Understanding stocks & shares ISA

Linton

Alex9384 said:

Thanks all!

So basically I can buy and sell the same stock as many times as I wish. Or just sell a portion of my shares, then buy more, etc.

This is important for me because I'm interested in swing trading (days/weeks), although I intend to hold some stocks long term, such as National Grid or a couple REITs.

Btw, I assume I still need to file a tax return even if the tax is zero?

HMRC know nothing about what is happening within an ISA environment and dont care.  So do not include any ISA transaction in any tax document.

Linton

Alex9384 said:

Someone said in a different MSE thread that you shouldn't hold the same stock in two different investment accounts because it somehow complicates taxes? I don't remember exactly.

My questions is, is "the same stock" considered the one that has the same ISIN? Or any stock from the same company? For example Alphabet Class A shares vs Class C shares are "the same stock" or not? What if you hold Class A in one account and buy Class C in another?

This only applies outside an ISA (or pension)....

The problem is that holding the same fund or share in two different taxable environments would need careful book keeping.  For CGT purposes they are parts of the same investment

Fund classes are toally different to share classes. In an unsheltered environment I believe a different class is still the same fund  but an INC version is different to the same underlying fund held as an ACC version.

However the multiple Alphabet Class shares are really totally different with a confusing name.  This is nothing to do with Classes of funds.

Alex9384 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

If you also hold equities outside your ISA you should look at taking advantage of you CGT allowance to bed and ISA some of that before using spare cash to fund your ISA. For example if you purchased a bunch os shares in Acme PLC at £1 per share and they are worth £1.30 at the end of the tax year, you can sell 13,000 of them taking £3,000 tax free profit then repurchase those shares within your ISA at the beginning of the following tax year, with no need to wait 30 days. 

Thanks.
I have something in the standard Invest account since free shares for friend referrals are added there by Trading212 and I also bought a couple blue chips as my ISA was already maxed out.

Another thing, for example in Slovakia if you hold your shares for at least 1 year, they then become exempt from CGT. Is there anything like that in the UK?

No, there is nothing like this in the UK.  

.

Tucosalamanca

Alex9384 said:

mark_cycling00 said:

I suspect that the type of person who's successful at day trading is the type of person who could quickly understand the relatively simple concept of ISAs. 

How are you going to research and evaluate a REIT if you're struggling to discover if you pay CGT after 1 year or not.

Really please be careful with your money 

Thanks, but I didn't say day trading, I said swing trading, which means holding for days/weeks, in some cases months. I think day trading is purely about technicals whereas swing trading involves fundamentals. I aim to buy companies which are good enough to keep long term even if they temporarily dip after I buy them.

I'm not "struggling to discover", I just hate reading about taxes in a bureaucratic language and I find it easier to ask people who are already experienced in it. Is this not a form of discovering? I think that's the main purpose of forums like this.

Good advice from Mark, he even mentions researching and evaluating.

I aim to buy companies which are good enough to keep long term even if they temporarily dip after I buy them

So no stop losses, you're just going to buy and hold as the ship sinks and you hope/pray for a recovery?
Good luck with that... How are you planning to manage risk?

Companies don't always recover, no matter how much you research them or believe that you know better than the market.

As above, be very careful with your money.

MacPingu1986

Alex9384 said:

mark_cycling00 said:

I suspect that the type of person who's successful at day trading is the type of person who could quickly understand the relatively simple concept of ISAs. 

How are you going to research and evaluate a REIT if you're struggling to discover if you pay CGT after 1 year or not.

Really please be careful with your money 

Thanks, but I didn't say day trading, I said swing trading, which means holding for days/weeks, in some cases months. I think day trading is purely about technicals whereas swing trading involves fundamentals. I aim to buy companies which are good enough to keep long term even if they temporarily dip after I buy them.

I'm not "struggling to discover", I just hate reading about taxes in a bureaucratic language and I find it easier to ask people who are already experienced in it. Is this not a form of discovering? I think that's the main purpose of forums like this.

Swing Trading is right next to Day Trading in the "this is really really hard, complicated and risky" bucket.

No criticisms about you asking how ISAs work at all, but if you don't enjoy reading bureaucratic language, will you enjoy the extensive reading and assessing numerous economic forecasts, industry reports and analysis, company trading updates etc... that you'll need to read as a bare minimum to make any informed prediction on short term movements in share prices as a retail investor?

With very limited exceptions, you should be investing for the longer term, not for short term price movements, because you'll simply be guessing and will almost certainly lose money. 

The banks and trading houses that do short term trading of this nature operate with specialist traders that do this stuff for a living, with extensive data feeds and background teams, specialist algorithms, risk parameters, complex backing off of risks etc... 

As a retail investor, and a new and inexperienced one at that, you don't have any of this and will almost certainly lose money.

Alex9384

ColdIron said:

AKA a fast way to lose money

You will be up against professionals and a lot of software. What makes you think you have the edge over them?

OK if you want a bit of (potentially expensive) fun with a few thousand but not a serious strategy to increase your wealth

I know, but swing trading is not as wild as day trading. I also don't do derivatives.
Don't forget that a retail trader today has many tools available too. There are several good websites for stock analysis, now also using AI models. I generally avoid micro caps and small caps (though I do some in my demo account) and I use limit orders (no stop loss, only limit buy and limit sell). I haven't sold anything at a loss yet. If something drops into the red, I keep holding it. That's why I analyse the company before I buy it. Analyst forecasts, technical indicators, market cap, trading volumes, ownership structure, insider trading & funds buying/selling, share buybacks, company's main competitors and what are their forecasts in comparison to "my" company, etc. Some sites can give you a detailed breakdown of the whole balance sheet, why this figure is considered good, why this figure is considered bad, and so on. Also news about company and then discussions of other investors who focus on given industry and know a lot about it, that helps a lot. Then I decide whether to buy or not. I also avoid buying when it's already rising sharply, no matter what anyone is saying. I managed to make over £500 in June (on 8 stocks) and over £200 so far this month (excluding stocks like National Grid or Gladstone or Berkshire which are also in the green, but I'm not planning to sell them any time soon, so I don't count those in monthly profit), although FX is not favourable anymore compared to June, except my Canadian$ holding, which is doing relatively well.

I don't panic-sell. Nothing sold at a loss so far. I'm also averaging down sometimes.

I have a couple stocks in the red but I know it's temporary and that they are good companies so I'm not going to sell while in the red. If they were some meme stocks or micro caps or something I didn't research before, then I might be more worried.

Tucosalamanca

So many red flags in there - only a matter of time before the market floors you....

Alex9384

Tucosalamanca said:

Good advice from Mark, he even mentions researching and evaluating.

I aim to buy companies which are good enough to keep long term even if they temporarily dip after I buy them

So no stop losses, you're just going to buy and hold as the ship sinks and you hope/pray for a recovery?
Good luck with that... How are you planning to manage risk?

Companies don't always recover, no matter how much you research them or believe that you know better than the market.

As above, be very careful with your money.

Thanks. But the same thing can happen to long-term investors. This one is not limited to trading.

StopLoss is a double edged sword. It can kick you out of from a position which is not really problematic, like some 1 day dip, realising the loss.

Tucosalamanca

Alex9384 said:

Tucosalamanca said:

Good advice from Mark, he even mentions researching and evaluating.

I aim to buy companies which are good enough to keep long term even if they temporarily dip after I buy them

So no stop losses, you're just going to buy and hold as the ship sinks and you hope/pray for a recovery?
Good luck with that... How are you planning to manage risk?

Companies don't always recover, no matter how much you research them or believe that you know better than the market.

As above, be very careful with your money.

Thanks. But the same thing can happen to long-term investors. This one is not limited to trading.

StopLoss is a double edged sword. It can kick you out of from a position which is not really problematic, like some 1 day dip, realising the loss.

You need to do much, much more research. Risk management above all else....

Alex9384

MacPingu1986 said:

Swing Trading is right next to Day Trading in the "this is really really hard, complicated and risky" bucket.

No criticisms about you asking how ISAs work at all, but if you don't enjoy reading bureaucratic language, will you enjoy the extensive reading and assessing numerous economic forecasts, industry reports and analysis, company trading updates etc... that you'll need to read as a bare minimum to make any informed prediction on short term movements in share prices as a retail investor?

With very limited exceptions, you should be investing for the longer term, not for short term price movements, because you'll simply be guessing and will almost certainly lose money. 

The banks and trading houses that do short term trading of this nature operate with specialist traders that do this stuff for a living, with extensive data feeds and background teams, specialist algorithms, risk parameters, complex backing off of risks etc... 

As a retail investor, and a new and inexperienced one at that, you don't have any of this and will almost certainly lose money.

Yes, I agree with you, except the very last part. Nowadays there are some pretty good tools which can help even a new trader/investor in picking good stocks. See me reply to ColdIron.

They can walk you through several metrics, with short explanations why it's considered bad or good. Here's an example.
The bottom right part, you can go through Valuation, Financials, Forecast, Performance.
Each of those sections is broken down, as you see, the screenshot is page 2 of 3. Then you switch to Valuation and go through another 3 pages, then Forecast, etc.
And that's just one website. I use more of them. I combine that with news and then comments on those news from experienced investors.

Now, of course, even Enron or Theranos looked great on paper and many professionals believed it. But in general, it's much easier to find "safe" companies with all these available, then it was 10 years or maybe just 5 years ago.

 I want to buy companies that I don't have to sell soon just because I'm afraid to keep them for longer, but I often will sell them if there's a sharp rise in price (unless it's due to a strategic partnership or something), hence I call it trading. Otherwise I'm basically investing.

dunstonh

Alex9384 said:

Tucosalamanca said:

Good advice from Mark, he even mentions researching and evaluating.

I aim to buy companies which are good enough to keep long term even if they temporarily dip after I buy them

So no stop losses, you're just going to buy and hold as the ship sinks and you hope/pray for a recovery?
Good luck with that... How are you planning to manage risk?

Companies don't always recover, no matter how much you research them or believe that you know better than the market.

As above, be very careful with your money.

Thanks. But the same thing can happen to long-term investors. This one is not limited to trading.

StopLoss is a double edged sword. It can kick you out of from a position which is not really problematic, like some 1 day dip, realising the loss.

The same wont happen to long term investors as investors are not traders.  A typical invested portfolio will have over 20,000 assets.   The investor is not reading the company accounts of each one and analysing the markets of each one and has no detailed information about each one.

The reality is that the majority of people trying what you are doing end up losing money.   If its a game you are playing with small amounts for fun then fair enough but if not, then you seriously need to consider keeping the majority of your money in conventional investment options.