T212 Portfolio update £204k + Snowball Analytics and JISA's

Much to my surprise, shares stayed high over the whole week. Tuesday was the best day and due to Trump/Xi/Hormuz, etc. the market saw good news. 

However, I am still expecting a dip in share prices next week when it all falls apart again.

I took advantage of the high prices to sell a few shares but also make a few buys...

In my ISA, I sold META (+20%) and Solaris Energy Infrastructure SEI (+13%), but topped up on Lynas Rare Earth LYSDY and USA Rare Earth USAR. I already hold META in another portfolio and SEI seemed to have peaked and I wanted some cash for the next dip.

In my Invest GIA, I topped up on Monday on Marvell, AppLovin, Applied Materials and Lenovo.

I only have £3k in cash now but would really like more (say approx. £10k+), so I will be looking at selling more ISA holdings next week. 

Major movers of the week

Bloom Energy BE was the top gainer. Samsung SMSN moved +10% but not much over a month. Intel INTC +13%. Also AMAT went up approx 10% but had gone down 10% in the week or so before. 

First Solar FSLR was down 10% this week.

Finally cybersecurity ETF WCBR / CYSE has been doing well recently due to AI security scares. I am also watching the miners closely (copper, gold, silver).

Snowball Analytics and Simply Wall Street

I recently took advantage of a 30% off offer for a years subscription to Snowball Analytics. My intention was to add all my broker accounts and get an overall picture of all my holdings.

I started with importing my Trading 212 Invest and ISA accounts using the API keys. You have to generate keys for the API on the Trading 212 platform (Settings - API) for both the ISA and the GIA. Make sure to tick all the permissions boxes except the 'Execute' box - double check that all other boxes are ticked by scrolling up and down before generating the keys.

I had a lot of problems syncing using the APIs. I spent a week of emailing Snowball support and many hours deleting Snowball portfolios, making T212 keys, syncing (and failing) and editing tickers that it got wrong, I finally had it syncing reliably. However, I found it was not very accurate. It seems to be out on the current value of some holdings and the interface has bugs, foibles or just does not seem to work.

After many wasted hours, I have asked for my money back under the Consumer Contracts Regulations in the UK which allows for 14 days cooling off period on distance selling but I am unsure if Snowball's T&Cs mean I am not entitled to it otherwise I have wasted £100!

I seem to be using the free version of Simply Wall Street a lot and I will be looking for a subscription offer for that instead now. Maybe that will help me earn that £100 back.

Junior ISA

I wanted to encourage my 6 year old granddaughter to invest. I recently gave her a Little Trot book (by the investment banker Clive Thompson) and her parents have now set up a Junior ISA for her with Hargreaves Lansdown. 

Anyone can put money in as a gift (for Xmas or Birthdays, etc.). I recently wrote a JISA blog article on what shares one might buy inside a JISA. 

There are apparently no charges for an HL JISA, including no buy/sell fees. We shall see if this is true.

Signing up for a JISA is apparently quite a painful process if you do not already have an account with HL (and thus are paying them no fees!). So I would advise you to perhaps start a GIA or SIPP with HL for yourself first and then apply for JISA's for your kids.

For a 6 year old, if you start off with £1000 and then add £500 on birthdays and Xmas for 11 years, at 10% annual gain, the JISA will be worth £22k at age 18. If a regular monthly payment of £50 was also made, the JISA would be worth approx £26k by her 18th birthday (approx. double in value). 

If we could put in the maximum £9k per year, the JISA would be worth £175k by the time she was 18. Hopefully, that would be enough to pay for her higher education, a world trip and a nice car - all tax free!

If you are a parent and have maxed out your ISAs, then JISA's are worth thinking about.

People often complain about the UK being a high tax country, but we actually have quite generous tax free 'vehicles' - we just have to take full advantage of them instead of paying for highly-depreciating luxury cars that we really don't need!

• Cash ISA — A savings account where interest is tax-free.
• Stocks and Shares ISA — A wrapper for investments like funds and shares, with tax-free growth and income.
• Innovative Finance ISA — A tax-free wrapper for peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding investments. High risk.
• Lifetime ISA — A cash or investments ISA for first home savings or retirement, with a 25% government bonus.
• Junior ISA — A tax-free ISA for children under 18, held until they turn 18.
• Premium Bonds — NS&I bonds with tax-free prizes instead of interest.
• Pension/SIPP — Pension savings grow tax-free, with tax relief on contributions and usually 25% available tax-free at retirement.
• NS&I tax-free savings accounts — Government-backed savings products where returns can be tax-free.
• UK government gilts — Government bonds where capital gains are tax-free, though interest is usually taxable.