What's up you guys, sasha here today, i wanted to walk you through getting started with free trade. Now, free trade is a uk based investment platform. They are currently only operating in the uk, but according to them, they're about to expand to europe and in the coming months, possibly go beyond that as well. So watch this space they're one of two companies in the uk that are offering massively disrupting products to uk investors that are offering them a huge variety of different stocks that they can go and invest in very, very fast and easy setup process.

There's no commission there's! No various weird annual management fees and things like that, and it is available to anyone you don't have to have a huge deposit. You can get started with almost nothing. Trades are fast and there are a lot of similarities with trading two and two where one is probably better in one aspect and another is better than another. I'm going to come to that in a different video that is coming up very very soon, where i compare the two and tell you exactly what the differences are.

That's not the purpose of this video, but there is one big difference that i do want to mention, and that is that free trade have a quite different business model to trading two one. Two trading, two one two relies on their cfd side of the business. To go and earn quite a large part of their overall revenue, so essentially they're offering the isa accounts and invest accounts as sort of a part introductory way of getting people into the platform. And then, if a small proportion of those people then go and use their cfd platform, that's where the money is made to yeah some degree for the business.

Free trade does not offer cfds, they don't offer any kind of leverage trading, they don't offer any complex instruments or anything like that which, if you're a beginning investor and especially, if you're, the kind of person who doesn't want to potentially get sucked into something that you Don't want to actually do because trading cfds trading, various complex instruments requires a huge amount of knowledge and experience, and even then it's difficult enough and the vast majority of people, according to free trade and trading 212, actually go and lose money when they go and trade Cfd, so if you're the kind of person who doesn't want that to be a feature, that's available, if you want something, that's a bit more user-friendly and simple in a way because it doesn't have any of those extra features there. Free trade might be a good option for you just before you do get started with free trade. A couple of points that i think are really worth mentioning for clarity and fairness. The first is, they do charge a fee on their regular, investing account and that fee is part of the foreign exchange fee.

So whenever you go and buy shares and stocks and etfs they're valued in currencies other than pounds, you will have to go and pay 0.45 percent foreign exchange fee for each transaction. So that means, if you go and buy a stock that is priced in, let's say dollars and then at some point later you go and sell that same stock. You will essentially be paying 0.9 in fees, as i understand it, which is quite a noticeable amount of money and is worth knowing. So if you're planning to make short term moves and try to go and invest in something for like a month or two to try to make some money on the difference in price, this is going to be a very noticeable component because, typically, in that period, on Average share prices don't go up by much greater amount than that in any case.

But if you are looking for long-term investments, where you're trying to invest in a portfolio that you're wanting to grow over long periods of time over several years, then that 0.9, in the grand scheme of things, if you're, aiming for returns of, say eight percent or something Like that on average per year over several years might not be as much of an issue and to be fair, it isn't as good as straight into one two in that aspect, where trading two and two do not charge anything, but their fee structure is still much Much much better than all the big companies out there like hungary's lansdowne who charge you huge fees per trade, a management fees and a bunch of other stuff. So, although in that aspect, you are being trusted in the trading 202 do not charge, it is still way ahead of the rest of the competition. The other important point to note is that free trade offer a premium version of their account called free trade plus this account costs 9.99 a month, and it offers a bunch of features and benefits that the regular account does not have, including some things that are quite Useful for people who want to get the best price on things or just for people who want to maximize their return on their investments. You get more stocks and shares you get the ability to place limit orders and stop losses, and also, very recently, they introduced a three percent interest on cash, so any money that is not invested actually does still yield you a return as well.

For those of you who might consider getting an isa, it is important to know that, unlike trading 212 free trade charges three pounds a month for having your isa account. But if you get the plus account for 9.99 a month that three pound is waived and the isa account is part of the services that you can access for that monthly fee, but anyway that's about it. This is not a review of free trade. I have a separate video that i'm working on that i'm gon na be releasing in a few days time, where i'm gon na go into a great amount of detail where i will tell you exactly all the things you need to know about free trade, the platform Things that are good about it, things that are bad about it, things that i, like things that i don't like i'm gon na leave.

All of that. For then, this video is specifically to help people who are interested in getting starting a free trade with just understanding. How does the platform look and feel? What's the sign up process like how do you go and deposit your first, but your money? How do you go and buy shares? What does it look and kind of how do how? How does it actually work, especially if you've never invested before and you're looking to start with free trade? That's what i'm going to do, i'm going to show you exactly everything from start to finish. I don't have an account at the moment, as i'm filming, i'm literally gon na, go and create the account on this video.

Just a really brief disclaimer before we get started. I am not a financial advisor, i cannot offer you financial advice and if you do need financial advice, you will need to go and seek a suitably qualified professional now that we got out of the way, let's get started now, one big difference between trading 212 and Free trade is that you can't go and open your account or user account on your computer. It is an app-only service on your computer. You can click the link in order to get the initial free share, but even then you'll still have to go and complete the process on your phone.

So that's one big difference. I'm gon na be showing you everything on the screen right here and as i go through it, and what i'm gon na do is, go and show you every single step and take you through the process. Now. One really important thing is: if you do decide to go and open an account, you might want to go and get yourself a free share.

If you just set up an account without doing this, you will not get that free share. But if you click my link in the description below you'll be able to get yourself a free share worth up to 200 pounds, it's worth between three pounds and 200 pounds, depending on which one you get, and all that just for creating the account and making the Initial low deposit and beginning to invest in return, i will also get a free share, not the same one as you, it kind of varies. Sometimes i get a better one. Sometimes i get a worse one.

It's a matter of luck, but that's just a disclaimer for full transparency, so that you know exactly what's happening and it's kind of a win-win situation anyway. Remember that if you already have an isa account with another provider, that is a stocks and shares isa or you've. Already maxed your 20 000 isis allowance total limit through other forms of isa. You cannot go and open an isa account with free trade and begin investing it in this tax year.

You will have to wait until next tax year, just something to be aware of, but given that you have to pay for the iso account on this, i probably i'm guessing that people who are starting with free trade will probably maybe first start with their regular, invest Account instead, so, finally, let's actually get started. The first thing that you need to do is go and hit my link in the description below and you'll land on a page that looks something like this. This page will tell you that you can go and get your free share and it'll. Tell you who exactly you're.

Getting the share from all you have to do is hit the link, go and download the app wait for it to install and then go and open it and let's get started with the registration hit continue. First, let's enter the email address. Next, go to your emails and go and hit the link in the email that you receive. It might take a few moments.

I think it took about two to three minutes for me to just receive this email just now, so just give it a little bit of time make sure you check your spam in case it's landed there. Bang, i've hit it back to the app and on to the next step. Now you need to go and create a four digit. Passcode use touch id please next enter your first name and surname make sure they are exactly the same as in your passport or on your driving license in case.

You need to go and submit those documents to verify your identity, or in case you come into any kind of issues in the future. Don't use your shortened version or anything like that. Click continue and select your date of birth. All right now.

We're done the next step is to get your address, let's type in our postcode, so far so good. Now i need to go and select my actual address, okay, nationality, and once you select your nationality, you then have to go and enter your national insurance number. I'm guessing this is the same for everyone at the moment, because the only country that free trade, as i understand it, operate at the moment, is the uk so go and type that in here. If you don't know where your insurance number is, go and check your payslips or p60s or any other tax information from your employer or that number printed in your national insurance card is the one that you want.

Next, you need to confirm that you are not a us citizen, a dual us citizen or a us tax resident. The reason this is important is because, whenever you're going to be earning dividends from u.s stocks, you will be able to qualify for paying a much lower. Withholding tax than if you couldn't confirm these details because of a unique agreement between the uk and the us, so instead of paying 30 tax, you will pay 15 tax at source. Instead, click continue and now you get to select, which account you want.

I'm gon na select the general investment account because i already have an isa account from this tax here that i've invested in from trading two one two, so i'm gon na go for the general trading, which is also a free account, which is what i want. So first free trade will ask you if you want notifications, if you say no, they will ask you again, because notifications are important and you need to click no for the second time in order for it to go away now you have signed up. The next step is to complete your us tax exemption. Now this step is pretty much automatic with trading two one two here you have to follow a few extra steps.

You just basically have to specifically explicitly confirm that you are not a u.s citizen and you are not eligible to pay u.s taxes once you've filled all that out. You then have to read some declarations for your w8ben form, and once you have read them, you then have to go and tick the box at the bottom and hit submit now. We've done two out of the four steps and the next is to top up and get the money into your account. So let's do that now now your cash will arrive within two to four hours.

If you go and send it via a bank transfer or you can go and send it via apple pay instead, and this will allow you to go and deposit money a lot more quickly, if you're wanting to do that, so i'm gon na do this just because It allows me to go and complete this step a little bit quicker and i can finish doing this video rather than having to wait and do the rest of it tomorrow. So i'm gon na go and deposit 200 pounds via apple pay. I don't actually have apple pay set up, so i better go and get that done. Just a word of warning: i am not specifically familiar as to exactly how this transaction is processed through apple pay in terms of the merchant codes and things like that.

But don't use your credit card for it, because if the data is passed that this is an investment into an investment platform rather than some form of a purchase, your credit card may charge you a cash transaction fee and they may charge you the much higher cash Interest rate - and you don't really want to go down that road, so use your debit card for this transaction instead, now that you have signed up you're going to get a bunch of different emails as i'm getting right now telling you all kinds of weird and wonderful Things about free trade and you're gon na get some helpful tips when you're first getting started, which will tell you a little bit about investing and then you have to hit. I am ready and i think that's when we are done now. This is what will happen to you if you follow this process, it tells you that you have earned your free share and you will get this mystery share in seven to ten days. So if you don't get an immediately or within one or two days, don't panic give it some time it will process.

It is registered that this is gon na happen. I often get comments from people when i have used the trading 212 link that they haven't got their share because it didn't come through immediately, but i haven't had any follow-up saying that they didn't receive it after a few days. So i think that this does resolve on both platforms. Just give it a little bit of time and it will arrive in due course.

I shall find out what my one is later and i will have to update you in one of the future videos as to which one that was anyway, let's go and now invest a little bit of money. Now, just so you know, i am intentionally filming this video at the point in time when both the uk and the us markets are open and that's really important, because free trade operates slightly differently to trading 212 in the way that orders are made and completed with Free trade: there are two ways that you can go and complete your orders. The first is called instant orders and that works in exactly the same way as trading 212 and how you would imagine it works the moment you go and place the order. The order completes, but that only works, if you do it during normal working hours, if you're doing this outside normal working hours, you can't go and do an instant order, unlike trading two on two, where you can go and place the instant order and then that order Will complete the next morning or the next time that the market opens? That's just my understanding, based on reading all of their information and processing it because, as you can see, i've only just opened the account, so i haven't actually done it.

But that's why i'm doing it at this point in time, because any shares or stocks or etfs that i buy should complete instantly because of that order. The second type of order that you can do outside the trading hours is called the basic order and that will allow you to go and complete the purchase at 3 pm the next day. So if you can do the basic order, let's say that tonight at 9 00 p.m, then the next day at 3 p.m. That order will complete not when the market opens not at some point after the market opens, but roughly speaking, at 3 p.m, because that's when they're going to process those transactions.

If you're wondering, when the overlap is between the uk and the us, the us stock markets open at 2, 30 p.m, uk time or slightly differently, if you're close to that changeover period, because there's a week when the time difference is slightly different, they open at 9 30 new york time, if that's what you want to use and in the uk, the stock markets close at 4 30. So you need to go into that two-hour window if you want to have access to both or if you're, only investing in u.s stocks and any time after 2, 30 p.m until they close later on in the evening is good. So if you're wanting to buy stocks, there are five options in the menu at the bottom and four of them, don't really do very much. They just show you.

Some information show you activity on your account and show you insights, which is not available before you start investing and it's the discover thing that will allow you to go and get invested. I'm gon na just buy five things in order to show you how it works to make it really simple. So, let's get cracking first, i'm gon na buy an etf and i'm gon na buy an etf for the us s, p 500 index and i'm gon na buy just the uk one simply because i want to not have to pay that 0.45 fee by buying it. In dollars, if you're interested in specifics of the different types of trackers for indices for the s p 500, i have a whole special video.

Just about that. I'm going to link in the description below the trades seem to take just a few moments here and we are the proud owners of one share of the vusa s p 500.. Now, although the platform does allow you to go and buy fractional shares in some of the popular stocks when you're buying some of these etas, unlike trading212, you cannot buy fractional shares and you have to buy at least one whole share. So i had to go and buy a full 52 pounds worth of vusa.

I couldn't go and buy just 25 pounds, which is what i wanted to do initially, just in case you're wondering about investing here, you will have to go and buy larger amounts if you're wanting to put in money into the various etfs available on offer here now. Next, let's go and buy some tesla, i'm going to put another 50 pounds worth of my money into tesla because of what's happening over the next 10 days. With that stock, it's gon na be slightly less than 10 days by the time you're watching it, but review order. I'm gon na be costing myself a little bit of money on foreign exchange, but i will for every single thing that i buy with this platform.

So i'm going to go ahead and buy it every single time. You do a trade. You have to go and touch your finger to confirm that it is you wanting to do this trade again. It's going to take us a few moments, but bang we are done.

We now own tesla as well, so now, if i go and look at my portfolio, i can now see that i have some money invested in the s p 500. Somebody invested in tesla and i have another just under 100 pounds to play with. So let's go and buy a few other things on top every time i want to buy something i have to go and find it so i'm going to go and get myself some alphabet, because i want to have a small amount of money in that as well. To divide up my portfolio, i'm going to buy - let's say 25 pounds worth of alphabet review order, so you can see that i've i'm actually going to be spending 24.97.

What they do is they round it up, because their fractional shares don't go to that many decimals places. So if you put in an amount, it'll be slightly different on the final confirmation screen hit confirm, buy and your order will go through in just a few moments. Done we're now the proud owners of alphabet. If i hit a count on the right, i can see how much money i have left.

I have 72 pounds and 55 pence remaining to go and invest so let's go and buy two more things. These two companies i'm a big fan of because i think they are doing amazing things and the way the world of work is going the way the person computing is going, and all of that i think these companies are going to be completely killing it over the Next few years, they're actually direct competitors to each other and they're the only two major competitors in the space of the production of some of the chips and graphical processing units that they make. So let's go and buy a bit of amd and nvidia. So let's spend about half on each, so i've got about 36 pounds worth to spend on nvidia confirm these trays do take a little bit of time and while the processing happens, you can't do anything else with the app.

So you just have to go and give it a bit of time done and now i have 36 pounds 59 remaining, so i'm gon na spend the rest of that on amd. So, unfortunately, i'm gon na have six pence remaining in my account. That is going to be unused because of the rounding they do, because they don't go to quite the level of decimal places. That would enable me to spend all of it, but that's okay, that is close enough and that'll.

Just let me complete my initial purchase of a limited number of stocks, all right, we're all done, and that is all it took. So if i look at my account - and i have five pence remaining and again some kind of rounding issues going on here when the trade is actually happening, if i hit portfolio, i can see what my investments are doing. I've got the s. P 500 tesla amd nvidia and alphabet.

A good little selection over here is by no means comprehensive. It's by no means diversified enough, but i've only put in 200 pounds just to show you how it works. I didn't mean to go and show you the best optimal strategy for investing by any means. I hope you guys found this useful um if you have made an investment with free trade to go and get your free stock to get started.

Tell me what you bought in the comments below. I find it really interesting if you enjoyed watching this video and seeing what i do with this uh and you want to find out what happens with this portfolio going forward. Make sure you go and hit subscribe to this channel because then you'll be able to get those videos as they come out, make sure you hit the bell to get notifications every single time. One of my videos comes out.

If you found value in this video - and you found it helpful to go and understand exactly how this platform works and the things you can do with it and some of the helpful commentary please go and hit that like button. It would really really help me. My channel is only a few months old and i would be able to go and reach more people more quickly and help them on their investment journey and their personal finance journey. Thank you so much if you have done so, if you haven't go and do it i'd be really really appreciative.

Thank you so much for watching again. I really really appreciate it and i'll see you guys later. You.