Etorro and similar

BigGirlPants

I know someone who uses Etorro to build up a little bit of an investment, he says there's very few charges (he thinks it's just a bid/offer spread charge when he transfers money from the mini portfolio to his bank).

He's got just a few £100 invested which has now built up to over 1000 in about a year. he has just made lucky guesses and doesn't know much about shares.

I also know very little about shares, and I do know however you can lose all of your investment. I've never really been into gambling but I was wondering if I could set aside £100 to play around with, is it a viable way of making a little bit of extra cash, taking into account that I am fully aware I could lose it all.

Times are financially difficult and I don't have much disposable income, but I thought if I could put £100 in and accept the risks, whatever I could make I could use as a "treat" fund when things reopen. 

Also the idea of a little bit of a gamble seems exciting.

Any advice is welcome, and also I appreciate there are likely many similar apps around than the one he uses, I'm just unaware of them at the moment.

Eyeful

1.  Rule one is "never put money into something you do not understand".
Otherwise this might be you!                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMK1Y54M-E

2. Do you know the difference between Savings, Trading, Investing? Make sure you do before you start and before asking for information on any site.

3. Do you have
(a) an emergency fund of at least 6 months household expenses?
(b) job?
(c) ISA?
(d) Pension or SIPP?

4. LOW RISK SAVINGS BONDS: are regulated investments.

You get them from either:-

(a) NS&I, which is a loan to the UK goverment.

b) Bank/Building Society covered by the FSCS protection (at present up to £85K).

When savings products cannot repay you your money. The FSCS will repay you (up to £85K)

SAVINGS: Money is in a safe place & not at risk. You expect to at least take out what you put in.

Money need within 5 years should be kept in a savings account.

5. Trading: Short term gambling, think of it like betting on a horse race. Very risky!

6. Investing:  Long term gambolling (10 years or more), where the odds of winning increase greatly in your favour with time.

7. This may be of interest to you this is investing:

https://www.getrichslowly.org/bull-bear-markets/

https://www.kroijer.com/

https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/lifestrategy/#/

8. If you want to gambol buy a National Lottery ticket. Some of the money goes to good causes.

    

FirstTimeSolo

Minimum deposit in eToro is currently $500. You should try having a go with the eToro virtual account to learn a bit more. If you only deposit £100/min amount, I don't think you will make a lot (could be wrong, there are always rare exceptional events). At the same time, if you only deposit min amount then that is the most you can lose as well. eToro only have a withdrawal fee of $5. Other fees apply to use to leverage and CFDs (best avoid both in your case).

maxsteam

There are derivatives around which could lead you to lose more than the initial £100. A reputable trading platform won't let you deal in derivatives unless you pass a test or otherwise show that you know what you are doing. Some platforms are less reputable than others. I recently upset a few people here by pointing out that Freetrade were being downright dishonest by promising that customers could "invest for free, forever". I would certainly avoid eToro if they have a £500 minimum (more so if it's a $500 minimum), they are not even a member of any recognised stock exchange. While Freetrade are a non-trading member of the LSE, I would avoid them for the reason mentioned. You should have a look at Degiro. They are a proper broker and a member of the main European Stock Exchanges. My advice is to use your £100 to buy shares in your favourite FTSE company. You should not expect to turn it into £1000 but you should also not expect it to be worthless after a year. You might gain or lose £20 but you will have gained experience.

Incidentally, turning "just a few hundred" into "over £1000" does not necessarily imply successful trading. Buying shares at random, particularly in overseas companies that you may not even have heard about, is more likely to lose money than make money. There are a lot of investment scams around which you might not recognise as investment scams even after being a victim.

wmb194

Freetrade's been fine for me and unlike De Giro is based in Britain. If you head over to the referrers board there might be a free share offer. 

Btw, you don't have to choose just one broker, you could try them all. As they all have slightly different offerings and pricing I use different brokers for different securities and markets.

steampowered

Some of these responses are pretty boring !

If you are happy to take a high level of risk with your £100, go for it, it's good fun. Etoro is just fine for that purpose.

Just don't put bigger sums of money in until you understand what you are doing.

DireEmblem

Open a practice account on a broker website, with a 'fake portfolio' and try it out.  Learn if you want to pick up the risk of buying your own personal choice of stocks, or if you want to invest/save long term, and buy index trackers instead.

sevenhills

BigGirlPants said:

Also the idea of a little bit of a gamble seems exciting.

Exiting is where you put your money on something, then the race starts, there is then excitement and within 10 minutes you have either won or lost.

With shares you buy a shareholding for £100-£10,000 and then it could be a few weeks of increasing or decreasing value, it could take a year or two for a slight increase/decrease.

They do usually go up, more often than not, unless you pick a dud.

maxsteam

wmb194 said:

Freetrade's been fine for me and unlike De Giro is based in Britain. If you head over to the referrers board there might be a free share offer. 

No. Degiro are a proper broker. They won't be doing any free shares. If you are looking for free stuff, there's a "freebies" section of this board. Degiro used to do a promotion whereby you'd get £20 of transaction costs credited to your account for referring someone but you had to make proper investment transactions. They cater for serious investors, not people looking for freebies.

wmb194

maxsteam said:

wmb194 said:

Freetrade's been fine for me and unlike De Giro is based in Britain. If you head over to the referrers board there might be a free share offer. 

No. Degiro are a proper broker. They won't be doing any free shares. If you are looking for free stuff, there's a "freebies" section of this board. Degiro used to do a promotion whereby you'd get £20 of transaction costs credited to your account for referring someone but you had to make proper investment transactions. They cater for serious investors, not people looking for freebies.

Huh? Plenty of established, legitimate brokers have and have had offers e.g., AJ Bell and Fidelity regularly offer opening and switching cash via Quidco and TopCashback. What's your definition of, "serious"? Gambling on share options? As I've mentioned to you a bunch of times, Freetrade is a basic, execution only stockbroker along similar lines to iWeb/Halifax Stockbrokers and you can buy mainstream shares and ETFs but it doesn't offer options, CFDs, crypto or anything like that. It's fine for someone new.

It's amusing to me that in your moral panic over these new, lost cost brokers you think so highly of De Giro as it attracts plenty of gamblers. Every month it sends me an email stating the most traded share in each of the countries it operates. Last year it was Tesla, this month it's been... Gamestop. Sure, sure, it might "cater" to serious investors but plenty of its customers aren't. Lol. No offence, but I don't think you're very experienced.

maxsteam

wmb194 said:
Freetrade is ... fine for someone new.

I agree. It's aimed at people with no experience who are looking for something free.

I've yet to receive the email that you mention but surely, if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe?