Capital.com has launched direct investing in stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETF) across Europe, marking its next step towards becoming a multi-asset trading and investment platform.

According to the company, the move gives clients across its European markets a single place to act on both short-term trading views and long-term investment goals, extending the platform beyond short-term trading to include long-term investing.

The launch reflects a broader view of how clients approach markets. Some come to the platform to act on a short-term view, while others are building a position they intend to hold for years.

Capital.com said its Built for Better Decisions principle is about matching the instrument to the client’s intention, rather than expecting one type of instrument to serve every purpose.

Direct ownership of stocks and ETFs therefore gives clients investing for the long term a product built for that purpose, sitting alongside the short-term trading instruments already available on the platform.

The offering spans more than 2,280 stocks and ETFs across US and European markets, including a broad range of local European companies.

At the same time, there is no commission on stock or ETF investments, with the products available to eligible clients across nearly all of Capital.com’s European Economic Area markets.

As with the rest of its product range, Capital.com offers stocks and ETFs on an execution-only, non-advised basis and does not recommend which stocks or ETFs to buy.

Clients can access stocks and ETFs following Capital.com’s standard onboarding process for new products, while client assets are held under the safeguarding arrangements that apply across Capital.com’s regulated entities.

Commenting on the launch, Christoforos Soutzis, CEO Europe at Capital.com, said that “across Europe, clients rarely fit into a single category”, noting that many trade on short-term views and build long-term positions within the same week.

“A platform built for only one side of that no longer matches how people actually invest,” he added, explaining that “that is why we decided to expand our offering and become a multi-asset provider, giving clients across Europe a genuine choice between the two, in one place”.

More broadly, the move reflects Capital.com’s ambition to serve a wider range of client needs, from traders acting on short-term views to investors building long-term positions, within a single multi-asset platform, without changing what the platform stands for.

Meanwhile, Sasha Gubochkin, Chief Product Officer at Capital.com, said that every product added to the platform, both on web and app, has to answer the same question, “Does it help a client understand their situation more clearly before they act?”

“Stocks and ETFs are the latest expression of that commitment,” he added, noting that as Capital.com grows to serve more of what clients need, from short-term trading to long-term investing, “the design principles stay the same, with less noise, less urgency, and information presented clearly enough that the decision belongs to the client”.

The stocks and ETFs offering sits alongside the research, charting and portfolio tools already built into Capital.com’s platform, allowing clients to apply the same standard of information to a long-term holding as they would to a short-term position.

Europe is first in line for the new offering.

Capital.com said stocks and ETFs will be rolled out across its other markets, including the UAE and the UK, in the coming months, reflecting its continued commitment to serve clients across the full range of how they engage with markets.