I'm a customer of selftrade. I first signed up in february 2001 and used them for the orange IPO (flotation) and now use them more regularly for short term daily trading.
Their service is good overall and is one of the cheapest online brokers in terms of not having any account charges and costing only 12.50 a trade. This is only beaten by hargreaves lansdowne and imiweb.
For someone like myself their service isn't always good enough for day trading as the site has hiccups here and there but is more than sufficient for anything else. When it's in operation though there are no problems at all and a trade can take as little as 30 seconds.
They allow you to trade on the London Stock Exchange including the AIM market and also have two type of trading, at best or at quote. 'At best' is where you place a trade and get it at the best price that they can at that moment from 5 market makers - I wouldn't recommend this as you never know the price and if you get an intraday spike you're in trouble. 'At quote' is where a price is put up on the screen for 15 seconds and you can choose to accept or decline it - The preferred method.
There is also a 24hr customer support line that you can call and they are usually very efficient and helpful. I wouldn't recommend it for trading though as it'll take at least 5 minutes to place a trade.
There is no requirement for a separate bank account, you nominate your existing bank, to and from which you can move money on demand using debit cards and/or direct debits.
The site itself has many tools, such as share tracking, charts as well as the latest financial news. Companies news offers you best and worst intra-day price, volumes by shares and orders, by Markets. You can also access details of any share on the LSE.
As an additional point they are owned by a major bank in Germany so and even in the event of them going bust you are covered up to 70000 Euros (c. £43000) - enough for most traders. They are also regulated by the FSA (Financial Sevices Authority).
When you make a trade with Selftrade they will email you a contract note informing you of the transaction usually around 6:00pm each day.
On the downside I have had some trouble connecting to the site but usually they rectify this very quickly.
Overall though this site is highly recommendable to beginners and experienced share traders alike for its simplicity and ease of use.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Childsplay to navigate and a mine of essential info Disadvantages: Don't accept debit or credit card funding and low interest on dealing cash a/c
soko 09.03.2001 (09.03.2001)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Selftrade
Advantages: Childsplay to navigate and a mine of essential info Disadvantages: Don't accept debit or credit card funding and low interest on dealing cash a/c
soko 09.03.2001 (09.03.2001)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Selftrade
Jul 8th, 2001
very helpful by (89%):
helpful by (11%):
