Online trading, buying foreign shares and FX rates
Discussion
Hi All,
Been doing this since October and as an old fashioned type of guy went with Halifax. 4b months later thinking of renaming them Travelex, due to the exchange rate they charge when doing foreign trades.
A quick summary. Halifax charge £12.50 per deal, which is high, but due to me being a novice and they being well established I was happy to pay. Their website is fine for a novice too, though after 4 months I see some issues with it, however I digress.
My main question is that on a trade on a foreign index how much do these online traders adjust the exchange rate on buying and selling in their favour, but not yours ? I have no experience of this so can only go what Halfifax have "charged" me on the deals on the FX side.
Take an example from me
The Halfiax rate for EUR on 29th Nov for buying was 1.1574 whereas the BBC exchange rate was 1.1739. So a 1.43% difference in their favour.
Today for selling it is 1.197 compared to BBC data of 1.182 . A 1.27% amount in their favour.
Can people with a lot of experience, and with other online traders in foreign markets give advice whether this is the industry normal and you have to just accept that as fact of life, or are Halifax FX rates biased to make money for them more than the average?
The amount of £12.50 per trade gets to pale into significance compared to FX bias once over a certain amount. I would "lose out" £250+ if I wanted to sell today from that example on their FX.
Thanks in advance.
Been doing this since October and as an old fashioned type of guy went with Halifax. 4b months later thinking of renaming them Travelex, due to the exchange rate they charge when doing foreign trades.
A quick summary. Halifax charge £12.50 per deal, which is high, but due to me being a novice and they being well established I was happy to pay. Their website is fine for a novice too, though after 4 months I see some issues with it, however I digress.
My main question is that on a trade on a foreign index how much do these online traders adjust the exchange rate on buying and selling in their favour, but not yours ? I have no experience of this so can only go what Halfifax have "charged" me on the deals on the FX side.
Take an example from me
The Halfiax rate for EUR on 29th Nov for buying was 1.1574 whereas the BBC exchange rate was 1.1739. So a 1.43% difference in their favour.
Today for selling it is 1.197 compared to BBC data of 1.182 . A 1.27% amount in their favour.
Can people with a lot of experience, and with other online traders in foreign markets give advice whether this is the industry normal and you have to just accept that as fact of life, or are Halifax FX rates biased to make money for them more than the average?
The amount of £12.50 per trade gets to pale into significance compared to FX bias once over a certain amount. I would "lose out" £250+ if I wanted to sell today from that example on their FX.
Thanks in advance.
Move the shares over to Freetrade. No dealing fees and much more competitive forex rates - a great app as well.
https://freetrade.io/
https://freetrade.io/
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