Freetrade: Free Share Trading

Yes, Freetrade charge interbank rate + 0.5%

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I’d love a free bump just saying :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Zero commission investing Freetrade has arrived. Get early access with my link:

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Correct, if the £ becomes weaker but the value of the company remains static, you’ll effectively win due to converting those $ back to £.

Also obviously in reverse. If the pound becomes strong you’ll get less of them for your $ investment.

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@Tommmy and @danbeddows beat me to it but just to add, it’s also worth considering how dividends are treated. Freetrade, I believe will only offer sterling currency accounts, initially at least, so dividends will be converted back to sterling before they become available funds.

Euro and USD accounts would be very useful in mitigating some of that currency risk.

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eToro do that today…

As far as I’m aware, eToro’s fractional stock trading offer only applies to their CFD product. A CFD (contract for difference) is a financial derivative, in which you don’t actually own the underlying asset, i.e shares.

eToro’s primary focus up until recently has been on leveraged products, in which your losses could far exceed your initial capital outlay. But this a fundamentally different proposition to buying shares and investing over a long time frame through. However, new EU regulations designed to protect retail investors mean that many leverage product providers will have to impose lower limits on the amount of leverage and restrict access to these products to certain types of experienced investors. In practice, this restriction is usually based on a short questionnaire requiring self certification so it’s fairly easy to overcome that particular hurdle even if you have limited experience.

You can buy actual shares with eToro, but as far as I know not fractionals. Do point me to a source if you have one, I’d love to see how they’ve implemented it if true.

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I stand corrected, you can! I really thought this only applied to eToro’s CFD products, so thanks for the heads up @WillP79!

I just tried it out but there is a big caveat…

You can buy fractional stocks, i.e. the actual underlying asset but there is a minimum position size of $500.

So a buy order of $500 for Apple gets you 2.18 shares or for Alphabet you’ll be able to pick up 0.42 of a share.

Though this doesn’t address the scenario of wanting to put that spare £20 into owning a tiny piece of Alphabet or Tesla and opening up participation to a much wider demographic.

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Or 0.001548 of a BRK-A :smiley:

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BRK-B only on eToro! Boo!!

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BRK-B is for wannabees!

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Inflatable arm bands at the ready @DaveTMG!

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To be honest, I thought it was all CFDs still (apart from their recent move into real cryptos). Note that there is no obligation to leverage a CFD, so I don’t think your point about risk is necessarily accurate. I wasnt aware of the $500 minimum - I only use it for cryptos as I prefer to use an ISA for shares.

Is anyone in yet? Still 456th in the queue :frowning:

Were 612 users last week, they’re adding people from the queue now. Another batch added today. Shouldn’t be long for you :grin:

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Sweet! Getting there. Excited to see what it offers.

Best,

Charlie

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I have been on board since September and you will not be disappointed.
Works a treat with instant dealing if you pay £1 or free if your investment is queued to the end of the day. Money transfers from the bank takes about 4 hours to reach your account but they hope to speed this up in the future.

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Apart from Freetrade, what services do you use for holding your shares? Equiniti charge £24 a year “custody fee” which I’ve only just found out about. Are there any no/low fee services that hold shares?

Eventually I’d love Freetrade to hold my entire portfolio, and as good as it is, it’s not an option yet.

Interested to hear why not?

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No android… :sweat_smile:

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I see… not too long in the grand scheme of things I suppose…

No friends / family with an old iPhone?