Stocks started trending particularly with millennials in 2020 when the pandemic first hit, the biggest adopters of “Buy Now, Pay Later”. 

By comparison, boomers are much more likely to play conservatively. For instance, a 2020 Financial Post report documenting the Wealthsimple online investment app registered a 54% increase in users aged 34 or under. Robinhood saw a 300X increase in daily trades. 

Whatever age you are, we’ll go through some of the most popular free brokers for stock trading on the British market. Let’s get on with it.

Table of Contents:

• Our Fave Free Stock Broker App
• 1. Vanguard review
• 2. Capital.com review
• 3. Plus500 review 
• 4. Hargreaves Lansdown review 
• 5. Interactive Investor review
• 6. AvaTrade review 
• Buying Guide 
• FAQs

Our Fave Free Stock Broker App

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Dabbling in stocks? Before venturing into the markets, make sure To cover your savings bases. With the economy across the globe becoming more hostile, it pays to gain small wins and learned how to budget well. Keeping money is a habit that you form through consistent practice… Have a read of our budgeting tips. 

Best Brokers for Free Stock Trading – Reviews 2024 📘

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1. Vanguard – Trusted Best Broker for Free Stock Trading
2. Capital.com – High-Risk or Professional Traders
3. Plus500 – Popular Stock Trading App for CFDs
4. Hargreaves Lansdown – Traditional Stock Trading Accounts
5. Interactive Investor – Favourably-Reviewed Free Stock App
6. AvaTrade – Professional “Day” Stop Trading Broker

1. Vanguard – Trusted Best Broker for Free Stock Trading

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When you work with the fundamentals, you have a broad-based understanding of how money moves across time. This tends to make you immune to acute crises as they occur. And you’re able to buy drawing times of fear and to hold out until markets readjust. Money tends to move in cycles, just like the seasons.

Why Use Vanguard

As mentioned earlier, becomes recommended by some of the world’s leading experts, such as Warren Buffett. Tony Robbins also recommends it as something that struggling families on a low income can use to grow modest sums over time. Or to simply hold the value of their money as the economic slowdown from global wars and broken supply chains worsens.

Once again, we are not in the business of offering financial advice. But it pays to do a little bit of research on what the likes of Buffett have to say about using Vanguard in a sensible way. (Buffett has personally come in the past, recommended Vanguard’s 500 Index Fund Admiral shares fund. That particular fund has seen an annualised compound return of around 7%.)

Free Positions?

You get the benefit of a mutual fund without the premium costs. Vanguard advertises itself as having an expense ratio of 82% less than the industry average. It cost you less than £20 to open up a brokerage account (some of the reports put this at £500, depending on the type of account). 

This fee can also be waived if you register for digital deliveries of key documentation, such as privacy policy notices, statements, confirmations, and more. Most of the fund accounts reportedly do not charge any fees for buying and selling shares. Instead, you are charged a global percentage-based fee of 0.25%, which can increase the 1% depending on the kind of fund and transaction.

⭐ It may be unwise to put too much faith in the money markets. Growing strong communities, families, and daily habits do a lot to protect you from the fear and pandemonium common today.

2. Capital.com – High-Risk or Professional Traders

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What Are CFDs

Okay, this time we had a talk… If you’re a young millennial reading this under the age of 34, you’re probably reading on your mobile phone itching to make a big trade on a company or four who you think are going to have a good upstart in the next few weeks or months.

But if you know anything about contracts for differences, perhaps you looking to make a profit by betting against the company. Indeed, contractor differences let you bet profitably in either direction — whether a stock depreciates or depreciates in value.

How Does This Work?

The first thing to know is that, with contracts for differences, you aren’t actually directly bidding in the stock market. Nor are you actually buying underlying stocks or assets themselves. Instead, you’re bidding on their movement no different to betting on horses in the race: 

• Which one will win?
• Which will lose?
• How much leverage?

That final point is one I want to focus on for a moment. Leverages is another name for “debt” or “a loan”. Many of the CFD platforms let you borrow money in order to place a bet on the direction of the stock. This is why see if these are especially dangerous and can lead to gambling addictions and swift, large losses.

Capital.com, for this reason, represents the opposite philosophy to the approach used by Vanguard, considering that Vanguard bases its investments on fundamentals rather than trying to time the market minute to minute, day to day.

That isn’t to say that professionals, including hedge fund managers, don’t use TFTs in order to fine-tune their portfolios. If you are using this as your primary investment tool then that is a different thing altogether.

What to Expect

Let’s assume that you want to use Capital.com in order to place acute beds and moments notice using more cash than you actually have saved in your account.

Using leveraged (taking out a loan) in order to place a stock market bet exposes you to intense potential losses rapidly. You do also gain the ability to make faster profits. But unless you have an inexhaustible source of money to replace losses with you should be very careful about put yourself into such a high-stakes position. All professionals employ very strict rules to limit downsides and they make profits on tight margins through consistency over time.

Because of the great risk of losing all of your capital very quickly, it’s good to make sure that stop losses are being used properly. Also, something called a ‘Negative Balance Protection’ mechanism. This feature protects consumers against losing more than they actually have saved their account. This system was introduced by regulators years ago to protect retail investors from spiralling into debt.

⭐ The investment world is competitive… In fact, it’s ultra-competitive. So try to remember, you are not only competing against the markets but even with Capital.com itself. Whenever you take out a loan to make an investment, be very realistic about your level of competency rather than being idealistic about the outcome.

3. Plus500 – Popular Stock Trading App for CFDs

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You also have to factor in the liquidity of your service provider. Certain markets like the forex (currency markets) are extremely liquid. But because you will not speculate indirectly on his markets, you are depending on the level of cash flow in your service provider. Many of the CFD providers have dubious levels of liquidity, affecting how quickly and reliably you can sell contracts (entering and exiting). So the level of flexibility and manoeuvrability is questionable.

Limiting Risk Exposure 

Once again, if you decide to use this investment vehicle, one of the most valuable damage control is the ‘Negative Balance Protection’’ feature. As explained earlier, this capability blocks the maximum amount of money you can lose, so that you cannot actually go into debt. In this way, it works a bit like a guaranteed stop loss. This feature was introduced to retail investors in 2018, under the ESMA regulations.

Other than this, traders should always apply standard best practices, such as using stop losses sensibly, trading in the correct proportion to their total investment pool (for instance, many investors make sure that they never place a trade that represents more than 1% of their total investment pool). Together, this provides extra safeguards against sudden collapses.

⭐  While we are highly suspicious of the veracity of some of the most well-known user review websites, we will take this time to mention that Plus500 does have more than 10K user reviews, with most of these being apparently positive.

4. Hargreaves Lansdown – Traditional Stock Trading Accounts

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Hargreaves has a purported client base of more than 1 million, having managed more than £100 million in savings and investments in its time. In fact, it has such a strong track record of market capitalisation that it is listed in the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 (FTSE 100).

What to Expect

Overall, if you are looking for a highly established British financial services firm, then Hargreaves Lansdowne is one of the most reputable among them.

It’s wise to keep in mind that there is a profound amount of befuddlement in the financial world altogether. Whether you factor in some of the contradictory and questionable fiscal policies of the incumbent leadership, or the unavoidable recession that much of the collective West is facing — we are potentially seeing the collapse or shrinking of a lot of the old vanguards that were once trusted.

So it will be interesting to see how some of these old names, like Hargreaves Lansdowne, holed up in the next few years as radical changes occur. For instance, we are currently seeing a greater emphasis worldwide of value placed on hard resources like oil and gas — rather than the idea of the stock market itself.

⭐  Available shares through Hargreaves Lansdowne span across Europe, Canada, and the US.

5. Interactive Investor – Favourably-Reviewed Free Stock App

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Particularly in flux economic times such as today, people tend to want to use companies that have strong user basis, because this can potentially protect against sudden liquidity issues and bankruptcies.

Exit for free

According to our research, you don’t get charged an exit fee for moving cash from one account to another. They follow the same 0% commission model as Robinhood. However, there will be fees on the backend. 

And you can expect a strong level of security and auditing. This is a very well-known industry player in this space for decades. The company holds licenses to operate in Britain (FCA licences; the financial conduct authority is perhaps the U.K.’s largest financial regulatory body).

Bankruptcy protection and privacy

One of the benefits of using a free stock trading up that is highly regulated is that your data is handled according to stringent rules. Interactive Investor is obliged to hand you they are according to conditions set by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

The FSCS is also responsible for reimbursing investors if you’re broker goes bankrupt and needs to liquidate its cash. Keep in mind that there is a hierarchy of reimbursement in the case of a widespread collapse. But client funds are segmented from company funds which help to protect against losing all of your cash or most of it.

⭐  Interactive Investor clients have insurance up to limits as set by the FSCS.

6. AvaTrade – Professional “Day” Stop Trading Broker

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Setting up

No solution is needed if you use the web browser version. But there is also an app for smartphones. Once you register, you get access to copying and mirroring functions. You can expect a steeper learning curve with perhaps less intuitiveness.

From there, you get access to some of the most popular stocks, which they list on their website in real-time. At the time of this article, the number one traded instrument on their platform was Tesla stock would Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Goldman Sachs Group were next in line.

Most popular stocks

As for the most popular stocks on AvaTrade, at the time of this writing it’s Apple, with Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix behind it. (Tesla was in the sixth position). You can check out the real-time list of popular stocks here. These kinds of features are a very positive sign that the company is staying ahead of the market by catering to new users who want as much interactivity and simplicity as possible.

You will find that the main pages are very well designed and AvaTrade seems to gather pretty strong favourable reviews across different sites. Of course, be wary of the veracity of these sources.

Education

A final word on the Education portal.

AvaTrade has gone to quite impressive lengths in order to provide educational material to its users. On the main education page, you will see videos covering a broad suave of topics — from how to use the platform itself to particular types of training, and specific additional services offered (such as how to use AvaOptions — which is used for training options: What is options trading?) 

This is particularly impressive because the service does have a steep learning curve according to the level of seriousness that you want to apply yourself. So for any users who are interested in seriously studying how money works, you are given a lifeline in terms of adopting and extending what services you explore. Everything from how to use the particular tool to gaining a grasp of how the rudimentary aspects work.

⭐  Although there are very useful and cool introductory educational guides, true professional investment takes thousands of hours of seriously dedicated study. So these kinds of resources are not a substitute for taking a professional, accredited course of study. In general, trading without a network is not something you do part-time. The financial markets are player versus player, so you need some kind of sure advantage to have a profitable margin.

Best Free Brokers for Stock Trading 📊 – Buying Guide

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The term “free stock trading apps” can be a bit of a marketing gimmick. Although the way that fees are structured certainly has an impact over time on what you will pay depends on your trading style. E.g. high-volume forex day trading. 

You will absolutely at some point be charged fees to use whatever platform you choose to trade stocks. Before you do, the following section is here in order to help you better understand terms and surrounding concepts to do with stock trading apps.

Using Stock Trading Apps

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Since the 2020 pandemic, many more people have started trading online. A large number of these use their mobile phones, particularly younger online traders. Although this is convenient, it’s an inarticulate and inefficient way of approaching stocks unless you have professional networks who are supplying you with accurate information in real-time.

Professional investors spend hours analysing markets and charts using advanced systems and tools that they have won after hard battles over years of experience. So, whatever your situation, make sure you have a realistic perception of it. 

Let’s go over some of the advantages and disadvantages of using smartphone apps to go about stock trading…

Making Trades Using Smartphones

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For the majority of services, you can simply download the app from the Google Play or iOS apps store. Quickly install your stock trading platform. Your chosen service should have an active FCA licence in order to be able to operate in Britain.

You’ll go through a registration process where you submit key details such as your address, identity, username, email address, and so so forth. After this, you need to fund your account according to the payment methods allowed — different services have different minimum deposit requirements.

What You Can Trade

1. Stocks

Most of the free stock trading apps give access to global markets. So your choice of firm will depend on what exchanges you are able to assess the particular offering of your service.

2. Forex 

The currency market is the most voluminous or liquid. This platform will show you options as tradable currency spares, for instance, GBP/USD. Each time you buy one currency, you are automatically swapping it for another. The average price that investors are willing to swap one currency for another dictates the real-time value of a currency.

Each trade involves one currency being for at the same time that another assault. A good example of this is swapping money at the airport or post office. This is a foreign exchange market. It is possible to use a CFD to speculate on movements without actually handling currency pairs. This, however, will be a lot less liquid than the actual forex market.

3. Resources 

Commodities are things like coffee, oil, silver, gold, etc. Across the agricultural sector, is normal for manufacturers and firms to use futures contracts in order to hedge against seasonal fluctuations in certain produce. These futures contracts are fixed arrangements between two parties to swap a product at a set price and volume, and even a specific future date.

4. ETFs

Exchange-traded funds follow the market performance for particular commodities, sectors, or indices. So if you own an ETF that tracks the NYSE, for example, this means that you have invested your funds according to the value of the index. The index’s performance has a direct impact on how well your investment does — this is obviously linked to the value of the New York Stock Exchange and the companies listed on it as a whole.

What about the advantages and drawbacks of trading with smartphones?

Pros and Cons of Smartphone Trading

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Advantages ☑️ 

To begin with, alerts. Alerts give all kinds of signals to traders who are using various devices to continuously keep in step with their holdings. 

When not at their desktop, can be useful to get alerts from the phone letting them know to take a look at some kind of significant move (for instance, an opportunity to close a trade at profit). Smartphones, in this sense, have a particular advantage in that you are always one swipe away from checking in on things but as long as you keep on you.

What about flexibility? Once again, the main advantage of a smartphone forcing into the care of your convenience. As long as you have an Internet connection, you are mostly location independent, rather than having to be at the office. 

Once again, the biggest leverage of using a phone for trading is if you genuinely have a powerful network that has accurate insights into moment-to-moment opportunities. In this case, your only task is to input s signals into your application, which is easy enough once you develop a process. You don’t need to worry about charts, technical indicators, or any analytics. You are simply using the phone as a means of placing a trade — which these days is efficient enough across a range of devices for retail investors.

Disadvantages ❎

With a smartphone, you are restricted to a much smaller screen size. 

This is the first disadvantage. Professional traders doing lots of volume transactions will rely on navigating advanced charts and other technical indicators in order to understand market pounds on their progress, before making an order. Small screens simply do not accommodate all of this data efficiently or in full.

Mistakes could be more likely with slower ways of inputting data. 

Not only is inputting more cumbersome but you do not have the indicators to power your insights. For instance, one such powerful indicator is the moving average which helps you to look into trends in share prices. Unless you are using a network as your outsourced investigative team, it can be very time-consuming to navigate all of these information points on your phone. So you automatically have less information compared to using a desktop PC or laptop.

Phones will struggle in terms of CPU power.

Lags common, higher latency, and so on according to our bow for your phonies. This can impact how well trades are timed against the market process. People who use their phones to trade can also tend to treat it like a game. This is a dangerous habit because trading requires intense discipline and a professional attitude. Treating it like a game causes people to take unnecessary risks, or even trade in order to relieve boredom. This can also spiral into a gambling addiction, where they obsessively try to regain lost money.

⭐  Professional traders: Know how to walk away from a bad deal and accept losses. In fact, there have been some studies about CopyTrading directly influencing the temperament of investors — the more aggressive the trader you are mirroring is, the more likely you may be to absorb that mentality. It’s rather true that “you are the sum of whom you spend the most time with”.

Is a Smartphone Recommended?

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Winners win and losers lose. Winning is a specific mentality that happens when a combination of things comes together. For one, having a realistic outlook on the “chessboard” that you are facing. Two, having a strong sense of self-belief without adding an unrealistic way to real-time information you are seeing.

Winning also involves intense practice and having a good strong network of information to draw upon. A team of highly competent investment professionals working together probably stand a far greater chance of succeeding than a single trader relying on their own faculties. Even the likes of Warren Buffett have had high-level mentors in their life — they have drawn wisdom from these councillors.

Using a phone as part of your trading process isn’t the problem. Mastery, realism, and an understanding of the winning advantage are much more important. Relying on a smartphone in order to gain advantage pales in comparison to the above… So your device should only be treated as a tool with a much bigger surrounding context around it.

Even a professional trader with a further computer setup could have a far weaker outcome than somebody treading on the phone who has access to an accurate and highly competent team analysing opportunities in real-time and forwarding this to them.

FAQs

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What top free stock trading features should I look out for?

☑️ Reputation – You should make sure that your chosen stock trading app is well-known and trusted. For the UK, most of the big names have FCA licences, which gives them permission to operate. From there, you want to look at their track record; something like Vanguard is well known for its steady management of capital.

☑️ Educational resources – This also includes how quickly the app tells you how to use it. Some providers will feature extensive educational resources to help you to get a basic understanding of the markets. Knowing how to use your stock trading becomes more important if you are using riskier investment vehicles like CFDs. You should know exactly how much you are risking for each trade.

☑️ Negative Account Balances – We have mentioned this feature more than once in this guide. It pertains to using the CFD product. When you activate this feature, you ensure that your losses cannot go beyond what you have stored in your account balance. Without this, do potentially go into debt or even serious debt. So make sure that this is enabled if you intend to use that risky vehicle.

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