with building a sizable holding on Freetrade than potential alternative zero commission competitors. I am happy and comfortable with their terms, and i have some confidence with how they hold my assets and how they operate. That said i donāt hold everything here and there are other companies I also have the same trust with, Vanguard is one of them.
This seems to be something Freetrade are currently building up
The following three resources are on their website
(theyāve also started a new daily roudup newsletter > Freetrade)
Theyāre actually not bad resources.
I actually also had a chance to have a chat with them once and content was one of the topics.
But on your second question a little further, an investment platform may have a number of resources that are helpful but sometimes that can lead you into the problem of only knowing bits of a larger picture as you pick and look for only information as you come across it. A better approach would be to get a wider view and understanding as a whole. And that probably means books and lots of reading of multiple sources. The links above, well respected investment books, financial news (Yahoo, FT (Financial Times, etc.)) or magazines (Trust Magazine, etc.) and more.
Maybe they should slow down.
My first investment was in Vanguard, i parked my money in their LifeStrategy fund then left it there for a year as i learned a little more about how everything works. It turned out to be a great strategy, but i didnt know at the time.
100% agree. When you look on the face of it the return on cost seems low. I could just go elsewhere for freeā¦
Canāt argue with that. But, id maybe only say that if theyāre new to investing and are wanting to invest in a stock that would be in plus. Why? Do they know anything about the company? Or is it a meme stock? Because I sometimes question why someone would want to invest in these stocks when theyāre new to investing. But hey, people can do what they want.
But youāre not wrong. Free is free. Heck, i have a stock on 212 because freetrade donāt have it (although if they did it wouldnt be in plus). My SIPP is with Vanguard because Freetrade dont do SIPPs (yet)
I donāt care critical is always good. Theres lots of crap things about Freetrade
How long the incumbents took to get here is yesterdayās news and race. Todayās race is on and the only relevant one. The incumbents are already here and the direct neo-broker competitors are knocking on the door so things have to happen in months, not years. Going faster is one of the strong points of FinTech and Tech in general so we must stop comparing with how long it took the incumbents.
Not really that true, its very dependant on what youāre trying to achieve if speed is really the main factor. Rushing things out the door can be a disaster
Agreed. Even worse is that they didnāt make any exceptions for stocks previously purchased. Of the 2 ETFs I owned when Plus began I can now only add extra money to 1 of them
There is a difference between rushing and missing your delivery roadmap ETAs by over one and a half years. While even the slow incumbents delivered much faster the same item (e.g. SIPP) with more functionalities and with acceptable quality code (no visible bugs from a user point of view), then you have a project management issue.
The sector mantras, especially among its winning unicorns are āMove fast, break thingsā and āGet sh*t doneā. When all youāre trying to do is delivering the replication of sector-wide decades old functionalities, the ābreak thingsā does not even have the legal impact of cutting edge innovation.
With good development and testing teams + beta user versions, working fast on the above replication is hard work but not complicated.
I have been wondering what the reason is for Plus coming out and having so many of the small-cap stocks, and etc in. Is this because they could be volatile as Iād always thought Freetrade would focus on bringing more good value & low cost stocks out for free while stocks that can cost more can be implemented based on the user consensus/ like the voting system we have still. I canāt help but think about how many stocks I have had my eye on that has not been added, even with traction from the rest of the community also, while there are many stocks added that just generally arenāt in a great place for a wide range of reasons.
I do feel things have slowed the past year or so also but with how things are in the world I can understand disruption in many places could cause delays etc. I still have good hopes and by no means think that they are out of the game, just wish most wanted or hot stocks are added faster and with less being hidden behind the paywall (When expanding markets too). I feel the Ā£1 instant order was better. But with the soon to be expanding workforce I at least have my fingers crossed for the year while I open a T212 account to widen my options when available as I should have done originally.
Yeah I know, and itās cool itās gone but I think it fits better, being Freetrade, it should be free to trade. Then if you want it instant (as you believe you are getting the best price then) then a Ā£1 fee for processing instantly is more than fine.
And cheers for the head up on T&Cs will definitely make sure to check it carefully
critical is always good. Theres lots of crap things about Freetrade