Sharedealing trading

The website is accessible 24 hours a day Monday to Saturday and after 6am on Sunday.

Orders placed outside market hours will be executed as soon as practicable when the market opens.

There is a risk of higher volatility when placing an order when the market is closed, or near to a market's closing or opening, and you should consider entering a price limit.

If it's more convenient, you can deal by telephone. Select contact us for our contact details. Please note that we do charge an additional fee for telephone trading.

Outside these hours we recommend you send a secure message but if this is not convenient, remember first direct is always there, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can leave a message at any time on 03 456 100 100. Please note that you will not be able to place a trade using these two methods.

Depending upon what stage you were at, the trade may not have been received by us. If your trade is interrupted, (e.g. you lose your phone connection) 'call us' immediately to check the status of your instruction.

You will normally be given a £10,000 dealing limit. This allows you to purchase up to £10,000 worth of shares every settlement period. If you wish to change this amount please 'contact us'.

Your 'my portfolio' page will show you how much you have in the 'available to invest' column. This will include your trading limit or cash held within any ISA settlement accounts.

When entering a 'buy' or 'sell' order, a price is displayed once you have selected what share you want to trade. This price may be an indication or guaranteed price. Alternatively, you can use the 'quick quote' facility, which is on every page of the website. Enter the code or name for the share you want the price of and click 'go'.

If you don't know the code for a share, then click on 'name', enter part of the share's name and then click 'go'. You will then be shown a list of all the shares from which you should be able to find the one you want.

Should you have any difficulty locating your chosen share then please 'contact us' and we will assist you in locating it.

Prices displayed from the 'quick quote' function are fifteen minutes delayed. Indicative prices displayed on the trading screens are the most recent live prices.

When entering a 'buy' or 'sell' order in UK shares, you will see a guaranteed price on the 'preview order' page where available. The price will be shown with the label 'guaranteed price' together with a countdown timer giving you 15 seconds to confirm the order. If we are unable to offer a guaranteed price the quote will be labelled as '@ best' and you will see the message 'The price at which your order is executed may differ from the indication price'.

For UK shares, the execution price achieved on your order will include a price improvement over and above the London Stock Exchange's indication price where available.

When entering a buy or sell order in a UK share, you will see a guaranteed price on the 'preview order' screen where available. This is the price at which your order will be executed and is displayed with a countdown timer giving you 15 seconds to accept the guaranteed price. The guaranteed price will include a price improvement over and above the London Stock Exchange's indication price where available. Where a price improvement is available the confirmation screen will display the amount of money we have saved you. This calculation is made on the share quantity of your order multiplied by the difference between the price improvement and the London Stock Exchange's indication price.

A guaranteed price is only available for some UK share orders. A guaranteed price may not be available for large share quantity orders. If you wish to buy or sell a large quantity of shares you should not split your order into a number of smaller orders which may then be executed at a guaranteed price. This practise is in breach of stock market conduct and may result in your executed orders being cancelled.

Once your order has been executed you will see the execution price on the 'order and trade history' page. A contract note will also be sent to you by secure e-messaging shortly after trading.

Yes. Once a purchase has successfully executed, a sale order may be placed.

As soon as the sale order has successfully executed, you can use the proceeds for sharedealing.

Yes. Limits will be held until the market close of the day on which they are placed. You must place a limit if you want to deal within an ISA.

No. We do not offer stop loss trading.

You are unable to amend an order. You may, however, cancel an order during market hours provided that it has not been executed. To do this you will need to 'call us'.

You are unable to amend an order.

You may, however, cancel an order provided that it has not been sent to the market for execution (e.g. it has been placed outside market hours). Check the status of your order using the 'order and trade history' page. If 'Cancel' is offered under 'status' then you can select this option and confirm your wish to cancel. If 'Cancel' is not shown it is not possible to cancel the order.

Orders are not cancelled unless it is indicated that they have been 'Rejected' or 'Cancelled'.

No. Once an order has been executed it may not be cancelled.

No. We do not offer a short selling service.

Go to 'order and trade history' and select the appropriate account. All the deals you have executed for the last 365 days can be viewed.

To ensure a complete record, you should print all the contract notes sent to you by secure e-messaging.

Using our research centre will enable you to access an extensive range of powerful tools to help you analyse the market, find companies of interest and make informed decisions. To access the research centre go to the 'products and services' page.

Yes. The news feed is live.

Yes. You are able to create and maintain five virtual portfolios with up to 50 stocks in each to enable you to track shares you are interested in or maybe hold in paper form. To access this click on 'virtual portfolio' on the 'my portfolio' page.

Yes. You can set up alerts, which can be sent to any three of five email addresses you register with us. We will let you know when your chosen share meets your set criteria. To create or maintain an alert go to 'alerts' on the 'my portfolio' page.

We may aggregate your orders with those of other customers (including those of connected customers or our associates). Such aggregation may result in a less favourable price for you.