Halifax Fantasy Trader

jnbr

How closely does this match their real trading site?

I've been playing with this for a little while to get used to the process and decide whether to use Halifax for trading shares or someone else (although I don't know who that might be if I were to use someone else). So far it all seems easy enough but there are a few things which seem odd. It's perfectly possible this is just my misunderstanding but there doesn't seem to be any way to ask halifax about these things so I thought I'd try here.

Some of the share prices go a bit weird out of hours. For example I have some shares in Galliford Try and they are about 4.80 at the moment and show a small profit but for the last few days I've noticed that outside of the open trading hours the share price the halifax shows for them drops to about 4.20 and they show a massive loss. ?

I bought, or tried to buy, some shares in Google. On the first attempt nothing happened so I tried again and nothing happened. Then I noticed that it had created 'pending orders' to buy google so I assumed that they were just waiting for New York to open. Of course 2:30 comes and nothing happens the orders remain as pending orders for several days most eventually drop off the list without any effect but one bought apparently at a time and price which was no longer under my control.

The numbers don't add up! Under the p/l column I have 55.36, -40.34, 4.76, -11.78, 15.61, -0.17, -57.10, -29.89 which Halifax adds up to £-130.32 ... which is wrong! the total is £-63.55, even allowing for Halifax's charges of £11.95 per transaction the total would be £-159.15. Where's this number come from.

The change column obligingly swaps from green to red as daily changes swap from profit to loss. But the P/L column seems to remain red for some shares even when they show a profit! Why is google in red when it's also showing a profit of £15.61.

I've been using this because I want to move into more active share trading but I don't want to do so unless I understand what's going on and the halifax trading site is confusing me slightly. Most of it I understand, some of it is odd. It seemed this was a good place to ask as people here have discussed the site before, albeit with different questions, and been pretty helpful.

TIA

psychic_teabag

I'd have thought the main reason for using Halifax was for the low-cost regular purchase scheme. If you're not using that, would you not be better off somewhere charging less per trade - x-o and svs are mentioned on here from time to time. £11.95 per trade sounds pretty expensive.

jnbr

psychic_teabag wrote: »

I'd have thought the main reason for using Halifax was for the low-cost regular purchase scheme. If you're not using that, would you not be better off somewhere charging less per trade - x-o and svs are mentioned on here from time to time. £11.95 per trade sounds pretty expensive.

Well part of the reason for using Halifax at the moment was because they have a fantasy trading site so I could do some practice and learning. Also compared to lloyds and Hargreaves Lansdowne, who were the other two sites I looked at, Halifax were relatively or as cheap. I don't anticipate having so many transactions that I would benefit from any regular trader discount.

x-o and svs? Do you have links for those?

psychic_teabag

See posts 3 and 4 of https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3153942

jnbr

Ta for the links. When I get around to trading I may use them but until I properly understand what's happening with my practice site I don't want to start that. Which brings me back to my original question does the fantasy site truly mirror what a real site would do and if so then why am \i seeing things which to me, or at least me at the moment, seem odd?