Spread difference?

sevenhills

maxsteam said:

Platform          bid  / offer      time

Fineco        118.40/118.45   15:12
AJBell         118.45/118.50   15:12
I-O(Jarvis)   118.70/118.75   15:20
HL               118.70/118.75   15:22
Degiro         118.65/118.70   15:23
Freetrade    119.00 (just one "indicative" price) 15:23
IG                118.40/118.56   15:26

All very similar with a spread of 0.05p, although it has widened occasionally to 0.1p on most platforms, except the last two. I don't hold ITV shares on Freetrade so, if I traded, I would be buying and the "indicative" price is slightly worse than other platforms and their price has not changed in the last 20 minutes. IG's spread is wider than the others, at 0.16p (occasionally narrowing to 0.1p).

If you look at the ITV share price on Google it is at 118.50 at 3.10, 118.65 at 3.15, 118.72 at 3.20, 118.63 at 3.25, 118.90 at 3.30 and rising.

So the Freetrade price is the only one which is certainly out of place at 119.00

maxsteam

sevenhills said:

So the Freetrade price is the only one which is certainly out of place at 119.00

It looks like Freetrade round their price for ITV to whole pennies. A little while after I last wrote, their "indicative" price went straight from 119p to 118p. It's a big jump and puts them in a different category to the platforms that provide prices to the nearest 0.05p. For anyone trading in the short term, getting accurate prices is important. Freetrade only provide an accurate price for a transaction after execution. My big worry with Freetrade is less for transactions in FTSE stocks where the spread is usually less than 0.1% whoever you trade through, but with some of the small companies that are popular with new investors where the spread can be far more significant.

sevenhills

Centamin plc (CEY) Ord NPV

Sell:97.10p Buy:87.86p

2 minutes later - Sell:92.56p Buy:92.76p

Thrugelmir

sevenhills said:

Centamin plc (CEY) Ord NPV

Sell:97.10p Buy:87.86p

2 minutes later - Sell:92.56p Buy:92.76p

Did you attempt to buy? 

sevenhills

Thrugelmir said:

Did you attempt to buy? 

I was thinking about it, but I think it was an error, ended up buying at 92

maxsteam

sevenhills said:

Centamin plc (CEY) Ord NPV

Sell:97.10p Buy:87.86p

2 minutes later - Sell:92.56p Buy:92.76p

It's normal at certain times (when markets open or immediately after a company announcement, for example) for spreads to widen. I see the wide spreads as a message from the market makers to say that they don't want to trade right now. Usually the spreads narrow until people start to trade.

wmb194

sevenhills said:

Centamin plc (CEY) Ord NPV

Sell:97.10p Buy:87.86p

2 minutes later - Sell:92.56p Buy:92.76p

Non-sensical indicated quotes like this show that it was in auction. If it was at about 10.10-10.15 yesterday then it was related to monthly options expiry, which happens at this time on the third Friday of every month.

NedS

This video may be interesting, and there's a section at around 8:40 on market makers and the bid/offer price

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7cqlt2cu4Y