I only saw one mention of this on a post several years ago with no replies.
Hypothetical Scenario:
I bought one of Stock A at 10$ Monday.
Tuesday I bought another of Stock A at 8$.
Friday I want to close the position I opened on Monday at 10$ and keep the one opened on Tuesday at 8$.
There is no place to see the list of opened positions on each stock and no way to close a specific position.
How is this even possible? How am I supposed to manage my portfolio when I click sell and I have no way of knowing what is being sold? Am I missing something here? Is this hidden someplace and I can’t find it?
When you buy multiple time the same stock, but at different prices, you have an average price for that stock.
Trade 1: 10 shares of stock A at £100= £10/share
Trade 2: 10 shares of stock A at £200=£20/share
You do not own 2 lots of 10 shares of stock A(one at £10 and one at £20); you own 20 shares of stock A at £15/share.
So, when you sell, you buy price will be £15/share and the profit/loss will be calculated compared to average buy price.
Good morning and thank you for taking the time to reply.
I understand that is perhaps the logic Trading212 is using, but it in fact is not true. Each order has a it’s own order ID and Fill ID specifying the number of shares, price etc. So, using your example, I never purchased anything at 15 really, that is a calculated average.
I find this unmanageable, because I do not control my own portfolio, rather some code is doing this for me using some logic that is not transparent.
I have not used the CFD account yet but it seems that this functionality exists there (or so I read). I could switch to CFD I suppose, though I am concerned that I will not have access to a. 24/5 trading and b.it does not list all stocks. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
Coming from another platform where everything is under 1 account and I can manage each position individually (including SL/TP) I find this very hard to use and I wonder if I made a mistake switching.
What trading platform allows you to operate in a FIFO fashion? Your net result is the same is it not? Buy 1 share at £10 today, another 1 share at £20 tomorrow. If you then sell 1 share the next day at £30, then you are left with 2 shares. You are saying you want to realise £20 profit and pay tax on that? If you sold the other 2 shares as well, you make £20 from them… or sell all 3 shares at £30 each and you make the same £40 profit overall.
The main factor is tax. As long as you account for trades in the right fashion and pay capital gains tax you are all square.
I never said FIFO. I said I myself choose which position I want to close from the list of orders and the platform does not decide for me.
Correct me if I am wrong (it’s late and I am a couple of wine glasses in) but if we go on the average which is 15 and I sell one for 30, the gain is 15 which is what I would pay taxes on. If instead I want to get rid of the more expensive one (20), the gain is 10 which would mean less taxes?
Why I would want to close which positions in which order is completely irrelevant. There are many motives to do so and it’s too late to type a diatribe.
At the end of the day what I am gathering is that I do not have complete control over my portfolio, no way to set TP and SL individually for each purchase or both at the same time. To me this is concerning, limiting my trading options significantly.
I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to reply, much appreciated.
I did read up a bit on taxation here and it seems pretty straight forward. If buy at 1000 and sell at 1500 they tax me on the 500 capital gain. If I have incurred a capitlal loss I can deduct it. Nothing like the UK calculations using averages and time held and all this other stuff. We are cavemen over here
There is no mention of average price in the tax code. Average price would apply if we are talking about the case of how T212 works. But if I choose to sell a specific position it calculates on the capital gain of the position sold, period, end of story.
Regardless guys, what I need is not available. No amount of rationalization about taxes in different EU countries changes that. I am not here to argue if I want to pay more or less, how I am taxed and what my motives may be at the time I choose to sell what I want to sell.
I do appreciate every single info provided as it did prompt me to think and also research the taxes more, which was very helpful. At the end of the day, the point unfortunately is that I cannot manage my portfolio as I wish to.
Seeing as this was also raised 5 years ago and the platform never replied or took it into consideration says a lot. I will give the CFD account a try and will make up my mind from there.
Everyone have a great Sunday. Time to relax and prepare for tomorrow’s bloodbath.
Have you thought about exporting your transaction history and letting Google sheets do reporting in the format you prefer?
I built myself a portfolio tracker a while back, it accepts input from multiple sources and although requires manual updates, is free
What it does do is send me calculated triggers to monitor stocks - I’m big on investment trusts and monitor the discount / premium to NAV, average premium/discount and so on. WallMine has disappeared so I needed my own solution
