Trumps latest tariffs - what shares am I buying now?

DJTs latest petulant fit of pique seems to be the final nail in the coffin for non-USA investors. It seems that Europe do not want to depend on the USA for goods and services any more, and many large, unfinalised USA contracts are now on hold or even cancelled.

In particular, very large European defence contracts and energy contracts with the USA are in jeopardy.

This gives an even greater boost to EU and UK defence companies and also to large Emerging Markets companies, especially those in Korea and China.

T212 Trading update 2026-02-20

I have not made many changes in my Trading 212 ISA or Investment accounts in the last month except for the selling of my FTSE RAFI PSRU ETF shares as the ETF was closing down.

I am trying to diversify my holdings but still select countries and sectors which I think will do well in 2026.

Trading in March 2026?

I suspect there will be large swings in the stock markets in March 2026.

We should be ready for them, either to sell or buy. Perhaps even look for leveraged ETFs?

The Swiss Franc, EU Euro and UK Pound are stronger gold currencies than the US Dollar...

The GBP/USD rate has shown the USD has dropped in value all February...

Now is the time to think about Tax Loss Harvesting!

If you live in the UK you will be aware that April 5th 2026 is the end of the tax year. Since it is a Sunday, Friday April 3rd 2026 is the last trading day.

If you have investments in a General Investment Account (GIA) such as a Trading 212 Invest account, you should be thinking about Tax Loss Harvesting (TLH) now.

If you want more details on what TLH is, I suggest you ask ChatGPT about Tax Loss Harvesting in the UK (but don't believe all it tells you!), but here is what I am currently considering.

If you have a GIA, then you probably have already maxed out your ISA(s) with the full £20k allowance.

So we now have to think about:

My favourite FTSE ETF (PSRU) is about to close!

Yep, one of the best FTSE ETFs, in my opinion, was and is PSRU but it is sadly, closing very soon.

A free tool for Trading 212 UK Capital Gains Tax calculation!

If you have a Trading 212 Invest account, you will probably need to calculate your Capital Gains tax after May 6th 2026.

Note that the annual report from Trading 212 does not account for the HMRC 30-day rule or the same day rule to determine which shares have been sold. Any sell is first matched against...

1. Shares bought and sold on the same day
2. Shares acquired within the 30 days after the sale (on a ‘first in, first out’ basis)
3. The Section 104 holding pool (any other of the same type of shares: total paid / qty)

I have made a Windows executable that converts the .CSV files which you can download from Trading 212.

On the T212 site, select your Invest account and then use:

'Trading 212 - History' 

and my program will convert your downloaded .csv file into a suitable text file (.txt) which you can then load into the free cgtcalculator.com online app. 

The steps are:

A good month for silver, gold, copper and miners (but not for SMRs)!

 I hold the following stocks and ETFs listed in the table below in my Trading 212 accounts.

The current price change (last column) is calculated using the average price over approx. 30 days.

Invest in Pawn (gold)?

On 19th September 2025 I wrote a blog article 'Is Pawn good for you?'.

In that article I suggested that we take a look at FirstCash FCFS and Ramsdens RFX.

A free and viable alternative to the UK's Net Zero policy

If the UK became a CO2 Net Zero energy country, it will cost us many £Trillions and quosh all our industries - this policy is making the UK one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in.

We could insulate our houses better and save approx. 5% of CO2 emissions (much cheaper than buying a BEV). Eating 10% less meat would save 2% and 20% less waste food would also save 2%.

So we could reduce our emissions by at least 15% simply by insulating our houses better (and short payback period), wasting less food and eating less meat (e.g. eat pulses one day a week instead of eating a bit of a cow).

What if all developed world countries did this?

I asked CoPilot...

Trading 212 update 2026-01-16 + tips

Another good week and I am at an all-time high :-) Over my two accounts (£130k mainly DCA deposits, I am up £26k in 12 months = 20% unrealised gain).

I don't expect this to last however and still have £6k of cash ready for when the correction comes!

T212 Invest (£110k Deposit - 72% IRR)

This was up £2.6k (2%) over the week.

Company Stock picks for 2026

This list below comprises medium to long-term companies which are picked for a UK investor's 2026 portfolio.

The list was shared by the YouTube investor channel 'ISA Investment UK' who has built up his impressive portfolio from £422k to £1600k in just one year. Although he has used options quite a bit - he has over £300k in ETFs, £50k in crypto, £200 in options and £230k in cash - the rest (£800k) is invested in the following companies...

Trading 212 update 2026-01-09 + lessons learned in 2025

I have not reported my Trading 212 account progress for a few weeks as there was not much to report, so here is the 2026 New Year's update which is nicely up!

Trading 212 ISA (20K deposited on April 2025)

I use this account as my more shorter term trading, adventurous account.

Ideas for Finance and Value ETFs in 2026

The US economy and US dollar seem set to improve in 2026. Trump is calling for swingeing cuts in the Fed interest rate. This should be better for US stocks. US banks and credit card companies have not performed particularly well in 2025 for UK investors, partly because of the  USD/GBP Fx rate but this should change in 2026. The GBP\USD Fx rate should not change so much over 2026.

Investments for 2026 - it's a gas!

Data Centers require large amounts of electricity and the fuel needs to be clean and immediately available. Nuclear energy is the long term answer but that is still 6-10 years away and data centers need electricity now! The answer lies in building modular large scale natural gas generators.