can I ask why in the Invest option of your platform you don’t show the spread of any stock.
As a platform that seems to be concerned with protecting your customers it seems a very strange decision. You’ll be aware that huge spreads can really damage an investor’s trade. Essentially with any buys on your platform the customer is taking a huge leap of faith that there isn’t a large spread.
I’ve seem spreads of 70% on CFD, so how do I know this won’t happen to me if I buy some shares on invest? This seems somewhat negligent.
It’s shown on CFD so why not invest? I don’t know of any other reputable platform that doesn’t offer this information.
The spread isn’t visible as we recently replaced the bid/ask prices on the platform with the Last Trade Price (LTP).
This is the price at which the most recent transaction for a product occurred, and as the industry standard attests to a product’s value better than buy/sell prices, which only indicate supply & demand.
Also, it brings us a step closer to introducing extended trading hours. Prices are alreadylive.
For those that disagree, since the bid/ask prices have previously been available in the app, would it be possible to offer the option to have both or switch back?
LTP although considered a valid option, is certainly not the norm in the UK/EU for the valuation of portfolios, financial reporting or to be used as an indicator for potential dealing prices.
To be honest, its not generally material to me as I collate all my portfolios offline for consistency and 212 is now the outlier at least in the app.
Hey, @Dougal1984. We currently do not have plans to offer charting on more than one type of quotes or display the bid/ask quotes.
While at the end of the day, it’s a business decision to follow the industry norm and adopt LTP quotes for charting, here are some of the reasons why it is specifically helpful for extended hours charting:
As LTP reflects actual trades being made on the market, it more accurately shows premarket activity at a time when liquidity is considerably lower than usual.
As mentioned, market conditions worsen during extended hours, and Bid/Ask spreads can widen significantly. This can distort the chart and make it more difficult to interpret.
When it comes to trading and technical analysis, LTP charts provide more reliable support and resistance levels because they are based on actual trades rather than bid and ask prices, which are dictated by market makers.
As Bid/Ask spread can widen significantly (for example, Bid - $80 and Ask - $100), LTP shows you more precisely the market sentiment at the time (for example, a trade done at $95).
‘As mentioned, market conditions worsen during extended hours, and Bid/Ask spreads can widen significantly. This can distort the chart and make it more difficult to interpret.’
This is what happens in CFD but at least I know what price I’m getting. This is kind of my point. I know 212 restrict some stocks to avoid ‘unfavourable order execution.’ By not showing the spread, especially after hours, this is exactly what will happen.
Without seeing the spread, AH trading will surely cause customers more problems than benefits.
There could always be the option to see the chart with or without after hours trading; like Trading View, WeBull… etc.
I’m not trying to be difficult, I think AH trading will be a great addition. I just want it to be safe, viable and benefit customers to use.
We fully understand your point, and we’re looking for the same outcome for our clients. Nevertheless, we’ll keep your feedback in mind
IBKR may use the same feed provider as ours in some scenarios (you can read more here). However, the quotes displayed on our and IBKR’s charts are entirely different from what the execution of orders is based on. Our orders are executed according to our execution policy, where IBKR is our intermediary.
Hi. I think there is a risk of confusing or amalgamating two completely different things. Firstly, I can understand (and agree) with comments about charting and its important that charts are good for technical analysis. T212 has a good charting package (not as good as something like TradingView but much better than many broker websites). Thus I think it is important that chart integrity is considered and kept for technical analysis reasons. However, that is entirely different to being able to see bid/offer or spread or quote when placing an order/trade… When trading it is really important to know what the order is going to execute at.
@Michael.M sorry to make a follow up comment. Your comments highlight the need to see bid/offer or spread when trading. You say that its important that charts aren’t distorted by widening spread during out-of-hours trading or times of low liquidity. I completely agree with that but it is exactly the reason why people want to see the spread when placing an order. We can’t see volume so we don’t know whether spread has narrowed or widened…
