Trading 212 Portfolio progress update 17/04/2026

This week ended with the announcement that Straights of Hormuz  would be open and so the market ended well up on Friday. However, over the weekend, we saw that the USA were still blockading the Straights and so the Iranians closed access again. It seems the stock market is very dovish at the moment (except for the oil market where oil prices were still very high - they weren't fooled by the tweets from DJT!).

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 onshore 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 onshore Investment 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 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 IHT advantage that these bonds used to have is disappearing in 2027, so there is even less reason to use these unless you put it inside a trust.

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 (£100K deposited)

2026/27 UK Tax changes and how to use your UK Tax allowances

The main change for this new tax year (2026/2027) is that the Dividend Tax Rate is increasing by 2%. This means that if you have a Stocks and Shares General Investment account (GIA), then whether you have accumulating or distributing ETFs, you will still need to declare taxable income on ETFs and funds which have a non-zero ERI. The dividend tax is now 10.75% for Basic Rate taxpayers (or 35.75% or 39.35% for higher rate taxpayers).

2025/2026 Tax year Investment Review - how did I do?

After one year of actively investing and trading on Trading 212, I am now (6/4/2026) reviewing my trades and performance. Of course, my results are much worse today due to the Iran crisis and Trump's threat of genocide - last month my GIA IRR was over 50% rather than the 35% now (P.S. on 8/3/2026 my 1yr IRR is 44% just after Trumps 14-day Iran extension was announced)!

£120k Deposit - T212 Invest GIA

My strategy with the Invest GIA account was to invest in long term ETFs and shares and try not to sell them. Nevertheless, it seems I have made 91 SELL trades in the year. Some of the sells were done in order to  switch from Accumulating funds to Distributing funds, and many recent sell trades were done for tax loss harvesting and Bed-and-ISA purposes. A crystalised gain of approx. £1k on T212 was made (after tax loss harvesting) and a total gain (crystalised and uncrystalised) of £21k. My IRR for the year was 35%.

Note that I crystalised 6k of gains when I liquidated my ii invest account, so I needed to get my gains down as much as possible on the T212 invest account to minimise CGT. 

Investing in the new 2026/2027 tax year

The Iran war has now brought us a new perspective for consideration.

From a macroscopic viewpoint, the USA is energy-rich and is not dependent on the middle East for fossil fuels, unlike the rest of the world (Europe and Asia). DJT has managed to make fossil fuels twice as expensive and he will now walk away to leave us with a mess and potentially an expensive war.

Last day for Tax Loss Harvesting!

Thursday April 2nd 2026 is the last trading day of the 2025/2026 tax year in the UK.

This is the day to sell any stocks in your GIA invest account which show a loss.

Your capital gains allowance is £3k, so if you have made more gains in this tax year than £3k, it makes sense to sell those losing stocks now in order to reduce the year's total capital gains to get as near to 3k as possible.

On Tuesday April 7th you can move that cash into your ISA (up to 20k) and buy back the same shares if you wish.

If you need more cash to reach 20k, you can sell more shares to Bed-and-ISA them.

Given the volatile nature of the stock market, you might like to sell shares in your GIA only when Trump has released good news and the market is high (like today) but only buy shares in your ISA on bad news days when prices will be down.

Some people prefer to dollar cost average into their ISA.

P.S. Signup using this link for a free fractional share in Trading 212 worth up to £100 (and I will get a reward too ;-)

What to invest in now (March 2026)?

The world is once again in chaos! The USA and Israel have decided to attack Iran without considering the impact on the rest of the world. Oil/gas prices have doubled.

What this has shown is that the developed world is extremely dependant on oil and gas, especially as it has removed the use of coal in power stations. Renewable energy is not dependable, so oil and gas is still necessary for most countries.

The only other viable solution for 24x7x365 energy is nuclear power. Major countries will now start to escalate their nuclear energy programs (Australia, China, India, EU, UK, etc.). Although this will be a long term swing (5-10 years), I can envisage nuclear energy companies doing well.

Stock Tip - Sage plc seems good value to me

 Full disclosure - I hold shares in Sage (currently at a loss). I intend to sell my shares before April 5th to generate a loss for CGT purposes and then rebuy inside my ISA after April 5th and increase my holding.

As well as being undervalued, it has a good dividend yield and good future growth.

Here is ChatGPT's view on Sage.....

How I use AI for investing

AI can hallucinate (it makes stuff) and can lie, however it can be very useful to get some ideas on investing.

Many analysts reduce the current global economic cycle to four big forces:

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: