Understanding Forward Pricing for funds (not shares)

When you buy something, you would normally expect to know the price of the item before making the purchase. However, many investments, including funds, are dealt using forward-pricing, which means your instruction to buy or sell an investment is held alongside many others and the price you get is determined later (usually once a day).

What this means for your buy and sell instructions

This means that you don’t know exactly how many units you will receive for your investment, or how much money will be achieved from your sell, until your transaction has been priced.

The prices you can see on our website are historic prices from previous pricing points. This differs from our brokerage trading service on our website that allows you to deal into a live market and see the price before you transact.

Different funds and providers price differently

Each fund provider sets the price of their funds once a day, at different points throughout the day. This means that you won’t know the exact price or number of units, until the deal has been priced.

We accept instructions for a given fund up to a ‘cut-off point’ and then send those instructions to the fund provider for them to price. Most funds on our platform have a cut-off point of 11am Monday to Friday, but this can vary. You can see the other price points here

Buying and selling shares

For exchange traded products or investment trusts, we offer a live dealing service during market hours. A live price is presented on screen which you then decide whether to accept or reject. This means that your instruction will be priced immediately. You also have the option to use a ‘limit order’, which allows you to select a price to deal at - the trade won't be placed until the market hits that price. If the market doesn't hit that price, the trade will not be placed.

If you are placing a trade outside of market hours, into an exchange traded product or investment trust, we will place your trade as soon as the market opens at the next available price.