Trading 212 Portfolio progress update 10/04/2026

Last week I did some tax loss harvesting and sold £20ks-worth of shares in my T212 Invest GIA account and then after April 6th, I moved that £20k into the T212 ISA.

This means I now have £40k deposits in my ISA (£17k still as cash) and £100k deposits in my T212 Invest GIA account. Overall, I have slowly built up my T212 accounts to £169k with £140k of deposits over a period from Feb 2024 onwards. Some of that 140k was from my ii Invest account which I transferred across, and some was from an old AXA investment bond that I partly cashed in. The investment bond had been showing a pitiful average growth of approx. 4%/yr annualised (20% tax included) but to cash it all out would have caused a large tax bill.  By investing that money myself, I have changed the IRR from 4% (or 5% if you account for the income tax they deduct) to an IRR of 60%!

If anyone has an Investment onshore bond from Prudential, Standard Life, Phoenix Wealth\AXA, etc. I strongly suggest you check their performance against say a standard UK ETF such as IUKD or a global MSCI ETF such as SWDA. You may be surprised. Most of these investment bonds hold at least 25% in gilts and the investment funds that they buy often have a very high annual charge (TER) of between 1% and 2% - and that is before their own annual commission charges. These bonds allow you to draw 5% of your initial deposit out tax free over 20 years (generously they don't tax the money that you put in!). Their main use is to pass on your wealth after death or for use in a trust but their performance is often so poor that you or your children would be much better off with a self-managed GIA, even if 45% tax was taken by HMRC.

The Iran situation seems to be bullish at the moment, so my two T212 accounts are looking much healthier this Saturday morning!

T212 Invest GIA

My IRR is now a much better 62% (YTD IRR is 8%). Of course this could plummet in a week or two if the Iran/Hormuz Strait situation is not resolved amicably. Personally, I don't see it working out because of Israel and Lebanon (we only have to look at Gaza to see what may happen).

I still need to sell the Accumulating ETFs that I have in this account and buy Distributing versions instead (so I don't need to worry too much about calculating ERI on the accumulating ETFs.

My top performers are Teradyne (+72%), Alphabet (+62%), Western Digital (+83%), Sandisk (+72%). These were all identified many months ago in my previous blog posts as was the Korea ETF IKOR (+166% in last 12 months).

Here are my biggest holdings:

I am hoping the miners will be announcing stellar results this month.

T212 ISA

This now has a total of £40k deposit in it and the current IRR of 28% (current value £45,223 - £17k is still in cash).

I did buy three holdings this week (£1k each) as shown below:

My Broadcom (AVGO) was topped up due to their new AI chip deal Google which made me a quick 10% profit. Although this is a single company, they are a safe bet and seem good value.

Euro Banks (BNKE) seems to be on the rise again after a bear run in the last few months and I can see them profiting from the onshoring that is taking place in Europe (gold reserves moving out of USA, digital WERO independent EU payment system, defence spending, etc.).

Finally, I topped up on Junior Gold miners (GJGB) because all the major gold miners will be announcing very good results in the next few weeks and they will have plenty of surplus cash. They will most likely use that cash to buy up smaller gold miners which have potential but require investment. Since I have no idea which ones they will buy, I will just buy them all with an ETF.

I am trying to stick to my new (tax) years resolution of buying 'picks-and-shovels' companies and ETFs rather than trying to identify small individual companies.

I still have £17k cash in my T212 ISA and I am currently undecided as to what to do with it. I could buy back some or all of the shares that I previously sold for tax loss harvesting in my Invest account a few weeks ago, or I could buy some of the ETFs I identified in my previous blog post - or do a bit of both.

If the Iran talks do not end well, then I will be able to buy at a much better price. If peace is declared (and held) then I won't regret missing the market rise that will occur too much. If I spend that £17k now on shares which seem to be quite highly priced at the moment and then my whole portfolio crashes in a week or two, I will have no cash to buy cheap shares and a bad feeling about losing 10% of my portfolio!