As much as I like T212 it has to be said that their AIM execution times are generally shocking.
I feel I’m missing out on some valuable short term growth opportunities here.
I’ve downloaded and looked at probably a dozen others platforms but none seem to come close to the 212 trading value with commissions free, FT is probably the closest but AIM is locked.
Anyone know of others worth looking at?
Obviously a trade fee defeats the objective.
Any thoughts or experience ?
What stocks are you looking at out of curiosity.
It’s probably a combination of things.
- Lower liquidity, resulting in longer times to match your trade with another.
- Reliance on Interactive Broker
I’ve found even Hargreaves to take a while at times, for the likes of MWE that I picked up a number of months ago, and they reach out to multiple market makers to get you a quote.
I’m not aware of any other brokers that come near the costs of 212 for AIM unless you are doing regular monthly trading.
It’s a feature I think would be useful if available. Liquidity and average time to match off trades for execution.
What do you mean by “locked”?
The reason execution can be delayed on T212 is it uses direct market access (DMA), which means it is limited by low liquidity and auction times. Many (or most) of the brokers that provide faster exection use market makers through Payment for Order Flow (PFOF), a controversial practice that was nearly outlawed in the past. DMA guarantees your best interest.
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OK. I wondered if there was a good reason, seems so.
As for what shares, I’m a bit of an AIM shares fan. I use it to invest smaller amounts in low caps, usually over weeks to increase my stake which I then invest in my main stock. Example; a few weeks ago a brought 25k of PREM for £17. Today a sold it for £87 which I used to increase my L&G position. (PREM crashed today shortly after).
AIM is locked on Free Trade to plus members only is what I meant.
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Since 212 got rid of limit orders under £100 I find aim investing very hard because price alerts don’t work and if you try purchasing market price you can be waiting a long time
I invested in city of London stock at 52 week low. It still hasn’t executed and it’s been like a month, and has risen like 10% since and still have executed 
One good thing is I’m now 350% up on Prem
Funny story, I actually had a sell at 30% up and it didn’t execute so when I noticed I quickly cancelled it and saw the stock rise to like 500% it’s fallen now but I would been gutted if the sell had executed
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