My S&S diary - investing from February 2026

LL_USS

@kempiejon thank you for sharing. From UK stocks I have only bought a tiny bit of BAE systems and plan to gradually put more in this one as a part of some defence for long-term hedging (don't like that we have to pay stamp duty, but no need for Foreign Exchange, FX - which is 0.15% on T212 but hefty 0.75 each way on Dodl). Waiting to go into Physical Gold (back to the plan of buying on Dodl Lifetime ISA as if I keep that for long-term no need to buy sell then no need to be on T212, also I have lots more fund on Dodl and it's ETF so not too bad) - perhaps the good timing is from May, gradually dripping in. Will get back to Energy on T212 stock ISA when this oil craze calms down - after the war, again gradually and not looking at how it goes up or down once I get back in. Still not sure if I will get a bit into crypto in my general invest account on T212. I will see. I do keep enough in cash savings, property and pension (I've planned my finance fine over the last almost 15 years, having started very modestly - please please don't let investments my undoing 😏. Hope not as I only do S&S on my Lifetime ISA with a very long timeframe, and the non-LISA ones just small amount of spare money)

Investing or trading, there's always some level of FOMO, so I am glad I have gone through this process to know what I am comfortable with. @kempiejon you're exactly right, i see this as self development for self knowledge, even just to later go to a long-term big indexes that we only check a few times a year. I was tired after the intensive learning during the Easter break (being new to this, and perhaps too fast and too much learning 😅). I was lucky too to beat the market significantly during the time (having said that, I am still keeping some big tech stocks, bought when they were down 10-15% and today they are still down - fine for medium term still, I suppose- we will see).

kempiejon

@LL_USS Are you keeping good records for your profit and loss account. It'll be useful to see if you add value. I'm a firm believer of learn by doing.

I started with UK trackers then as I learnt more I tried stock picking with a view to scoring capital gains. Through luck or judgement I beat the index for a few years, I'm not arrogant enough to assume I could have continued that streak and learnt I prefer dividends and long time buy & hold for individual equities. What and when to sell was my stumbling block. Setting an exit price is a good system only if you follow it…

You seem to have the process of buying and selling nailed but I'm not sure there's a clear strategy.

A global tracker, some fixed interest and commodities in a weighting that suits temperament should be good enough but I like to look for bargains and tinker.

LL_USS

@kempiejon thanks for your insights.
I am still relatively new to investment "strategies" so though I did cook up a strategy from earlier on, I have changed it a few times along the way 😄.

I am quite an excel person so yes I keep a record of gains and losses at least for a while. For my Dodl Lifetime ISAs I don't keep track closely now, only see the percentage of yield, which after almost 3 months is still positive but close to 0% yield for the investment portion - 40% - of the pot at the moment. But I know exactly how much I've added to the LISA pot crystalising some gains; cash up is 3.24% on the cash portion - 60% - of the pot after 3 months, including platform cash interest, after costs and fees. On hindsight I should have still bought SP500 even when it was already very high - by that way I would have cashed in perhaps prematurely (then buy back again), but at least still got some gains from that market too. And if going in SP500 too high and not much profit to sell or even still negative like my Fidelity Japan index, I just hold till 15 years later ☺️. Never mind.

I still pick some invidual company shares on Trading 212 Stock ISA (the pot went up about 10% crystalised cash over an intensive learning-to-trade month- i know it was an exceptional period and I benefited from extreme market volatility and the luck won't repeat. On pay-day yesterday I used the part of income I don't need and put more in this pot - still a bit in red for newly acquired shares 😊, but they are for medium term investments so it's fine). I only buy when a good stock comes down a lot. Yet it seemed I went in for NOW, Salesforce (last week), Meta, MSFT (yesterday) too fast the night of earnings when the stocks came down assumingly a lot, but the next day still more, and when the US market opens at 2:30pm uk time then even more. I put limit orders to buy more at different price points but I still put these points too high. Did not expect stocks would change so much in a day 😪. Though I could have gone in at a lower price point, they all still work out fine over medium term.

A few anedotes on the way - such as buying and selling Hermes 6.5 times between invest account and stock ISA account in a day thinking I profited over £100 but in fact I was £45 down when I asked my group why the pot was not increased after the gain. Turned out I didn't realise there was also French transaction costs when buying 😏. Luckily still covered all the cost at the end of that day. Or when I got GE, asking my friends whether to sell, as it jumped up before earnings and they said better yes, so I LO at 314 sold at 315 (the only brief point of height that day) before it went down down down. We are still joking that my friends pulled me out of the shark's mouth just before I was swallowed, yet I still managed to pinch some meat from it 🤣. Joking aside, so dangerous.

I wonder if I have just taken profit when the yields were high enough (5-6%, enough to cover 0.3% FX fees from two ends and a bit real profit) - I waited for higher % and two came down (Hermes and AST space mobile) - I'll just wait longer for them to come back and take the profits even prematurely this time. I do not have to sell to cut losses yet thanks goodness, as the money is long term saving and I hope I have chosen stocks quite carefully.

So my so-called strategy: buy and hold big area indexes (not WI on its own, so I can have a bit more flexibility) and later, physical gold again, on Dodl Lifetime ISA. Individual shares, defence (BAE, defence Europe), energy Europe on Stock ISAs (managing a lot with limit orders for both buys and sells) on T212. Individual shares for now on Invest account on T212 in case I can venture a tiny bit into crypto again.

kempiejon

Excel XIRR function was my favourite proof of any value I added, it records flows in and out of the portfolio, takes account of time invested and spits out an annualised gain as a percentage and was easy to set up a spreadsheet. It's error prone for short time scales. Unitising ones portfolio might provider better results over the short term and it's best to start early on.

Do you have your grand total return/loss so far? At a few months in not significant but it's good to use your records to show what you bring to the party compared to say a global tracker or other benchmark holding.

Could you outline your strategy? Your salad of data points on buys and sells don't point me in any direction. Are you trading daily momentum while accumulating positions and asset allocation? What are your buy and sell signals for example. Is BA.e attractive on any metrics other than there's a war on? I'm a holder, pregnant with profit to capitalise yet the annual income increases are appreciated so it stays in the portfolio.

LL_USS

@kempiejon I like excel but I do not know how to use many functions of it. Just calculate stuff using normal functions. I will search how to use excel XIRR.

I am not clear what figures I should use to calculate the grand total return as i still add more money in each pot, do lots of things for the sake of learning, whilst buy, sell and wait to adjust my portfolio significantly (recently putting much back in cash). The figures I gave before were only the cash crystalised (across all the pots it is just under 3% up in 3 months). The market is so much up and down at the moment, changing daily almost so it's hard to pin down the paper profit and loss numbers. I aim to get a clearer picture towards the end of the year.

My latest "strategy" is here though I am still building the portfolio up so there are lots of gaps still:

PS: Yesterday I did something silly buying oil from limit order and could not clear it at the end of the day. Now it is really gambling and most probably it will go down further when our market opens on Tuesday.
Update 5 May 2026 - lots of work today but with Limit Order with BRNG (brent oil, which I accidently bought from a failed experiment that backfired last Friday). It is pureluck that I escaped a minus £40 and gained an undeserving profit £50 instead. Adding this to a food voucher for two children of a participant of my research that I talked to last week.

LL_USS

PPS: *just under 3% up in real cash over 52K (not including paper gains or losses) from 6 Feb but note that I have only added over 12K in this total amount from around 6 Apr, and I still have to put 2K remaining allowance further in LISA + 1K government bonus, which is not yet received.
And not sure if the above table outlines the strategy or you meant strategy as something else 🤔

kempiejon

Hmm, So you don't have benchmark nor are currently recording a running gain. Unitisation is another good way but if you've not got round to XIRR that's perhaps a bit easier. Still early day's and this is for learning but don't miss the chance to record cash flows in and out of the portfolio and any buys and sells or corporate actions as recovering them retrospectively to fill your spreadsheet is harder work than as you go along..

By strategy I suppose I meant something like how do you decide what to spend your money on? How do you evaluate fair price for what you buy, what would be a trigger to sell to take you profits or bail and cut your losses.

You've published what looks like an asset allocation as %age weights in each of your platforms. How did you get those numbers?

LL_USS

@kempiejon sorry I have no clear strategy for individual shares at the moment. I am trying to have a feel of what to do, experimenting around. I seem to choose a bunch of blue chip stocks, and wait till they come down considerably in pricing (after their earnings - don't dare to guess before earnings), and go in, holding for medium term.

LL_USS

7 May 2026:

Officially 3 months since I started. Officially defeated by World Index.

From this chart if I throw all my money in from the start, I would have had a loss in the middle of this journey but when the timeline is a bit longer, it still earns 4.23%

Without having invested all the amount I started with (about 39K) and even with lots of "doings" my yield has only been half (having said so most of that is real, crystalised gains).

I am giving myself 3 more months to experiment my method to see if it's still falling behind WI in my Dodl Lifetime ISA pot. Trading 212 investments have performed much better yet the majority of the "real" (crystalised earnings) were from the intensive work during Easter holiday and particular geo-political environment, so not typical.

LL_USS

EDIT: actually I was wrong. Dodl's investment pot only gets its updated values now for all the area indexes. The updated value makes the total yield = 3.81% for the Dodl LISA pot (with much over half of that yield already crystalised and added as real money to the pot and I have only invested half the pot) vs. 4.23% uptick if all invested from day 1 to WI.