How is the investment gain/loss computed?

It would be a good idea to track the full history of gains and losses on the instrument screen.

Whenever I reduce my position in a stock, the investment performance is calculated as a percentage on the residual amount.

Any losses from the partial sale disappear from the instrument screen and need to be worked out manually.

If I buy 10x shares @ £20 = £200 value
Then the share price falls to £15 = £150 value
This equates to 25% paper loss, displayed on the app as a £50 loss

If I sell 5x shares at the £15 price = £25 actual loss
Then I have 5x shares remaining at £15 = £75 value
The app will show a 25% paper loss on these shares, so £25 down, but I have also crystallised a real loss of £25 by reducing my position which I can’t see on the same screen.

I am basically down by £25 + £25 on the stock historically, but the app won’t tell me that.

I’ll defer to the better informed here but I think Freetrade calculate this on a FIFO basis (first in, first out for anyone that doesn’t work in the profession). Which is not unreasonable but - at the same time - completely wrong from a UK tax perspective. Not a problem for 99% of us (in an ISA, never likely to make gains above £12.5k per tax year etc) - but a concern I’m sure for bigger investors. In fact I’m sure someone posted about getting charged £50 per transaction the other day to work out their CGT. No proper accountant would ever work on that basis.

4 Likes

That makes sense, would be good to get confirmation.