Zero commission brokers eg Trading 212, Freetrade

tg99

Am looking at opening an account with zero commission on trades for purposes of small trade sizes where a commission would have more of a material impact on the transaction costs. Looking at UK etfs and investment trusts.

Couple of qu for those who have used Trading 212 and/or Freetrade or indeed if any others ppl can recommend:

- do their commission free trades allow you to deal at any point during market hours at live prices (like II, Hargreaves etc) or are client orders done in bulk at a particular time of day (like Investengine) such that you don’t know what price you are getting?

- anyone compared the price quote of a trade to that offered by bigger platforms like Hargreaves and II to see if there is a material difference, ie where Trading 212 / Freetrade price is not quite as good and thus the price difference may more than offset the commission saving?

I do have the CMC app (having participated in that offer a few months ago) but that does not offer a wide enough range of ETFs and investment trusts for what I need.

thks.

wmb194

tg99 said:

Am looking at opening an account with zero commission on trades for purposes of small trade sizes where a commission would have more of a material impact on the transaction costs. Looking at UK etfs and investment trusts.

Couple of qu for those who have used Trading 212 and/or Freetrade or indeed if any others ppl can recommend:

- do their commission free trades allow you to deal at any point during market hours at live prices (like II, Hargreaves etc) or are client orders done in bulk at a particular time of day (like Investengine) such that you don’t know what price you are getting?

- anyone compared the price quote of a trade to that offered by bigger platforms like Hargreaves and II to see if there is a material difference, ie where Trading 212 / Freetrade price is not quite as good and thus the price difference may more than offset the commission saving?

I do have the CMC app (having participated in that offer a few months ago) but that does not offer a wide enough range of ETFs and investment trusts for what I need.

thks.

Prices are the same as iWeb and the like and you can deal at any time of the day that the relevant market is open. If you want reliable consistency of immediate order execution for, in my experience, all of the ETFs. ITs and company shares large and small that it offers use Freetrade. 

T212 is fine for well traded shares and ETFs but for less liquid securities it can literally take days for trades to be executed, if at all.

tg99

wmb194 said:

tg99 said:

Am looking at opening an account with zero commission on trades for purposes of small trade sizes where a commission would have more of a material impact on the transaction costs. Looking at UK etfs and investment trusts.

Couple of qu for those who have used Trading 212 and/or Freetrade or indeed if any others ppl can recommend:

- do their commission free trades allow you to deal at any point during market hours at live prices (like II, Hargreaves etc) or are client orders done in bulk at a particular time of day (like Investengine) such that you don’t know what price you are getting?

- anyone compared the price quote of a trade to that offered by bigger platforms like Hargreaves and II to see if there is a material difference, ie where Trading 212 / Freetrade price is not quite as good and thus the price difference may more than offset the commission saving?

I do have the CMC app (having participated in that offer a few months ago) but that does not offer a wide enough range of ETFs and investment trusts for what I need.

thks.

Prices are the same as iWeb and the like and you can deal at any time of the day that the relevant market is open. If you want reliable consistency of immediate order execution for, in my experience, all of the ETFs. ITs and company shares large and small that it offers use Freetrade. 

T212 is fine for well traded shares and ETFs but for less liquid securities it can literally take days for trades to be executed, if at all.

Thanks. Do your comments on Freetrade apply even on the basic plan with no annual cost? I signed up to Freetrade a long time ago but never used it……maybe has changed since but I had recollection in the beginning the trades were bulked and done once a day like Investengine.

Useful to know re T212. For investments trusts such as the main private equity ones, REIT etc that are of reasonable size (a few hundred million market cap upwards) any idea if you’d expect these to execute immediately for small deal sizes or might take days?

Thx

wmb194

tg99 said:

wmb194 said:

tg99 said:

Am looking at opening an account with zero commission on trades for purposes of small trade sizes where a commission would have more of a material impact on the transaction costs. Looking at UK etfs and investment trusts.

Couple of qu for those who have used Trading 212 and/or Freetrade or indeed if any others ppl can recommend:

- do their commission free trades allow you to deal at any point during market hours at live prices (like II, Hargreaves etc) or are client orders done in bulk at a particular time of day (like Investengine) such that you don’t know what price you are getting?

- anyone compared the price quote of a trade to that offered by bigger platforms like Hargreaves and II to see if there is a material difference, ie where Trading 212 / Freetrade price is not quite as good and thus the price difference may more than offset the commission saving?

I do have the CMC app (having participated in that offer a few months ago) but that does not offer a wide enough range of ETFs and investment trusts for what I need.

thks.

Prices are the same as iWeb and the like and you can deal at any time of the day that the relevant market is open. If you want reliable consistency of immediate order execution for, in my experience, all of the ETFs. ITs and company shares large and small that it offers use Freetrade. 

T212 is fine for well traded shares and ETFs but for less liquid securities it can literally take days for trades to be executed, if at all.

Thanks. Do your comments on Freetrade apply even on the basic plan with no annual cost? I signed up to Freetrade a long time ago but never used it……maybe has changed since but I had recollection in the beginning the trades were bulked and done once a day like Investengine.

Useful to know re T212. For investments trusts such as the main private equity ones, REIT etc that are of reasonable size (a few hundred million market cap upwards) any idea if you’d expect these to execute immediately for small deal sizes or might take days?

Thx

You're way out of date on Freetrade, it hasn't done that in years; yes, instant no commission execution with the basic plan.

They should be okay with T212 but you'll have to experiment because even at the c.£300m mark liquidity and popularity varies. As it happens I placed an order to buy shares in a £317m trust last week (HEFT) and it must have taken 10 to 15 minutes for that to be executed, but this is a less popular trust with a wider indicated bid/offer than many. I also own HEFT via Freetrade and trades there, both buy and sell, have always been immediate. 

The difference seems to be that T212 tries to make its own market between itself and with its customers before going to the market whilst Freetrade is the same as other brokers e.g., iWeb and HL where it just goes straight out to the market.

tg99

wmb194 said:

tg99 said:

wmb194 said:

tg99 said:

Am looking at opening an account with zero commission on trades for purposes of small trade sizes where a commission would have more of a material impact on the transaction costs. Looking at UK etfs and investment trusts.

Couple of qu for those who have used Trading 212 and/or Freetrade or indeed if any others ppl can recommend:

- do their commission free trades allow you to deal at any point during market hours at live prices (like II, Hargreaves etc) or are client orders done in bulk at a particular time of day (like Investengine) such that you don’t know what price you are getting?

- anyone compared the price quote of a trade to that offered by bigger platforms like Hargreaves and II to see if there is a material difference, ie where Trading 212 / Freetrade price is not quite as good and thus the price difference may more than offset the commission saving?

I do have the CMC app (having participated in that offer a few months ago) but that does not offer a wide enough range of ETFs and investment trusts for what I need.

thks.

Prices are the same as iWeb and the like and you can deal at any time of the day that the relevant market is open. If you want reliable consistency of immediate order execution for, in my experience, all of the ETFs. ITs and company shares large and small that it offers use Freetrade. 

T212 is fine for well traded shares and ETFs but for less liquid securities it can literally take days for trades to be executed, if at all.

Thanks. Do your comments on Freetrade apply even on the basic plan with no annual cost? I signed up to Freetrade a long time ago but never used it……maybe has changed since but I had recollection in the beginning the trades were bulked and done once a day like Investengine.

Useful to know re T212. For investments trusts such as the main private equity ones, REIT etc that are of reasonable size (a few hundred million market cap upwards) any idea if you’d expect these to execute immediately for small deal sizes or might take days?

Thx

You're way out of date on Freetrade, it hasn't done that in years; yes, instant no commission execution with the basic plan.

They should be okay with T212 but you'll have to experiment because even at the c.£300m mark liquidity and popularity varies. As it happens I placed an order to buy shares in a £317m trust last week (HEFT) and it must have taken 10 to 15 minutes for that to be executed, but this is a less popular trust with a wider indicated bid/offer than many. I also own HEFT via Freetrade and trades there, both buy and sell, have always been immediate. 

The difference seems to be that T212 tries to make its own market between itself and with its customers before going to the market whilst Freetrade is the same as other brokers e.g., iWeb and HL where it just goes straight out to the market.

Great, Thks.

tg99

Did my first trade on Freetrade and price was the same as on II (0.01% lower so within margin of error and were a few seconds apart anyway) so definitely makes sense for me to use this for smaller type trades / top ups.

Only thing I noticed though was that as opposed to the likes of II, HL etc where you get the screen flash up with the deal price for 15 or so seconds to accept, in this case the shares just get bought without seeing the actual live / execution price first. Is this the same across all Freetrade price plans?

wmb194

tg99 said:

Did my first trade on Freetrade and price was the same as on II (0.01% lower so within margin of error and were a few seconds apart anyway) so definitely makes sense for me to use this for smaller type trades / top ups.

Only thing I noticed though was that as opposed to the likes of II, HL etc where you get the screen flash up with the deal price for 15 or so seconds to accept, in this case the shares just get bought without seeing the actual live / execution price first. Is this the same across all Freetrade price plans?

Yes, this is the one thing it's lacking. It's the same with T212 as well.