Recent content by suchong

If it's your sole source of income and you hope to 'make a living' out of it, then HMRC may try to classify you as a 'sole trader', in which case profits would be taxable as income. If you can argue that you remain unemployed and the cfd activity is speculation / gambling, then the treatment...

Thanks I'll check out Gainkeeper, and didn't consider that only shares and not futures would be affected by the 30-day rule, so the number of affected transactions will be fewer than I thought.

But if I open a new position, I believe it must be matched with any opposite transaction that took place within the previous 30 days. The IB statement might show a profit from the sale of a certain stock, but suppose the sale occurred within the last 30 days of the tax year and I rebought on...

I conducted a massive number of transactions through IB, and my 08/09 statements run to around 2000 pages. The activity was reckless speculation, so I'll be stating my profits as capital gains. This seems to demand a share matching analysis, which could be a very lengthy task. I'd be pleased...

Thanks for the replies. I’d roll over quarterly contracts, and trackers do reinvest dividends (It’s guaranteed equity bonds that don’t), so total annual charges could be under 0.5% per year. The risk-free rate of return is all I’m after for now though. I just want to pay the rate of tax...

Here is why I asked: I’d rather not invest in property or the stockmarket at the moment, so will be staying in cash. But I pay 40% tax on income. However, perhaps I could effectively keep money in cash while paying tax at the new 18% capital gains rate and 32% dividend rate, by buying a FTSE...

I am considering buying shares and may hedge them for lengthy periods of time by shorting the FTSE via a spread betting company. But if there’s a major crash (eg. Suppose a war / natural disaster wipes 20% or more off markets overnight), can I be absolutely certain that the spread company will...