Ask your beginners questions here 🐣

[Lewis]

Thank you, that’s very helpful!

Actually makes it a lot less risky to invest if EIS is in place, glad I found out about this.

Edit: Actually have one more question, I see you can claim relief for the past tax year. Is there any benefit or reason to do this?

[Rat_au_van (Emma)]

So I’m guessing that means it’s no use to me since I earn below the threshold of even basic tax rate?

[Jim_mcgrain (Jim)]

If you hold them for three years + and ( theoretically ) sell at a large profit no Capital Gains Tax.
ETA : I would assume that the tax relief would still need to be claimed via HMRC ( even though none is due )

[Vlad (Vladislav Kozub)]

@Lewis

Actually have one more question, I see you can claim relief for the past tax year. Is there any benefit or reason to do this?

Imagine you paid £0 tax this year and £10,000 tax last year. You would be wise to claim against your last year’s tax.

@Rat_au_van

So I’m guessing that means it’s no use to me since I earn below the threshold of even basic tax rate?

You will not gain any relief at first, but filing an EIS3 will let you claim loss relief if you need one. Also, as @Jim_mcgrain mentioned, it lets you avoid any CGT and thus it is always beneficial to claim your benefits regardless of the income tax circumstances

[boymistakes]

Got a few Questions -

1. Is there any difficulty closing the ISA account? Thus stopping the payments.
2. I keep reading about purchasing stocks and the trade happening at the end of the day. What’s the point of this? Don’t you want to strike the deal at the price you see in real time. How can we ensure we’re doing instant trades (I’ve yet to purchase anything yet).
3. I plan investing mostly into a vanguard ETF, and playing around with a few riskier individual stock purchases. For the ETF though, should I just do it via Vanguard? Is there any risk using such a new platform to invest for retirement. A lot can change and what if Freetrade isn’t about in 30 years?

Thanks!

[Rat_au_van (Emma)]

Point 2 is because the 4pm trade is free. If you’re investing for 5 years plus it makes no difference. For Freetrade it’s easier as they can bundle them together. If you want to have an instant trade just select instant and it’ll cost £1

All your investments are covered up to £85,000

Freetrade Invest Hub

[axa (Vaidas)]

15 % is normal dividend tax unless you receive very high dividend per year in this case you already got full ISA account witch allow hide 20 000 every year from taxes , and than best way is just buy growth stocks and you not gone pay higher dividend tax or invest in retirement porfolio ( 30% is only if you not fill up form W-8BEN witch most iportant thing to do before investing and its offered by any broker in UK ) . Highers taxes only apply for some kind of stock,s like partners ships and some others . And it is many ways to escape from higher taxes like open ISA on your wife name even kids if they got 18 years , brothers , sisters, fathers open broker account in third countrys …

[Vlad (Vladislav Kozub)]

@boymistakes

Is there any difficulty closing the ISA account? Thus stopping the payments.

You simply message the support team and they help you with that

@boymistakes

I keep reading about purchasing stocks and the trade happening at the end of the day. What’s the point of this? Don’t you want to strike the deal at the price you see in real time. How can we ensure we’re doing instant trades (I’ve yet to purchase anything yet).

As Emma explained, at the point of order, you choose whether you’d like an instant transaction or an end-of-the-day one.

@boymistakes

Is there any risk using such a new platform to invest for retirement. A lot can change and what if Freetrade isn’t about in 30 years?

Once again, as Emma said, you are 100% protected for up to £85,000 in case of Freetrade’s bankruptcy.

[boymistakes]

Thanks Emma & Vlad. Happy with all those answers. I’d be doing well to make over 85,000.

[WHZ (William)]

Might be a dumb question and not sure if it’s been asked before.

On freetrade they list the shares for a company (eg lets say, greggs) at 18 pounds, but looking online a share is 1800. Could someone please explain this discrepancy? Would the freetrade “share” be a fractional share, or is the online stock some different kind of stock?

[Rollingskies]

Because the old way is to list them in pence. £18 reads a lot better than 1,800 pennies.

[saf]

@WHZ

On freetrade they list the shares for a company (eg lets say, greggs) at 18 pounds, but looking online a share is 1800. Could someone please explain this discrepancy? Would the freetrade “share” be a fractional share, or is the online stock some different kind of stock?

This is because Freetrade shows the price in £’s rather than pence, you can learn more here.

Also worth checking out Vlad’s post which explains the rationale behind UK securities traditionally being priced in pence.

[WHZ (William)]

Thanks for the quick clarification! (Saf also)

[dyl]

Hello! I own a share in Dominos Pizza Group Plc (LSE:DOM) through Freetrade. I had a quick search and couldn’t find anything, so how do I know when dividends are paid? I only own one share but should’ve got 5 pence back on the 21st of March apparently. Not much but obviously I would like to confirm that the dividend feature works.

Also, I missed out on a AGM because I was not invited… is there a minimum share count, otherwise how would I go about being invited to this?

Cheers
(Also super sorry if this is a dumb question!!)

[Rollingskies]

Pay date is tomorrow for Dominos I think. Plus it may take a few days more to appear credited. You would have to have held the share as well before it became ex dividend - 21st march. you don’t receive the dividend then - its just when you are entitled to it. Check the share price that day - it probably fell to reflect that.

AGM for Dominos? Its held on behalf of you so you wont be able to.

[dyl]

Brilliant, thanks Ben! I have been holding it as an experimental ‘toe dip’ since late Jan (coincidentally at its peak price since… great start) so I should be fine. Grateful for the fast response.

[generaljonny]

We can surely say with some certainly that the market will crash within 5-10 years. So why buy any stocks now - when the market is at an all time high - if you’re investing long-term? Surely it’s better to wait for the dropped price and buy in the dip?

[Rat_au_van (Emma)]

Haven’t they been saying that it’ll crash anytime now for 5 years already?

This post has a few links and quotes about timing markets and downturns

Current US tech bloodbath

That’s a great set up, I’ve been chatting about this with a couple of people recently TL;DR This is consistent with a J.P. Morgan Asset Management report published in 2016, “Staying Invested During Volatile Markets,” which found that around 60% of the biggest single-day percentage gains in the S&P 500 occurred within two weeks of one of its top-10 largest percentage declines between 1995 and 2014. This means even if you’re lucky enough to hit the nail on the head once in a while, no o…

And a blog for a bit extra reading

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