Lowest cost app for individual shares

Onestepcloser

What apps are best for buying fractional or individual shares?  This is money that we can afford to lose, although hopefully not, it will be a small part of our portfolio overall.  A few I'm researching is freetrade, robinhood and 212.any thoughts?

DireEmblem

I quite like Trading212, haven’t tried the others.  If you use a referral, then you can get a free share worth up to £100, but most likely closer to £8.

It doesn’t have the full universe of stocks and shares, but more than enough, and it’s simple to use.

bowlhead99

Your research on robinhood will soon tell you that they don't operate in this country.

Freetrade offer fractional shares on US markets which works OK. You can't specify the number of shares you want to buy, only the amount of cash you want to spend and the rest is worked out based on the share price they achieve.  Given they don't have a profitable operation yet (because there is not much money to be made in not charging customers for the services) I wouldn't put much of my portfolio with them, but have used them and eToro for some 'play money'. Especially if you don't own whole units of shares it would be a huge pain and likely a protracted process to get back control of 'your' assets if they ceased trading - the same would be the case for any fractional trading setup as there are fewer brokers that would be willing/able to take over the operations.

I haven't used Trading 212 but you'll see various threads about them here. They subsidise the cheap/free trading in 'real' shares with the more profitable side of the business where people lose money on CFDs.

Based on your other threads, you're relatively new to investing and are making regular contributions to fund ISAs and pensions. Having a crack at dabbling with fractions of individual shares for such small amounts of money that you would need to buy a fraction of an actual share, is as likely to hinder your progression to early retirement as it is to advance it. And if you can only afford to buy a few shares or a fraction of a share, the time it would take to critically evaluate the company's financial position and prospects to figure out if the current share price is good or bad seems like it would be disproportionate to the amount of gain you stand to make. For small amounts of money, it's easier to take a punt on your convictions towards particular themes or company types by using a collective investment vehicle such as fund, etf or investment trust.

Albermarle

As above . Stick to funds etc for investments and if you fancy a gamble then have a bet on the football or the horses. More fun than researching shares !

ColdIron

The lowest cost and the best are frequently two different things

Onestepcloser

@bowlhead99 yes you are correct we are new to this, I'm trying to research as much as possible through reading up and youtube videos, looks like I'm maybe watching or reading the wrong content at this stage for us. Your post confirms that we should stick to basics for quite a bit longer, cheers.

Thrugelmir

Remember the old adage there's no such thing as a free lunch.  Nor invest to lose money. Take the time to identify good opportunities. 

dunstonh

Conventional investing is boring.   If you are looking for fun then don't expect to make money.  Expect to lose it.   So, find your fun elsewhere and stick to mainsteam.

Onestepcloser

I should've said  if do decide to take a punt it would only be in established companies such as  nvidia, space x  and glaxosmithkline to name a few, I think  they provide good returns in the foreseeable future imo.

bowlhead99

Onestepcloser said:

I should've said  if do decide to take a punt it would only be in established companies such as  nvidia, space x  and glaxosmithkline to name a few, I think  they provide good returns in the foreseeable future imo.

Investing is all about opinion of course, but some of the highest profile failures are ones that are very well 'established companies'.

The fact that a company like Nvidia should make lots of profits going forward is already baked into the price today, which is why you have to pay $500 to buy a share of it today rather than $175 a year ago when people did not think it was going to be quite so successful, or $25 five years ago. That doesn't mean the share price will keep going up and up in the same exponential way to be $20,000 in another five years. If it instead lost two thirds of its value, as tech companies sometimes do, it would still be a $100bn company worth several tens of times more than its current annual profits.  

Meanwhile Glaxo's share price is around the £15 mark just like it was at the start of 1998, though it has been paying dividends along the way. 

Space X is not listed on any stock exchange and is a private company, so the only way to get access to any potential share price growth is by buying investment companies that hold a piece of the company privately among a bunch of other 'established' and 'not-so-established' names that they would also hold.

As you say, stick to basics and learn to crawl before trying to walk and run.