Thoughts about this Video?

I like JRK Investing but I think this videoā€™s title is very misleading.

There are issues with Trading 212 but I think they are trying their best to mitigate them wherever possible.

Itā€™s also a weird video as he got a Family Member on Trading 212 last month.

No hate please.

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Iā€™ve just watched it, as a regular JKR viewer, Iā€™m pretty shocked by this video. He is normally quite informative and keeps the majority of his content to facts, but this video seems out of the ordinary for him.

He kept stating that T212 is loss making and continues to lose moneyā€¦ he doesnā€™t know this to be true, but keeps stating it in the vid. He also uses the 2019 companies house filing for the basis of the lossesā€¦ why not wait until the 2020 figures are filed. Heā€™s obviously not seen the posts on this forum confirming that T212 is now a profitable business.

He keeps mentioning Freetradeā€¦ maybe he is just annoyed that new users cannot sign up and he can no longer get free shares through the T212 content creator programā€¦ hence continued recommendation of Freetrade.

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That could make sense regarding not getting Shares from Trading 212.

Another YTer I follow said he wonā€™t be recommending T212 after they froze his Account but heā€™s not said he wonā€™t recommend them as he uses Freetrade mostly anyway.

He probably hasnā€™t looked at the forums but I would assume his Discord may have told him about it at some point.

Agree that the video is unlike him and wonder whether he is going to get some Advertisement from eToro/Freetrade in future?

Personally think itā€™s a pretty poor video, most of his points are weak at best and completely incorrect at worstā€¦

  • Convenient that he stops recommending T212 just when he can no longer make money off share referrals due to sign-ups paused

  • Ignores information posted on this forum at the beginning of the year that the Invest/ISA services are now profitable

  • Spends a lot of time talking about the small loss T212 made in their 2019 accounts, which is ironic given some of the alternative brokers he is now promoting have much bigger losses in their latest accounts (not that random youtubers giving their opinion on the profitability and future success of company business models based off one set of year old accounts is in any way meaningful in the first place - leave that to those who have industry knowledge)

  • Claims that ā€œnew users are bannedā€ and this is due to high cost of giving out referral shares, if this was the reason the T212 team would end the scheme, not post on this forum about how people on the waitlist can still use a referral code and how theyā€™re actually working on improving how the waitlist works with the referral code

  • Claims that fees are inevitable because the service ā€œcanā€™t keep running at a lossā€ - as mentioned above, Invest/ISA service is now profitable

  • Implies that the 0.7% fee T212 charge to cover their costs on card deposits (over a limit) is a bad thing, doesnā€™t mention that the alternative brokers he now recommends have a hard lifetime limit that cannot be exceeded. T212 not only have a higher lifetime limit, they allow deposits over this limit with a fee - the alternatives he recommends do not allow this

In general, I think the reason he made the video is likely to boost referrals to the brokers still giving him free shares. I think most of his points are moot given staff posted on the forum earlier this year announcing Invest/ISA services have reached the scale where they are profitable. I think the rest of his points on fees, deposit limits, free share schemes can all be applied to other brokers that he still recommends. Overall just a clickbait video to drive referrals to alternative brokers, with some flawed research to back up his points.

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What a load of olā€™ nonsense. For starters: in the UK, only people go bankruptā€“not companies.

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Iā€™m a shareholder in Freetrade. I assume this guy is. No mystery.

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How do you refer to a company that cannot pay its debt and defaults?
Is it just that, ā€œdefaultā€? Or just ā€œgoes out of businessā€? Liquidation?
I also thought that the term bankrupt could also be applied to companies/businesses.

Yeah, liquidation or insolvency is more accurate. Technically, bankruptcy only applies to individuals, but itā€™s often incorrectly used interchangeably. Iā€™m 99% sure thatā€™s correct any wayā€“one of the many semi-useless bits of information picked up while a sub-editor on Fleet Street over the years.

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Fair, I donā€™t know why I didnā€™t come to my mind.
Itā€™s definitely a term that I have used before :slight_smile: .
Thank you :smiley: .

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Obviously the video is full of baseless claims at best. Iā€™d rather say intentionally spreading FUD.

I though for a second - if these guys no longer get free shares because the registrations at Trading 212 are paused, why donā€™t they pause making videos about T212 and just switch to Freetrade or whatever broker brings them revenue?
The answer is - they will get more views and signups for video trashing T212 than a for video promoting Freetrade for example. So I expect we will see more of these.

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well, whatever shares they were getting for talking about T212 will now end permanently since they started using their channel to bash T212. suit themselves.

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I can understand that they have the freedom of being negative of Companies as they have the freedom to do so, but yeah it is a shame to do such a Clickbait video to bash the Broker when the others are far worse in position, and they usually have a good record in talking about stocks and not Brokers

Feels like more and more Youtubers are going down this route to bash companies and do clickbait titles.

Someone questioned whether his Video was clickbait in the comments and he said ā€œNot reallyā€.

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We all have freedom of speech. We donā€™t have freedom of spreading lies. Thatā€™s defamation. If Trading 212 really wanted to they could sue for deformation, and he would have to try prove that it wasnā€™t intentional and he was ill-informed.

Canā€™t be posting stuff that is false, especially as an educational Youtuber- and is further worsened by the fact itā€™s in the finance space, where peopleā€™s livelihoods are.

I just try my best to keep my own content truthful, and keep the viewers best interest at heart, not my own.

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He should have a disclaimer to cover himself but you are right. Spreading disinformation could get him into deep trouble since he never said it was his personal opinion.

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I agree, they have put out a video with a tag in the hope to gain people to watch and gain more ad revenue.

How can you talk about them potentially going bankrupt, and then talk about it being a very good thing if they went public.

There is no fact based evidence to their statement.

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Yeah I forgot to mention that in my post above, highlight of the video for me

ā€œThis company is going bankruptā€ ā€œthis companyā€™s business model is flawed and canā€™t surviveā€ ā€œthis company has an unsustainable free share schemeā€ ā†’ ā€œthis company should IPOā€

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new one for me - my last post is waiting approval :crazy_face:

Yeah this is clearly not someone I would follow for ā€˜adviceā€™.

Its hilarious also trying to sell his referral link to other companies as well. Its not an impartial review tbh.

New users have not been ā€˜bannedā€™, they have been put on pause due to a sudden influx to protect the IT systems and service to existing users while they upgrade capacity.

Similarly, free shares have not been stopped at all. He knows this, which is why he says he no longer hands out his free share link as doesnā€™t want to recommend anyone to join 212 at this time.

I wonder if heā€™s actually annoyed, that at this point in time, he cant make any revenue because onboarding new users has been paused, so the only way to make money from 212, is to get mugs to watch his video for ad revenue.

If I were Trading212, I would ask them to prove their facts, or pull the video and pay compensation.

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T212 should disable his referral link

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His biggest mistake was doing the video really as his Subs are going up and up as he talked about great Companies he has discovered but this sadly paints him in a pretty bad light and panicking his Subcribers with the headline will surely upset them as they know he doesnā€™t usually do this.

He should have explained in another video he is not linking referrals and carried on with his Stock recommendations. This just makes him look bad and greedy to burn bridges.

Judging by comments he says he makes 0 referrals but not 100% sure on that as he recommended it a lot last month.

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