Sold my portfolio. Moved elsewhere

I sold my portfolio and moved to another platform. Overall I think Invest Engine is OK but is very limiting.

  • Lack of real time updates
  • Can only sell at 3pm each day
  • Sell orders take time to appear in your account
  • Then once cleared withdrawing is another 4 days.
2 Likes

Good luck trading options!

For me the additional friction/delay is a nice feature for me.

Avoids me dipping in and out regularly of ETFs.

Also if my phone was stolen and someone wanted to attempt to drain my account I know I have a bit of time to block it.

:wink:

3 Likes

I do have to say that as a long term investor, as I imagine most people here are, none of those things are a problem.

I do wonder what actually is the benefit of live quotes with ETF investing?

6 Likes

I would agree with the tardiness.
I have a mirror portfolio with another platform. When I rebalanced my portfolios they processes all of the buys and sell in under an hour. Invest Engine took a few days.
This is the only moan I have with IE which I regard as the best of the two best free platforms.

2 Likes

And ETF can drop 2-3% in 24 hours, that’s quote a lot.

The ability to sell it when you choose and know what price you’re getting is quite valuable. Otherwise, the price you see is hours out of date and when you put in the sell order the market could have dropped 2.5% by the time 3pm comes around. You simply have no control.

If you are holding for years, the minute-by-minute price gyrations become irrelevant.

If you are looking to jump in and out at just the right moment, this is the wrong platform - there are others more suited to taking your money off you.

5 Likes

I have up until 2pm to place my buy/sell order to have it executed same day. It will be a very rare occassion where the price I see before 2pm is significantly different from the price InvestEngine executes the trade at.
If you’re trying to time your trades to the minute, then ETF investing probably is not for you.

4 Likes

For me the “slow” buys / sells is actually a nice feature. I can put a buy in at the start of the day and not worry about getting the best price / buying at a bad time.

Main thing invest engine need to sort out is in specie transfers!

2 Likes

I have always had my ETFs rebalanced or sold in the same day I place the order. I only use very liquid ETfs, that usually have daily volume of 100k +. Fidelity take 4 days to settle a Legal & general Unit Trust sale. So you never know what it’s sell-price will be because of forward pricing. When I come to sell my ETF holding on the day with IE,.at least I have a rough idea of what it will sell for. And usually by 2:00pm we have a rough idea of where US futures are heading. Just learn to adapt, that’s all. Then enjoy your platform-fee free lunch!