Whole shares not fractional

After a quick search it seems like itā€™s been 8 months or so since the last mention of being able to buy whole shares as opposed to fractional shares. So howā€™s that progressing FT? Is that something thatā€™s likely to happen soon?

Thanks

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I must admit I would prefer to buy whole shares. It is frustrating when you get for example 1.0008

Also rounding down is annoying. I wanted to buy 100 shares of something and this was rounded down to 99

Not the end of the world though!

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Thought Iā€™d link this

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Yeah this was one of the previous posts Iā€™d read earlier.

Definitely should be an option to change between the number of shares to purchase/the cost of shares to purchase

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Whatā€™s the difference? A share is just a fraction of the company anyway.

With fractionals you specify the value you want to own rather than being forced to buy in multiples of Ā£24.08. Without fractionals you canā€™t invest Ā£50, you would have to round it down to Ā£48.16.

Some people may prefer to buy fractional shares and others may not. Sounds like you prefer to buy by monetary value, others may prefer to buy per share. That is the difference.

Having the option to be able to choose your preference sounds reasonable, isnā€™t it? Iā€™m not suggesting anyoneā€™s ā€˜forced to buy in multiplesā€™ as youā€™ve stated.

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I agree it would be nice to have both options but its not a deal breaker. Maybe in time Freetrade will add this feature.

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I believe it is possible for those subscribing to Freetrade Plus, via a limit order. Iā€™m also disappointed this still hasnā€™t been remedied. Letā€™s hope itā€™ll make a come back!

Unfortunately not Brendon. Due to the constantly fluctuating FX fees and/or Stamp duty itā€™s not possible.

I have Plus. Itā€™ll ask you your Buy price and then ask ā€˜How much would you like to investā€™ so it still works the same way mate.

Oh right, that is frustrating. I read elsewhere that was a possibility, but Iā€™m not a subscriber so havenā€™t tried it myself. Someone else suggested another solution of selling off the remaining decimal places, which I find to be a joke. Fingers crossed weā€™ll get the feature back in the future :crossed_fingers:t2:

I like it! :slightly_smiling_face: It looks as if that method would actually work on FT, selling of the fraction, but then you would immediately lose on the spread, fractionally for sure, but then times that by hundreds of trades or more and it starts to increase.

I too found this a little odd, personally I donā€™t mind either way, most of the time I like to buy by value but some times I would like to be able to get a round number of shares. I found it all the more strange because when I came to sell for the first time the other day I saw that this was done in no. of shares not value. Seems strange to have buy one way and sell the other.

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Actually with limit orders you just get full shares. The amount you put down that you want to invest is often ā€œrounded downā€ to match the full settlement amount inclusive of fx, etc. But in the end you just get full shares you can actually see how many full shares in the estimation part of the order before the limit order is put through.

Limit orders work the same way as before fractional shares were available. You enter the maximum amount of money you want to spend and FT will purchase as many shares as it can without exceeding that amount.

@pinheadplanet, it seems like what you really want is to be able to specify the exact number of shares to buy. E.g. you specify that you want 1,000 shares and if the order executes at a higher price then you pay more than the estimate instead of getting 999 shares within the total cost that you set. That isnā€™t really relevant to fractional vs whole shares debate.
That would be more complicated to implement because it could result in spending more money than is available in your account.

E.g. the last share price was Ā£1.00, you have Ā£1,000 in your account and you order 1,000 shares. The estimate would show that you have exactly enough money to complete the transaction. If the price goes up to Ā£1.05 before the order executes then the total cost would be Ā£1,050 and your order would fail due to lack of funds.
With the current system the order would succeed and you would get 952 shares.

Hereā€™s another good reason for being able to buy whole shares, I just received this email from Tradervue, the trade journaling software. They have said they do not support fractional shares. Does anyone know of another journal that does?

Hello,
Fractional shares arenā€™t supported in Tradervue at this moment.
So trades for TSLA are not included.
ā€“
Deepak
@tradervue.com

I imagine the reason it doesnā€™t exist in the system is because FT opted for Drivewealth to provide fractional shares. They probably run all orders through them. Not saying itā€™s not possible to have both, but might be a little complex (especially if itā€™s not a default option on Drivewealthā€™s side) so probably lower down the list of priorities than other things.

Looking forward to the day itā€™s possible in the FT app though!

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On the blog section of freetrades website it said this going to be available soon. @Freetrade_Team of course there are more important things being worked on but is there any idea even roughly when whole shares will be able to be selected? Thanks :slight_smile:

@Freetrade_Team

No comment from Sam sadly :frowning:

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