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iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 13th, 2020, 2:45 pm
by iambic
Hi there, the last trade I carried out on iWeb left me with a bit more cash in the account than I wanted - approx £1030.
So I tried to purchase a single LTI share with it last night, which at close yesterday was priced at approx. £950, but iWeb told me I didn't have enough funds to cover the trade. Any idea why this might be? Even with the £5 trade fee I'd still have enough to purchase a single share (assuming the cost didn't increase overnight, but I'd expect to at least be able to attempt the trade even if it failed the following morning).
I've never tried buying a specific number of shares before, I've always just left the system to work out how many I can buy based on how much cash I have & the value of the shares at purchase time.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 13th, 2020, 3:36 pm
by Laughton
I can only assume that the price moved against you (between the time you saw the "indicative" price and the time they gave you the "quoted" price.
You say (approx £950) so does that mean you didn't obtain a quote after which they normally give you 15 seconds to confirm or the quote expires.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 13th, 2020, 5:46 pm
by iambic
Ah that might explain it, thank you. It was late last night so the markets had closed so not sure I could have obtained a quote though. I'll try again during normal hours!
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 13th, 2020, 6:04 pm
by monabri
There's quite a spread between the sell and buy price ...looking at HL website at the moment it is a £60 difference. Were you looking at the sell price ( currently £940) or the buy price (£1000). Adding on about another £10 for costs (£5) and duty.
https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-sear ... st-ord-75pI was surprised that I couldn't get a price for RDSB yesterday...there was a message to say that thus was possibly due to several factors which they listed.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 13th, 2020, 7:45 pm
by Gerry557
Sounds like you might have made a decimal dot error. Any reason you did just hit the amount like you normally do.
You could call them.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 13th, 2020, 9:53 pm
by doug2500
Or try Iweb webchat, it works very well.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: March 15th, 2020, 10:15 am
by iambic
Thanks everyone for your replies; in case anyone is interested I got to the bottom of what the problem was...
I tried again on Friday evening & this time iWeb displayed a more helpful error message. It turns out (I hadn't realised this) that when you buy shares out of normal trading hours, you can't specify a number of shares to buy, you can only give them the amount you want to spend. So I switched from trying to buy a single LTI share, to asking them to buy as many as possible with the cash balance available & it went through (subject to whatever happens when the markets open again on Monday morning...)
It's useful to know about the iWeb chat option for future queries though, as I wasn't sure of the best way to contact them.
Thanks again
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 9:24 am
by DampSeaweed
It seems IWeb have now abandoned their TradePlan (limit orders etc) for the foreseeable. And getting live prices even for big equities like RDSB and GLEN is becoming increasingly difficult. Most of the time ‘negotiated trade’ is the only option available, which usually means that the trade will be completed on an unknown timeframe and probably at the worst possible price available within aforesaid timeframe.
Not entirely surprisingly, the telephone service has just about seized up and the webchat service is overloaded. The poor rep that I chatted with, out of hours, on Friday seemed very stressed, poor girl.
I don’t know how other brokers are fairing, but IWeb seem to be unraveling.
Is this a case of ”you get what you pay for” ?
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 10:27 am
by dealtn
DampSeaweed wrote: Most of the time ‘negotiated trade’ is the only option available, which usually means that the trade will be completed on an unknown timeframe and probably at the worst possible price available within aforesaid timeframe.
Why "probably" at the worst possible price....?
That really shouldn't be the case, and would in fact be illegal.
What evidence can you provide to back up that assumption?
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 10:40 am
by TheMotorcycleBoy
DampSeaweed wrote:It seems IWeb have now abandoned their TradePlan (limit orders etc) for the foreseeable. And getting live prices even for big equities like RDSB and GLEN is becoming increasingly difficult. Most of the time ‘negotiated trade’ is the only option available, which usually means that the trade will be completed on an unknown timeframe and probably at the worst possible price available within aforesaid timeframe.
Not entirely surprisingly, the telephone service has just about seized up and the webchat service is overloaded. The poor rep that I chatted with, out of hours, on Friday seemed very stressed, poor girl.
I don’t know how other brokers are fairing, but IWeb seem to be unraveling.
Is this a case of ”you get what you pay for” ?
Yes their removal of trade plans was a bit of a pisser. I guess that cos we've got low liquidity and high volatility several trades now need some manual intervention and of course cos of self-isolation and distancing, they (and other brokers) have got less firepower. I'm sure I'll adapt though.
My most recent buy was on Thursday (SGE) and I must admit every 2 or so hours, I'd quickly poll round to get quotes for NG., XPP, SCT, SGE, UKW, TUNE, and JCGI, and to be honest about 80% of time I got a live price
I doubt it's just iWeb. My workmate (not spoken to him for a month mind you), is with HL, and even in times of peace, he'd moan that sometimes he couldn't get quotes (perhaps that was AIM stuff though - I never really quizzed him).
But I'm sure it aint just iWeb. It's cos of the low liquidity. iWeb are linked to Lloyds, so I assume that they aren't exactly a fly-by-night operation.
Matt
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 12:02 pm
by DampSeaweed
“Why "probably" at the worst possible price....?
That really shouldn't be the case, and would in fact be illegal.
What evidence can you provide to back up that assumption?
========
Just observation and experience, nothing scientific. I doubt they are clever enough to be doing it deliberately or illegally.
Quite why the TradePlan system doesn’t work, I’ve got no idea. I thought it was just a bit of routine software. I can’t imagine it’s that clever. But possibly they don’t t have anyone in the office to monitor it.
As to why the availability of live prices has become unreliable. I’ve got no idea. When you do get a live (15sec) price quote. If the price action is volatile and goes against the quote then the order get rejected anyway. So not sure what the problem is there either. Maybe just a capacity issue with either IWeb or their interface to the market.
I had previously just assumed that the on line brokerage was just a fully automated programme. but maybe it needs more oversight than I thought.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 12:18 pm
by jackdaww
dealtn wrote:DampSeaweed wrote: Most of the time ‘negotiated trade’ is the only option available, which usually means that the trade will be completed on an unknown timeframe and probably at the worst possible price available within aforesaid timeframe.
Why "probably" at the worst possible price....?
That really shouldn't be the case, and would in fact be illegal.
What evidence can you provide to back up that assumption?
==========================
ive used the negotiated trade several times recently .
the price obtained was acceptable each time .
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 12:18 pm
by dealtn
DampSeaweed wrote:
I had previously just assumed that the on line brokerage was just a fully automated programme. but maybe it needs more oversight than I thought.
viewtopic.php?p=296144#p296144
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 5th, 2020, 5:07 pm
by TheMotorcycleBoy
DampSeaweed wrote:“Why "probably" at the worst possible price....?
That really shouldn't be the case, and would in fact be illegal.
What evidence can you provide to back up that assumption?
========
Just observation and experience, nothing scientific. I doubt they are clever enough to be doing it deliberately or illegally.
Quite why the TradePlan system doesn’t work, I’ve got no idea. I thought it was just a bit of routine software. I can’t imagine it’s that clever. But possibly they don’t t have anyone in the office to monitor it.
As to why the availability of live prices has become unreliable. I’ve got no idea. When you do get a live (15sec) price quote. If the price action is volatile and goes against the quote then the order get rejected anyway. So not sure what the problem is there either. Maybe just a capacity issue with either IWeb or their interface to the market.
I had previously just assumed that the on line brokerage was just a fully automated programme. but maybe it needs more oversight than I thought.
Read my earlier post. See if you agree with my views.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 6th, 2020, 10:07 am
by DampSeaweed
If your referring to your post 296144, then yes it seems to make sense to me and reflects my experience.
As a low cost service, It’s appears that IWeb keep there costs to a minimum and therefore their capacity to cope with exceptional circumstances are likely to be more easily compromised.
Of course it doesn’t necessarily follow that high charging brokers will fair better.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 8th, 2020, 9:16 pm
by tramrider
dealtn wrote:Why "probably" at the worst possible price....?
That really shouldn't be the case, and would in fact be illegal.
What evidence can you provide to back up that assumption?
iWeb conned me on Tuesday when buying some RGL. I watched the buy price on a couple of live web sites and it was steady at around 77.9p. The iWeb website wouldn't accept a normal online purchase and said it had to go into their 'negotiated' hands. When the purchase came back, quite quickly, it was at 79.868p, way out of line with the live web sites and which made a sizeable additional cost.
I should have read this discussion first!
Once bitten twice shy. I will not allow them to choose a price again.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 9th, 2020, 10:33 am
by puffster
For what it is worth, the spreads on certain stocks are quite bad at the moment so you may be the victim of this. Looking at RGL trades today the buy/sell prices are jumping around all over the place at certain times, especially early on in the trading day with differences of over 2p at times. Lowland yesterday was showing a 2.5% spread...
Regards, Puffster
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 9th, 2020, 10:41 am
by dealtn
tramrider wrote: I watched the buy price on a couple of live web sites and it was steady at around 77.9p.
Do you have Level 2 access to the market on those websites?
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 9th, 2020, 11:29 am
by tramrider
dealtn wrote:tramrider wrote: I watched the buy price on a couple of live web sites and it was steady at around 77.9p.
Do you have Level 2 access to the market on those websites?
No, i don't have any special access, but the record of transactions seems quite up to date, with no 15 minute delay.
Previously, after I have bought or sold, the transaction appears on the graphs within a couple of minutes.
Re: iWeb not allowing share purchase?
Posted: April 9th, 2020, 12:14 pm
by dealtn
tramrider wrote:dealtn wrote:tramrider wrote: I watched the buy price on a couple of live web sites and it was steady at around 77.9p.
Do you have Level 2 access to the market on those websites?
No, i don't have any special access, but the record of transactions seems quite up to date, with no 15 minute delay.
Previously, after I have bought or sold, the transaction appears on the graphs within a couple of minutes.
Without L2 access you aren't seeing the live market, so not possible to say you weren't executed at best price I'm afraid.