Why did Fidelity take so long to place a deal?

enthusiasticsaver

I placed a deal online through the website to sell 73 units of my Vanguard LS60 on Friday 9 October at 17.41 obviously after close of business and received an automatic acknowledgement saying it had been successfully submitted. According to the Fidelity website the deal should have been placed at the next available dealing point which should have been Monday 12 October. I however did not receive a confirmation of sale until Friday 16 October and the deal looks as if it was placed on 14 October. Firstly is this usual as this is the first time I have sold units from my investment?


The next issue has been to receive settlement and I am still waiting for this. Again the website says payment should be made within 7 business days of instruction being received. Assuming instruction received on Monday 12 October, ignoring the 9th and the weekend the 7 business days were up yesterday. I still do not have the sale proceeds although I can see that they are in my cash account with Fidelity this morning.




Has anyone else sold through Fidelity and I am right to be annoyed about this? I have just sent them a secure message but thought I would put this out there in case this is usual for them. :mad:

Sam_J12

My experience of Fidelity is that they will always price your deal at the next available dealing point provided you place the order before 11am - but they are quite slow in updating your account on the site. If I recall correctly Fidelity have three "stages" in the process - pricing, confirmation and settlement. I think it is likely that your deal will have been priced at midday on the Monday (or whatever time the Vanguard pricing point is) but the deal only confirmed a couple of days later and settlement coming later. A week is not unusual before you can access the cash. If you switch between funds then the time you are out of the market is usually only 24 hours, even though you can't see the details of the sale on your account until later.

Check what price you were given, then look up what the price was on Monday using something like Morningstar. I think you will find they are the same.

mapk

They do seem to be slow to process transactions. On several occasions, when transferring funds to Fidelity, my bank account shows a debit, but it is typically 5 working days before the credit shows in my 'Cash Park'.

I'm looking anyway at transferring out, probably to Charles Stanley (I understand Cavendish use the Fidelity platform, so fear it would be the same story there). Not wishing to hijack your thread, but I wonder if there is an optimum time for initiating the switch. I'll be liable for Fidelity platform charges from May 2016, I recall, so perhaps I should start the move now if they're so slow!

markharriers

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I placed a deal online through the website to sell 73 units of my Vanguard LS60 on Friday 9 October at 17.41 obviously after close of business and received an automatic acknowledgement saying it had been successfully submitted. According to the Fidelity website the deal should have been placed at the next available dealing point which should have been Monday 12 October. I however did not receive a confirmation of sale until Friday 16 October and the deal looks as if it was placed on 14 October. Firstly is this usual as this is the first time I have sold units from my investment?


The next issue has been to receive settlement and I am still waiting for this. Again the website says payment should be made within 7 business days of instruction being received. Assuming instruction received on Monday 12 October, ignoring the 9th and the weekend the 7 business days were up yesterday. I still do not have the sale proceeds although I can see that they are in my cash account with Fidelity this morning.




Has anyone else sold through Fidelity and I am right to be annoyed about this? I have just sent them a secure message but thought I would put this out there in case this is usual for them. :mad:

Hi sorry to interrupt but you seem very savvy on investments, i have been doing a lot of research as iam looking to invest could you please advise me what actions to take. I would like to invest but someone buys the shares for me.

many thanks in advance

JohnRo

In my experience on several platforms, Vanguard in particular are slow to process orders compared with many others. Typically a day or three longer than others, sometimes it's been four or five days.
Quite why they have to be so much slower I really don't know but I've bought and sold enough of their funds to expect it now.

Sam_J12

JohnRo wrote: »

In my experience on several platforms, Vanguard in particular are slow to process orders compared with many others. Typically a day or three longer than others, sometimes it's been four or five days.
Quite why they have to be so much slower I really don't know but I've bought and sold enough of their funds to expect it now.

I have noticed this too with Vanguard.

Atreyu107

markharriers wrote: »

Hi sorry to interrupt but you seem very savvy on investments, i have been doing a lot of research as iam looking to invest could you please advise me what actions to take. I would like to invest but someone buys the shares for me.

many thanks in advance

Can you specify what actions you need advice on?

Fund purchases are entirely different to share purchases if that's what you're asking, but best to clarify.

dunstonh

IIRC, Vanguard have a longer settlement period than most funds. It is T+3 rather than T+2

Fidelity is not a "live" platform like some. It updates overnight. So, you get that extended settlement period plus the overnight delay. Fidelity wait until settlement and do not pre-fund switches.