Technically you can never have free US trading, right?

[HeadBeeGuy]

Hi Folks,

The platform advertises that you need to place three or more trades in the previous month to avail of the free trading on US stocks (no $15 commission) for the subsequent month. However, even with that commission fee gone you're going to have to pay IG for the currency conversion each time. You're going back and forth between buying and selling, GBP to USD to GBP ...this will equate to a lot of money.

So, you've realised the above and to avoid this really ridiculous and expensive merry-go-round you turn on multi-currency feature, right? In your head you think:

  "I want to exclusively trade US stocks, I've waited one month (you'd have rathered to just pay IG and not need to wait), made more than three trades on that currency merry-go-round, I am happy to pay the reasonable quarterly fee to IG from here on in and keep the account as USD while availing of their most advertised feature, the commission free trading on US stock market".

The new month arrives and you can have a great time trading on the US stock market with your dollar that doesn't keep eating away at any trade profits with each buy and sell. However, the next month arrives and menacing commission fee is back! But you traded at least three times last month, what gives? Ah! But you used the multicurrency feature, and this means on the subsequent month you will not be eligible for commission free trading. You're back to square one. Your choice is to either pay IG the fee for every conversion in every trade or prevent this and keep the respective currency but also you must pay IG a commission. 

 

Anyone else experience this? I'm hoping I'm completely wrong, but contacting the helpdesk seems to confirm this ...

[dmedin]

Nothing in life is free, Erykah Badu 🧐

[Guest Jm8]

8 minutes ago, dmedin said:

Nothing in life is free, Erykah Badu 🧐

Indeed, quarterly fees being a bit of a snag on that though 😂

[HeadBeeGuy]

14 minutes ago, dmedin said:

Nothing in life is free, Erykah Badu 🧐

Aye. You have to pay a trade fee for the illusion of free trades🤐

[DavyJones]

18 hours ago, HeadBeeGuy said:

Anyone else experience this? I'm hoping I'm completely wrong, but contacting the helpdesk seems to confirm this ...

I made a few posts about this, its  very poor service , you either pay the commision fee or work on the pretence of zero commision , but then a rubbish  FX rate .

And if you hold investments for a long time your profits can get killed in the advent of an adverse FX rate , (should you elect to automatically have FX conversion )

 

 

[HeadBeeGuy]

53 minutes ago, DavyJones said:

I made a few posts about this, its  very poor service , you either pay the commision fee or work on the pretence of zero commision , but then a rubbish  FX rate .

And if you hold investments for a long time your profits can get killed in the advent of an adverse FX rate , (should you elect to automatically have FX conversion )

 

 

Sorry I didn't find your posts originally after trying to search in the bar, but you're echoing my own experience there, Davy.

It is definitely poor service, and I would say it's not unfair to call it deceitful practice.

It's their most advertised feature. The absolutely rubbish FX rate means constant commission is a necessity, and with that is the issue you've mentioned.

A structure for a flat fee to pay for short term investment/trading really would be great but is elusive here it seems, and instead we've been very much misled with the marketing. 

[DavyJones]

19 hours ago, HeadBeeGuy said:

Sorry I didn't find your posts originally after trying to search in the bar, but you're echoing my own experience there, Davy.

It is definitely poor service, and I would say it's not unfair to call it deceitful practice.

It's their most advertised feature. The absolutely rubbish FX rate means constant commission is a necessity, and with that is the issue you've mentioned.

A structure for a flat fee to pay for short term investment/trading really would be great but is elusive here it seems, and instead we've been very much misled with the marketing. 

 

yeah I agree, the other option of paying a $30 round trip for non FX conversion is just a sneaky way of doing business.

It bugs me that they hide this in the fine print especially when there is no logical reason for it and no one at IG can give a straight answer as to why , 

They should be encouraging clients to trade not discourage them. 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by DavyJones

[pedmurray]

On 10/08/2020 at 07:59, DavyJones said:

 

yeah I agree, the other option of paying a $30 round trip for non FX conversion is just a sneaky way of doing business.

It bugs me that they hide this in the fine print especially when there is no logical reason for it and no one at IG can give a straight answer as to why , 

They should be encouraging clients to trade not discourage them. 

 

Hi Guys,

I'm very interested in this topic as I want to trade US markets also, but don't want to get hit with FX conversion every time I make a trade. You mention turning on multi-currency, can you tell me how to do this please? Sorry if this is an obvious question but I'm new here and still trying to find my way around.

[RandomPhil]

Hi all, 

I have just been hit by a £190 conversion fee for trading in Coca Cola for 5 days. Luckily I was still in for a small profit but my rage that IG took so much has got the best of me. 

Does anyone know how to turn on multi-currency as suggested by pedmurray above? Also if someone could send me a link to the fees involved in doing this I would be very grateful. 

Many thanks in advance.

[RajSher]

I have lost 1.5% for each trade (buy+sell) and eroded away thousands before realizing it. 
I am thinking to move to IB where I think I will be able maintain USD. Anyone else uses it? I think it is better to discuss this in the forum as I a greatly affected by this conversion fees... and the community would have been. IG should allow a way to avoid this. Agreed that it will reduce their profit but it will be fair to the customers if they care. A fair competition.

[RajSher]

On 09/08/2020 at 03:27, dmedin said:

Nothing in life is free, Erykah Badu 🧐

Agreed, Nothing in life is free (rather nothing in life is completely free) but few things are less expensive if we find the right alternatives.

[emsiejayne]

The foreign currency spread is too much on the automatic conversion, so I pay the manual 15 dollar commission but I'm not sure this is more economical, especially when wanting to build a position.  I'm moving my cash into another brokerage for this reason.  I can apparently convert my dollars manually from USD to GBP, within my account, so I can do this at a time when the exchange rate is more in my favour, before I withdraw.  Is this easy to do does anybody know and are there extra charges?  The other options is reverting my settings back to manual conversion and the system will do it for me?  What is best?

[MTJ2]

This is what happened!! I emailed them back and forth for about a month, and they never brought this up... Just when you think they can't be any more slimy...

 

[Bopperz]

On 09/08/2020 at 09:27, DavyJones said:

I made a few posts about this, its  very poor service , you either pay the commision fee or work on the pretence of zero commision , but then a rubbish  FX rate .

 

 

The post office have used this strategy for years on their travel money. Everyone loves "free" currency conversion!

[HeadBeeGuy]

On 18/11/2020 at 06:39, Bopperz said:

The post office have used this strategy for years on their travel money. Everyone loves "free" currency conversion!

Yeah the post office scam of free conversion! Now, I never fell for that one, obvious, but the IG commission one is definitely more deceitful because of the layers involved: they'll go to the effort to explain number of trades yada yada but it's all fodder to still take an extra cut.

[arja]

sadly it is a bit deceiptful  as need to use instant currency conversion to get the benefit of zero commission on US shares and that means  a likely overall loss on a trade . It was simply missleading advertising . So best to opt for manual conversion and pay the commissions if trading international shares .