In practice how would this work? You buy 10 shares, you buy 2 more, you sell 5, you sell 1, you buy 4 more etc. In order to maintain an average, the app would have to keep constant track of everything that ever happened. What if you sell everything, and years later buy the stock again, should it take the previous buys and sells into account? What if you wanted a clean slate?
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It would simply be the ability to chose the way you want to display the current gain or loss on the position while it is open (in a similar way to being able to select whether you want to see a us investment gain / loss in £ or $).
Currently there is only one way, which is FIFO - which, as others have stated, skews results - making it impossible to know your true performance.
There should be other options, such as LIFO and AVCO. It’s not difficult to code this.
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It should show the average purchase price of your existing holding, calculated using AVCO. That’s not hard to calculate as it updates every time you buy. Selling doesn’t change your average purchase price.
Unless you sell everything then the slate is wiped clean as your existing holding becomes zero.
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Nailed it! It would be a really easy amendment, and would make the app a LOT more useful / accurate.
FIFO may be forcing the uneducated to sell / overtrade unnecessarily because they incorrectly believe they’re at a loss when they’re not.
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Sorry I’m late to the party.
Voted 
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Agree with all of the comments above. Voted
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I’ve already voted but I don’t think it’s about accuracy - I believe both are valid.
For example FIFO is best for perishable items - think tomatoes or milk. You want to sell oldest items first.
For non perishables and assuming both old and new items are equal in quality then average price is a better choice.
Choosing FIFO for shares doesn’t make sense- I heard somewhere that it might be a legal requirement in UK but don’t quote me on it.
As I said before on this thread my personal preference would be to sell very specific shares. Think back to days when you had paper copies and each share had a number. You could sell shares in any order regardless of purchase price or purchase time and calculate gains or losses accordingly (each share would have been bought at a known price.)
My only other thought is why is there no official response from FT on this - is it being considered or it will never happen (and for what reason).
I know with bigger stockbrokers they give you a choice.
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At least needs an answer from FT
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Average Cost is used for tax calculations in the UK.
(Admittedly, with a couple of exceptions for short term trades)
This is important, even if it’s “won’t-fix” response – at least it gives the community clarity on FT’s position, rationale and plans.
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I’d happily pay £1/m more a month just for avg cost to be shown vs alternatives. Pretty obvious most members have little use for the FIFO method.
The only reason I use the app nowadays is just to buy/sell. The web app offers nothing new (but tbf I’d prefer to use web vs app), if it had transactions enabled.
My presumption on seemingly simple options is that much of FT’s work is in the backend gaterhing data in, which we don’t see.
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My experience on this forum is FT tend to just ignore comments that are either 1) not going to get done/updated or 2) are a negative issue for them they can’t give a positive spin on.
The lack of talk on this along with other things that have been on coming soon lists for years I simply assume now will never be done.
FT would get a lot more respect if they communicated the bad points as well as the positive or crowdfunding they tend to be great at.
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I think this really warrants a response from FT considering the interest shown here.
And to clarify - this is a simple change… we’re not saying change the way shares are bought or sold - just a simple choice of DISPLAYING profit / loss on a current holding - FIFO, LIFO or AVCO.
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Hi Freetrade,
Are you there? Can we get a response to the comments above?
Thanks
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@acamp any thoughts on whether this is in the pipeline?
As we enter a new tax year, with lower capital gains thresholds, it becomes ever more important.
Thanks!
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Hi all
The team has been working on ways to give you more choice and clarity on the price you bought shares at, especially given more will need to calculate capital gains. This is something we want to sort out early in the new tax year. We’ll update when we have more info!
Alex
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Superb. Thanks Alex and team.
This is amazing news. Thanks for listening guys! 
