Summary, you sold 250Ā£ worth. And yes, as above, you lost around Ā£1600 on this position. This is a realised loss. And sadly isnāt shown against your open position. HL does the same and I donāt think itās what people really want to see. Your investment loss is based upon the position you are currently holding - ideally people want to see how much their portfolio has made or lost on any given position - this view doesnāt give this.
Your only point that remains valid, is that your overall portfolio loss should show a loss of Ā£6,781 in total. However you have likely other positions in this view so you may not see this - Iāve checked mine - the total portfolio value +/- the change when selecting MAX = the total I had deposited.
Any gains or losses on your closed positions is lost from your individual investment view unless you left it all in cash and didnāt buy anything else - in this case your net balance will just sit there in cash.
Only correct value is total portfolio value and change, but only if you select MAX.
I know exactly what I lost? I lost Ā£1600 because of FIFO I bought shares every few weeks from 1st Nov until April totalling Ā£10,275,88 and I wanted to withdraw Ā£250 to have a nice clean Ā£10,000 balance, I withdrew the Ā£250 and now I only have Ā£8400 so no matter what way you look at it Iāve been screwed for Ā£1600 because of my ignorance. But I need to ask this,WHY does Freetrade not give a warning about this FIFO model,If they had done I would never have withdrew Ā£250. I am taking this to the regulators. Even companies that offer CFDās have to warn customers that 80% lose money.
Well I should have been warned about FIFO model.
As I understand, not when it comes to selling. The US allows you to sell specific shares. But in the UK that practice was dumped in favour of a 104 holding. So all shares of the same class in the same holding are treated identically. I.e. you average everything out. Thatās true at least for a GIA whereās thereās a tax implication. The only time FIFO matters is in the first 30 days of trades and only in a GIA as itās used for tax rules.
I donāt see why it isnāt true for an ISA. Since selling specific shares has no effect on anything thereās no reason to treat them that way.
Iām not aware of any rule that says they need to be treated individually based on purchase date outside of the specific 30 day and same day rule on GIA accounts. They are as far as Iām aware all identical.
E.g. if I buy 5 apples at point a and 3 apples at point b I donāt have 5a and 3b apples. I have 8 apples. If I sell 2 apples, I sell any 2 apples, not 2a apples.
Freetrade calculates FIFO but I donāt believe it makes a difference, so itās not an accurate reflection. You need to export your activity into a spreadsheet and calculate it yourself.
If my 1st purchase was example 5 apples for Ā£0.064699
and then I bought more apples in Dec/Jan/Feb/March/April 23 trades in total then why have they went all the way back to my 1st purchase and withdrew Ā£1850 from my account giving me Ā£251.24 and pocketing the rest? I really canāt get my head round this.
Well I bought the shares in November 1st so that is well over 30 days. Thatās what I thought when I sold the shares that it would be the average balance which was Ā£0.0262 not Ā£0.065 Which they have done in this case.
They didnāt withdraw 1800 from your account. You really need to export your activity and actually go through it yourself.
Is it in an ISA ?
When you sell something from the same stockpile, which one you sell doesnāt really matter. How you decide to add it all up is entirely up to you but for your average person thereās no need to add it up other than by average value.
You can decide to use FIFO for accounting purposes but I donāt see what youād achieve with that.
You need to export your activity into a spreadsheet and put the calculations in. Showing single transactions here and there is not giving you an accurate picture
Can you help me with this?
I made 22 buys in CW from 1st Nov till 14th April totalling Ā£10,275,88 with an average price of Ā£0.0262 and I had 1 sell on the 17th April for Ā£251.24 at a price of Ā£0.0088 and yet I now only have Approximately Ā£8400 total in my GIA account. I just donāt know what is going on?
Iām talking about profit/loss and balance on the account, not individual stocks. I owned some stocks, freetrade moved them to my GIA them on my behalf. There is no activity for it, it should have been a hundred or so pounds (thatās how much made it to my GIA, anyway), but the difference is Ā£1005. Even if there was activity for it, Iām not going to download a csv and add up years worth of trades each time I want to figure out my account balance. That should be a pretty standard feature on an account costing Ā£10 a month
You have shares valued at approx Ā£3500
You have an unrealised loss of Ā£4900
= Ā£8400. That is the balance related to the shares you currently hold.
You sold shares worth Ā£250, so have Ā£250 cash
Plus a realised loss of approx Ā£1600
= Ā£1850
Ā£8400+Ā£1850=Ā£10250
FIFO shouldnāt be used, it should be average cost (which would give a different realised and unrealised loss). But either way, all your money is all accounted for.
Is this in an ISA/SIPP? If it is, then the figures donāt really matter. If it is in a GIA then you may need to calculate the proper realised loss for tax purposes.
Thanks for trying to help. It is the realised loss that is upsetting me. I just naively thought I could withdraw Ā£250 shares and keep my balance at approximately Ā£10,000 I never knew that I would only receive Ā£0.0088 per share. I have an accountant but only for my business tax not for my investments. Iāll reach out to him.
As that was the price at the time of sale on 17/04 what did you think you were going to get beyond the prevailing market value at the time ? Read through the thread and genuinely baffled now.
Agreed and I hate with a passion the way FIFO is used for trades. It makes zero sense and you say if Iām paying money to use FT I expect balances to be accurate, trades moved between accounts to appear in activity feed, received some PIDs that didnāt appear in activity feed.
