Trade Republic Review 2023

You can also buy fractional shares in a selected list of stocks and ETFs (we did not find that list). Still, it is only possible with market orders executed via the Lang & Schwarz (LS) Exchange electronic trading system, where Trade Republic is the counterpart.

On Cryptos, you are trading real assets (no derivatives on that front), so you really own your cryptocurrencies. You can trade them 24/7 (yep, including weekends and holidays). Trade Republic indicates that each crypto is held in a cold wallet to be offline and protected from cyberattacks. Besides, as with stocks and ETFs, the crypto assets are kept separate from the Trade Republic balance sheet by Trade Republic Custody GmbH (based in Vienna) to guarantee their safety. 

Please remember that it is not possible to send or receive any crypto via Trade Republic. Besides, the crypto offering is only available in the following countries: Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, and Spain.

Concerning derivatives, these are, as the name implies, financial instruments that derive their price from an underlying asset, such as stocks, commodities, bonds… Almost anything). In Trade Republic, you can trade three types:

• Warrants: it works similarly to Options in the sense that it gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a financial asset at a specific price before the expiration date.
• Knock-outs: An option with a built-in mechanism to expire worthless if a specified price level in the underlying asset is reached (that’s where its name comes from). It limits your upside but can be bought at a lower premium than a standard option.
• Factor Certificates: A financial instrument replicating a particular security’s price movement but with a leverage factor (higher potential gains, but higher potential losses as well). Contrary to Warrants and Knock-outs, factor certificates have unlimited duration. This kind of instrument is not indicated for holding more than a day.

The providers of these derivatives include Société Générale, CITI, and HSBC.

We advise you to be extra careful when dealing with these products since they are hard to understand completely. Indeed, we were expecting a deeper explanation for each derivative within the platform, but no detailed information is provided apart from this general explanation.

Also, most include leverage (borrowed money), so high profits or losses can be achieved very quickly. That’s why they usually aim for more experienced investors who intend to hedge certain positions or speculate on price movements.

Finally, it offers Saving Plans (4,900+), which can combine all the four assets mentioned above. Here you can invest automatically in stocks, ETFs, and crypto with no third-party costs (this is the only place where the €1 external fee does not apply). When the XETRA exchange is open, the saving plans are executed on the 2nd, 9th, 16th, or 23rd of the month.

It allows you to set up your payment method (direct debit or cash account) and the withdrawal interval of your savings plan (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly execution).