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...

Tech stocks still have a way to go!

I used my free trend chart to plot semiconductor stocks over the last 2 months.

0992.HK is Lenovo, WCBR.L ($)/CYSE (£) is a cybersecurity ETF, HYNX.F is Hynix, 005930.KS is Samsung and IWVG.L is an All World Value ETF whose top stock is 13% Micron MU (earnings due on Sept. 30th 2026).

Nearly all are trending upwards this month!

PM Andy Burnham's Budget Capital Gains Tax rate hike and how to prepare for it

It is rumoured that in the budget on October 28th 2026, Capital Gains Tax may be brought in line with Income Tax. This would mean a Capital Gains Tax rate rise from 18% or 24% to new rates of  20%/40%/45% depending on your income tax band. Typically, any CGT rate hike takes place immediately after the budget.

For higher rate tax payers, the jump from 24% to 40% CGT is quite substantial.

Stock tips I am buying this week (and they all begin with A)! 2026-09-21

I have put in for some limit orders on three of the following US stocks today and I am also watching Moderna closely too but not yet buying at the current price...

For research I used the free stock list app HelloStocks.ai (S&P only) and SimplyWallStreet for the first three A stocks. I picked them for value, future growth and health. Moderna is my own (very risky) pick.

T212 Portfolio update £201k 2026-09-18 + tips

The week started badly with my T212 portfolios down £7k but they have since recovered to about the same level as at the start of the week.

Note that both these T212 portfolios are my 'play' accounts. I also have other holdings in simple generic All World Index funds, so these T212 stock picks are not what I would suggest for an average person's investment portfolio. You do not know my full financial position just as I do not know your financial position! The average investor should hold mainly All World index tracker ETFs with perhaps 10%-40% in other index ETFs depending on your risk/volatility threshold! Do not copy my trades just because my IRR is 50-90% over 2.5 years - I was probably just lucky!

Try out my new share chart tool for trend spotting!

Most stock charts allow you to specify a time period and some allow you to also plot a moving average line, but I wanted to easily spot trends (especially in ETFs).

For instance, is Copper on an upward trend? What about Gold or the S&P 500? What about Euro banks?

When plotted on a chart, I needed to smooth out the daily kinks but also easily change the time period. For instance, Copper may have come down recently, but has it gained over a whole year or five years?

Looking for a growth ETF for H2 2026 and 2027 - Try IWVG

I already have large holdings in MSCI Core world class funds. In my Trading 212 ISA and GIA I also hold quite a bit of gold and metals miners and tech companies.

I am looking for a good global index fund which is not too heavily dependant on the US or on any one sector.

Trading 212 update £201k Portfolio 2026-09-11 + a look at Vanguard's VALL and my recent buys + tip

My ISA lost approx. £1.5k this week and my Invest account approx £500.

Investments for Q4 2026

High bond rates and high inflation seems likely. We have high rates of borrowing. Most bonds, equities and interest-paying funds will not do very well if this escalates.

In these circumstances, it make sense to diversify away from over-valued US stocks such as tech stocks and invest more in essential commodities that must be bought by everyone, no matter how much they cost (such as energy or toilet rolls!).

Trading 212 £203k Portfolio update 2026-09-05

This week saw a drop in value of about £4k followed by recovery on Thursday/Friday. The drop was probably mostly due to the bond market and high Treasury yields but the good performance figures from Tech stocks this week from Oracle and Broadcom also helped. So I am up £2k from last week and about the same as two weeks ago. Overall, I am £53k up on my total deposits of £150k over a period of approx. 30 months. IRR on the two accounts is 89% (GIA) and 53% (ISA) - compared to an MSCI Core SWDA IRR over the same period of approx. 20%.

Trading 212 £201k Portfolio update (+ investment opportunities)

Both portfolios were down a bit this week due to a bad Friday, having reached £204k on Thursday. 

Trading 212 £203k portfolio update 22/08/2026 + Tips

After a bad Tuesday, the market seems to have recovered, despite the news of the USA economy debt being serious.

£150 Deposit (+£53k)

Market movements this week (see video below)

T212 Portfolio £201k update + thoughts on the USA, etc.

My two T212 accounts together have finally broken the £200k barrier (£150k deposited over 30 months)! It probably won't last but it's still nice to see. My IRRs are now 50% for my Trading 212 Stocks ISA and 90% for my Invest account.

Semiconductor gains have been variable but my metals holdings (gold, silver, rare earths, copper, etc.) seems to finally be on the rise after being undervalued for months.

What ETFs would I choose for a 'hands-off' Junior ISA?

Recently, a friend asked me about how to open a Junior ISA for their child and what stocks they should buy within their ISA (max. deposit £9k per child per year). When their child reaches 18, they hopefully would have a nice fund on which they can draw on for college or a car or whatever. Another objective however, was to hopefully interest the child in the power of investing in the stock market (and the earlier they start, the better!).

If you have child or grandchildren, you should get them started with a Junior ISA as soon as they can read and have pocket money. Two parents + four grandparents can contribute on birthdays and Xmas each year. Over the years, the kids can decide what satellite ETFs they want to invest in (keep the core as a world global ETF) and they will come to appreciate the effect of compound interest (which Einstein described as the 'eighth wonder of the world').

I wanted a minimum maintenance/set-and-forget portfolio (at least to start with). This led me to think about a world ETF as a core and perhaps one or two satellite ETFs. They would have to be accumulating ETFs based in Ireland for low tax and have a low TER since they will be running for 15 years or so. It would also be nice to have some weighting for UK\EU to allow for Fx rate fluctuations.

The chart below shows SWDA as the core ETF (though I would actually buy the equivalent but cheaper ETF HMWS) and a few of my favourite high-return index ETFs as satellite holdings.

T212 Portfolio £197k update + tips

The last few weeks has been interesting. My portfolio seems to have recovered and I am up £7k this month on Trading 212...

£150k Portfolio - Invest (£110k deposited) + ISA (£40k deposited) 

I added £10k to my GIA a 3 weeks ago when stock prices were down and mainly bought AI stocks including disks and memory companies. These are now climbing into profit again (having sold for a nice profit earlier when they were peaking).

Here are the Rate of Return figures for the two accounts:

GIA IRR  83%  (19% IRR YTD, 32% IRR 1YR)  Opened Feb    2024  £110k deposited over 26 months

ISA  IRR  46%  (20% IRR YTD, 28% IRR 1YR)  Opened April 2025  £20k+£20k deposits in 15 months

Issue: Cannot update Ventoy partition images on E2B drive to latest v1.1.17

 To fix:

Go to Partition 2 of the E2B USB drive and run

"\e2b\Update agFM\Download and update agFM_v2.cmd" which will update agFM to v1.A4.

This will also update the "\e2b\Update agFM\Make_Latest_Ventoy_Partition_Image.cmd" cmd file.

You can then run that command file and it should make the latest Ventoy v1.1.17 partition images instead of Ventoy v1.1.16.

I asked Codex to fix my Wordpress Asgaros forum issue - and here is what happened...

My UK capital gains tax calculator website www.ukcgt.xyz had an issue. All my posts on the Asgeros forum on the site where displaying my private email address!

I tried asking Google for a solution and also ChatGPT on Google and spent many hours trying to solve the problem to no avail.

Finally, I tried Codex.

T212 Update £181k portfolio - I'm DOWN £12k in a week!

I have just added a £10K new deposit to my T212 Invest account, so the £181k value is actually over £12k down from last week.

AI is down again today - I am still BUYING!

AI shares are down today but compute needs are going up. Companies need more AI compute not less. Demand is strong. Large companies say they intend to spend more on AI, not less. They want their own in-house models to do their own training and develop their own agents because they all see the value in AI but do not want to be held hostage by AI providers and their haphazard model costs and changes.

Time to buy AI picks and shovels companies again?

Recent doubts about AI not being profitable has caused a sharp price drop (10-15%), but now the market is beginning to think they have over reacted! Memory suppliers have secured safe, long-term orders. Large companies have increased their capital expenditure on AI, not decreased it. Quarter profit numbers are showing positive gains.

Memory manufacturers are starting to recover today.